Yishai Frankel, senior manager of Intel's perceptual computing group, summarizes the revolutions that have taken place and those that will come thanks to Moore's Law
The world of computing is advancing at a dizzying pace. Today's computers are a million times faster than those of fifty years ago, and are cheaper than them in a similar proportion. This revolution is the result of rapid developments in the development of the integrated circuit (Integrated Circuit), technologies from the field of semiconductors (Semiconductor).
Fifty years ago, at the beginning of 1965, a young scientist named Gordon Moore (Moore), from Fairchild Laboratories in California, tried to predict the future. Moore predicted that the number of transistors in the area of an integrated circuit could be doubled every two years. Doubling the number of transistors, which are the logical building blocks of the computer, means doubling the calculation capacity within one cycle of two years. Within ten such cycles - the power of computing will increase more than a thousand times. This is true not only in relation to computing power, but also in relation to tangential technologies such as memory density, and image sharpness.
Moore's prediction proved to be correct, and within ten years it already became an iconic concept named after him - "Moore's Law". Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel and later the company's president, is now in his late eighties, and the law named after him is entering his fiftieth year. The 1965 prediction turned out to be quite accurate, and the rate of progress of the computing industries continues to be rapid. The effect of Moore's Law on our world is far-reaching, many believe that it is the most significant development in modern times. Moore's Law is not a physical law. It does not have the validity of a scientific law since it is nothing more than a prediction, but over the years Moore's Law has become the heartbeat of the computer and electronics industries. Forecasts were built based on it, and technological and business goals were defined based on it.
The young scientist's prediction from the sixties became a self-fulfilling prophecy. How many more years will we continue to see this progress continue at the rate Moore predicted? The law will not continue forever as miniaturization has a physical limit. In addition, the price that needs to be paid keeps going up and is clearly reflected in the skyrocketing cost of factories for the production of silicon chips. For thirty years it has been expected that within ten years the progress will slow down, but each time a scientific or technological breakthrough was found that allowed the continuation of progress according to the outline of Moore's Law. What did Moore's Law bring to our world? Thanks to him, the computer and the many applications around it developed.
Similar to the machines that were at the core of the industrial revolution, which gradually replaced the use of human physical strength, the computer enables a revolution in the field of information and the use of the human mind. The first computers performed mathematical calculations faster and stored more information. But today's computers are capable of much more than that, and they are replacing humans in a growing number of fields. The "deep blue" computer that defeated the world champion in chess at the end of the nineties created a deep cognitive revolution. The computer that won trivia games in the United States a few years ago only reinforced this. The field of artificial intelligence, which is aided by deep learning techniques, is advancing by leaps and bounds and gives computers learning abilities similar to those of humans. The computer already knows how to learn even without being programmed before, and thus it gradually adopts the capabilities of human intelligence. Many predictions speak of the fact that within a few years many jobs will become ones that a computer can do at least as well as humans, if not better than them.
Ten years ago, on the fortieth birthday of Moore's Law, Gordon Moore himself spoke out and said that the law named after him contradicts Murphy's Law, because things are getting better. Is it so? The dizzying development of the field of computing also has problematic sides. Let's start by saying that any existing technology can be used by the "bad guys" and not just the "good guys". Our growing dependence on computers is dangerous in itself and any disruption to their proper functioning threatens us. If once a virus on a computer could cause the deletion of an important file, then damage to the computer found in a human heart pacemaker, or alternatively to the brake system of a car, can lead to death. Damage to the computer systems of basic infrastructures can with alarming ease lead to mass death. Could the increasingly sophisticated intelligence of computers threaten human supremacy? This issue is no longer in the realm of science fiction and is very disturbing.
Last month, the inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk, in an unprecedented step reminiscent of the step of the arms manufacturer Alfred Nobel, announced the establishment of a fund of millions of dollars to deal with the risks created by artificial intelligence. We are not prophets, nor are we the sons of prophets. Not only do we not know how to predict the future, it is hard for us to even understand the consequences of the present. Where will the computing and electronics revolution lead us? What are the depth results of Moore's Law? It is too early to understand and predict, the miniaturization process continues to rush forward and we are with it. We will content ourselves with saying congratulations to Moore's Law, which has just turned fifty, and hope that the human race will be able to use the tools in its hands wisely and intelligently.
Yishai Frankel is a senior manager in Intel's Perceptual Computing Group, The article was originally published on the Chiportal website - Israel's chip industry portal
9 תגובות
Shmulik
I mean that it is not a law of nature, but a claim that describes the rate of development. You are right that it is indeed a benchmark for companies like Intel. In my opinion, he has also been wrong for a long time. The speed of processors has not been increasing at a high rate for a long time. Doubling the number of cores is a trick to preserve the law, as you said. Perhaps this is still true in other components such as memories and graphics processors.
Miracles,
From what I understood, it is actually taken very seriously and in fact the Golem has stood up to its creator by being a benchmark that Intel-style chip companies try to live up to.
Gideon
Murphy's Law is not a law either... It's just an observation, no one takes it too seriously
Enough calling it a law, it's confusing and incorrect.
"Moore's Law" is an approximate prediction, it has been true in the past decades, it does not require that it continue to be true in the next decades.
Someday it will end, maybe even tomorrow.
The amazing thing about the inventions or the conclusions reached by geniuses like Gordon Moore is the departure from the thinking box, the reaching of conclusions after research that leads to more research that leads to more research .. and finally there is the breakthrough. As long as we know how to use it correctly for the needs of welfare, peace and brotherhood
Yigal sits in your pocket, an amazing little device that until recently was considered science fiction, which allows you to access all human knowledge with the tick of a few keys, and this in addition to many other useful functions (GPS, etc.). If you don't consider this to be life-changing technology, I don't know what is.
Meanwhile, my smartphone has not changed my life.
"Where will the computing and electronics revolution lead us? What are the depth results of Moore's Law? It is too early to understand and predict, the miniaturization process continues to rush forward and we are with it"
Look at Terminator 2 - Doomsday, everything is explained there.
It seems to me that increasing the capacity of memory cards,
will be the next serious decline in computing.