The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

by Ray Kurzweil

A more conservative but compelling design for a massively parallel, reversible computer is Eric Drexler’s patented nanocomputer design, which is entirely mechanical.65 Computations are performed by manipulating nanoscale rods, which are effectively spring-loaded. After each calculation, the rods containing intermediate values return to their original positions, thereby implementing the reverse computation. The device has a trillion (1012) processors and provides an overall rate of 1021 cps, enough to simulate one hundred thousand human brains in a cubic centimeter. Setting a Date for the Singularity. A more modest but still profound threshold will be achieved much earlier. In the early 2030s one thousand dollars’ worth of computation will buy about 1017 cps (probably around 1020 cps using ASICs and harvesting distributed computation via the Internet). Today we spend more than $1011 ($100 billion) on computation in a year, which will conservatively rise to $1012 ($1 trillion) by 2030. So we will be producing about 1026 to 1029 cps of nonbiological computation per year in the early 2030s. This is roughly equal to our estimate for the capacity of all living biological human intelligence.