Ask Fuzzy: Are we approaching peak technology?

If we were to believe the optimistic visions of the 1960s, we should be working a three-day week, with every comfort tended to by robots as we zoom around in hover cars. While that hasn't happened, there have been many remarkable changes that could easily give the impression of infinite technological progress.

For a non-scientific survey, look up from wherever you are now and imagine how many nearby objects could be radically improved. Mundane items like doors, walls and windows are somewhat better than they were a few hundred years ago, but ultimately they haven't changed much.

Do the same for taps, reading glasses, shoes and pencils, and the answer is similar. To find areas where real advances are occurring we have to look a little harder.

One obvious field is computer technology, although for over 13 years Ask Fuzzy has mostly been written on a word processor dating from the time of the biblical Ark. It does copy, paste and formatting - pretty much everything you need to write.

For decades, computer hardware has closely followed Moore's Law with exponential growth in performance. But now computer chips are edging towards the atomic scale which means they have trouble dispersing heat and risk errors induced by quantum effects.

The question of peak technology is far beyond our little column and more suited to an entire research project. Since technology is not a single, monolithic thing, the answer varies enormously from one field to another. Electronics, medicine or engineering will each advance at different rates in different ways.

Although we cannot hope to come close to a definitive answer, a few things are clear. While there will always be an infinitude of minor variations, the question is really about how many fundamental "breakthrus" are ahead. It's a tough question because by definition we cannot predict the unknown-unknowns.

If there are such limits, it will derive from a couple of causes. One is physical constraints such as with computer chips. Solar technology continues apace, but ultimately will hit the limit of roughly a kilowatt of power per square metre of sunlight.

Another limit is increasing complexity. Cars, computers and medicines are decidedly non-trivial and each year they become more so.

If there is such a thing as peak technology, the implications will be profound. The rapidly expanding human enterprise is built upon the assumption that the current trajectory can go on forever.

It underscores the fact that not every problem has a technical solution. And yet the assumption remains unquestioned.

Listen to the Fuzzy Logic Science Show at 11am Sundays on 2XX 98.3FM.

Send your questions to AskFuzzy@Zoho.com Twitter@FuzzyLogicSci

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