Thoughts about Trends1 Chapter 5: How to Think about Trends R. W. Hamming (from Beyond Calculation)

Thoughts about Trends 1

Chapter 5:How to Think about Trends

R. W. Hamming

(from Beyond Calculation)


How to Think about Trends• The Internal State of the Field:

Main Problems and Tools to Attack;

Workers avoid a Search for Radically New Approaches.

• Technical Support from Other Fields:

Fast and Small Components of Computers;

Price Estimation;

Restraints by the Supporting Technologies.

• Surrounding Society Support:

People Selection to study Computer Sciences;

Restricted Social and Political Rules.


Rules for Predicting the Future

• Short-Term Estimates are Optimistic• Long-Term Predictions are Pessimistic• What can happen Science• What will happen Engineering & Economics• What should happen Morals, Ethics, accepted

or rejected by society.


Hardware, Software, and Applications

• Chips production General-Purpose Computing;

• Turing Machine/ Von Neumann Model & Algorithms;

• Chips with Cache Memory and Pipelines built into them;

• Parallel Computing;

• Object Oriented Machines;

• Functional Programming by Machines:

Simulation of Index Registers (B-boxes);

Floating Point Arithmetic, Vector Processing, C++.


Hardware, Software, and Applications (continued)

• Widely Used Languages & Libraries;

• Built-in Languages (LISP, FORTRAN, APL, etc.);

• “From Software To Hardware” Approach;

• Improvement in Programming: after 50 years by a factor of 10;

• Speedup of the Computers: after 50 years by a factor of 106;

• The Speedup is less for Large Programs;

• Neural Network Simulation (Artificial Intelligence);

• Automatic Programming and Teaching;

• Automatic Translator; Speech Recognition and Generation;

• Understanding the meaning of the Sentence.


Support from Other Fields

• Most Great Advances in a Field come from OUTSIDE:

Transistor was invented by the Telephone Company to improve their service;

Telephone came from a teacher of the deaf;

Carbon Dating in Archeology came from Physicists, etc.

• Information Truth or Falsity:

Unorganized and not carefully selected information.

• Problem of Choice;

• Commercialization of TV, radio, Internet (?).


Society

• The Matter of Privacy as a Technical and Social Problem;

• Cryptography;

• Economics:

Restrictions on the number of people entering the field;

Support for Expensive Projects;

Network Communications (unsatisfactory response);

Intellectual Property Ownership, Patent System;

High Quality Information.

• Tribal Behavior and Individuality/ Isolation.

• Growth of Knowledge; “Information Hiding”, Integrated Chips


Human and Society Restrictions

• Results of Eons of Evolution;

• Innate Drives;

• Limited Bandwidth of Input and Output;

• Modest Rate of Internally Processing Bits of Information;

• Fixed Patterns of Mental Activity;

• Highly Specialized Brain Structure, etc.

• Social Evolution, while more rapid than Biological Evolution, is also rather restricted in its Possibilities;

They, more than Technology, LIMIT our FUTURE.

Thoughts about Trends1 Chapter 5: How to Think about Trends R. W. Hamming (from Beyond Calculation)

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