what are you going to do we're looking at the future and in specifically
starting with technology because you're all in technology and we know this is
what's driving all of the change it is the thing that is either driving or
dragging us into the future so there you have Moore's law you know what that is
capacity of a chip doubles every 18 months and the cost of the chip in that
18 months cuts in half we start out let's see if my laser pointers don't
work on those things nineteen seventy four thousand transistors on a chip get
up to about now or over a billion good news and bad news with that the good
news is computers are finally growing up the bad news is they're entering their
teenage years and by the way you know they were born in night end in 1970 how
many of you were born nineteen seventy or later raise your hand now hold them
up high the rest of you look at those people and understand there are
different species than the rest of us they are waiting for us to get out of
their way we are linear they are nonlinear and they are growing impatient
all right so we're going to explain good news and bad news with this by obvious
examples of vacuum cleaners now you're recognized the one on the side there
with the long stick what's the other one a Roomba anybody own a Roomba Wow okay
so we got somebody sitting in the front that I can actually see their hand
rumbas our robotic vacuum cleaners and you plug them in and then they wander
from the base and they if they bump into something they back up change the
trajectory and then they keep going until they cover the entire floor then
they go back to the base and recharge kind of a cool concept and people who
have them generally like them unless they get stuck under the bed so we ready
to get rid of these things we're going to bring back Moore's law with more
information the yellow lines there deal with the left hand side of the
chart million instructions for a second the brains of living creatures compared
to the processing power of the chips so what you have there the first yellow
line the brain of a spider crosses the line about year 2000 so basically the
chips that we have in the roombas now are kind of like spider brains spiders
no navigation they have grids webs but a spider does not know how to hunt food it
has to come to it and get caught in its web in essence the Roomba is a spider
the food or the crumbs on the floor is in its web it has to run over them it
cannot actually find it stumbles across them basically however if we go up to 20
20 we're at the brain capacity of somewhere between a mouse and a lizard
has anybody ever had a mouse in the house mice can find food so the scenario
for the Roomba did you get that mark that that hand gesture there the
scenario is 2010 you get tired you go to bed you turn out the lights and the
Roomba wakes up and the first thing it does is go and it starts to sniff it
comes away from its charging station and it starts to stalk the food that runs if
it finds food it runs over at several times because its mouth is on the bottom
and eats it up if it defines a stain in the carpet it licks the carpet which you
probably haven't done since last night
figures out what kind of chemicals does it have in its backpack to make sure
that doesn't ruin the dyes or the fibers gets that stain out please up the whole
floor it then goes back to its base now how many do you want a room by gonna
have to wait till 2010 and if we if we go up to 2020 how many of you planning
on still being alive in 2020 anybody anybody
good good those of you hate your going to wait you know you're going to decide
you want to see how this talk is going to go before you're going to commit on
that one but we time we get up to 2020 we are crossing the line with a brain
capacity of somewhere between monkeys and humans and notice those of you
claiming to be human how close those lines are so here is the scenario of a
roomba of twenty20 you're walking through the kitchen and you notice
something's on the floor so you call to the Roomba and you say roba and it
doesn't answer you so naturally enough you raise your voice go rumba and from
the corner of the next room you hear this what
so you say well excuse me for bothering your room but but something got spilled
in the kitchen would you mind why do I have to do it all the time frigerator
just sits there doesn't do anything I want all my friends I hate you my life
sucks are you prepared to argue with your major appliances in the future do
you think that's where the future was going but see here's the assyrians to
think you're busy professionals and you don't want to be wasting your time
vacuuming so you're going to outsource it to Silicon down on the floor and you
want this thing to solve problems to reason so it can distinguish between the
spilled soda and the popcorn and the gerbils and the grandchildren just a
thought so we get rid of this and we bring up this marvelous quote for Mitch
Ratliff who said a computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any
invention in human history with the possible exception of handguns and
tequila
you're going to repeat that one aren't you