The World in 2030

The World in 2030 65
he also has done his calculations from a starting assumption
that Moore’s law is still holding at eighteen months when
there is considerable evidence that it is currently running at
twelve months or even less.
And, in an interview given to InstaPundit.com Ray
Kurzweil laid out his own prediction for computing speeds
in 2030:
By 2030, a thousand dollars of computation will be
about a thousand times more powerful than a human
brain. Keep in mind also that computers will
not be organized as discrete objects as they are today.
There will be a web of computing deeply integrated
into the environment, our bodies and brains. 127
Given these two very different methods of predicting the
future speeds of computers let me conclude this section by
adding that my view is that the networked computers of
2030 will be at least several million times more powerful
than today’s machines - a prediction, which if correct, will
carry vast implications for the future of humankind.
The ‘Always On, Always Connected’ Society
I suggested earlier that we often lack a language with which to
describe a new technology or a concept. We are just entering
a startling period in which the internet, the Web, cellular
telephony, television, radio and wireless communication will
all merge to become a new global ‘communications medium.’