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Well. . . single atom, high reliability transistors have arrived. Essentially jumping Moore's Law by 6-10 years. The articles and videos I linked to earlier where Hugo de Garis speaks of 2020 technology. . . is now here.

However, de Garis strongly suggests ALL atoms in a processor 'soup' would have the capability. I believe that will never be possible. That said, even if the single atom "transistor" has support structures 100X larger than the gate or transistor, it would STILL have vastly more processing capability or storage capacity than human neurons by several orders of magnitude using quantum computing and femto-switching speeds.

If anyone has read any Greg Egan novels (almost incomprehensible hard sci-fi with dozens of pages of research links that accompany his novels), this could mark the beginning of a new era where Moore's Law is no longer relevant in regard to size, extremely significant in and of itself, where speed and heat dissipation are the new frontiers, along with new insights on how to apply quantum technology for intelligence. But, then again, de Garis suggests individual atoms may not be the end of the size race!

I fully realize the consumer or even research labs will not be able to utilize single atom transistors for practical use for many years, but the fact it has been done in the lab under super low temps, should readily suggest mankind is in the tight plication area of the technology curve to the singularity.

I want my earstud pc, holoscreen and key-mittens now...and my own mobile mast umbrella server array.
Actually forget the umbrella I don't really need quite that much computing power! Ill have Fly-droid wireless node linker, that just follows me about and parks up wherever it can get a signal. Its about time ISP's became as common as telephone operators...

HERE'S the paper if anyone is interested.

If not, here is a closing statement from the paper.

"We have fabricated a single-atom transistor in which a single phosphorus atom is positioned between highly doped source and drain leads with a lateral spatial accuracy of ±1 atomic lattice spacing. We demonstrate that we are able to register source, drain and gate contacts to the individual donor atom and observe well-controlled transitions for 0, 1 and 2 electron states, in agreement with atomistic modelling of the device. Our results show that encapsulating phosphorus dopant atoms deep within an epitaxial silicon environment allows them to retain both their discrete quantum states and their bulk-like charging energy, despite the presence of highly doped electrodes. These results demonstrate that single-atom devices can in principle be built and controlled with atomically thin wires, where the active component represents the ultimate physical limit of Moore's law. As such, these results are highly relevant to the development of atomic-scale silicon transistors, and our approach could also be applied to the fabrication of single-dopant optoelectronic devices and spin-based quantum computation."

Mass production of computational substrate, still quite a long way off then?

nah, just hook up with some good ol' biometal and you're just about there. (just don't mix it with any soldier dna...)

MrTwosheds wrote:Mass production of computational substrate, still quite a long way off then?

Sure, the important point here is it has been shown it is possible. A practical process of production and application is at least a decade off I would imagine.

There are a number of technologies that must mature to take advantage of 1bit/1 atom ability. One is certainly some form of an artificial embryology. No amount of macro engineering will be able to fully exploit the density of atomic transistors that could be produced on a DNA-like strand, for example. It would literally takes years. Like giving someone a million piece jigsaw puzzle and expecting it to be completed in a few hours.

We certainly live in a very special time in human history. We are at the cusp, more or less in the last three, four, maybe five decades from a complete and fundamental change in what is considered the primary intelligence on earth. At some point, THT, or trans-human technology will snap away from our comprehension over a matter of weeks to months, and we can only hope that change wants us and/or allows us along for the ride.

it's guys like you that enabled Sky Eye...

Red Devil wrote:it's guys like you that enabled Sky Eye...

For note, Sky Eye is a common name for an AWACS.

THT, or trans-human technology will snap away from our comprehension over a matter of weeks to months, and we can only hope that change wants us and/or allows us along for the ride.

Maybe...don't forget we only have a couple of century's to enjoy it, thanks to the "Moronic" level of intelligence of our leaders...
THT also assumes that we manage to create a functioning (real) AI, we are a long way from that still.

it's guys like you that enabled Sky Eye...

Well yes, a bit of self replicating nano tech that can convert humble rock into a computational substrate, and I suppose its possible to convert the whole planet into one big computer, might take a while.
Would be damn cool though to be able to build computers into just about any everyday object, just think, you could get your kids own lunch box to persecute you about what food you put in it.

MrTwosheds wrote:Would be damn cool though to be able to build computers into just about any everyday object, just think, you could get your kids own lunch box to persecute you about what food you put in it.

If you want this developed faster, send that in a letter to our First Lady here in the USA. She loves controlling what parents feed their children.

Yes, I do find this attitude very irritating, I'm fine with being given info on what's good and bad and then being left alone to do what I see fit. I suppose once people get into positions of power, and then find that it is actually very difficult to do something sensible like take the issue up with suppliers and manufacturers, the temptation is to attempt the impossible instead and try to micro manage everyone else's lunch for them. It gets no respect from me. Go micro manage the lunches of the millions who don't have enough to eat at all please.

http://www.iain-banks.net/uk/surface-detail/

An excellent read, with some novel idea's about what you should not do with such vast amounts of computing power.

MrTwosheds wrote:Well yes, a bit of self replicating nano tech that can convert humble rock into a computational substrate, and I suppose its possible to convert the whole planet into one big computer, might take a while.

Another interesting novel with that premise is a hard sci-fi novel by Greg Bear, 'Blood Music'

A little before nanotech was in the mainstream vernacular, but clearly Bear saw it coming and has a grasp on the concept, even in the early 80's.

MrTwosheds wrote:

THT, or trans-human technology will snap away from our comprehension over a matter of weeks to months, and we can only hope that change wants us and/or allows us along for the ride.

Or it could go the other way:

"HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE."

Currently I think our AI development is in its equivalent of our devonian period, got some bacterium, plants and some promising looking molluscs...Not one of them capable of holding a pen, let alone attempting the works of Shakespeare. What we have now are like puppets, they can be made to appear intelligent, but its only string pulling really, we have made nothing that even gets close to natures magnificent works. Someone show me an AI as smart as the smallest of beetles and I will start to take AI seriously, until them it remains just science fiction. The only singularity we are approaching is the environmental one our greedy disrespectful butts vanish into.