[tristanm]

The "hivemind" argument seems to predict that as society scales up (either through massive population growth or through faster and better interconnectedness, such as through the internet) that as a result we should be seeing much faster gains in technological progress especially in the last few decades or so. However there are quite a few observations that a lot of this progress has sort of slowed down compared to the early 20th century (see the arguments for "technological stagnation"). At the very least, technological progress hasn't increased linearly with population growth and better communication. In other words, the rate of technological progress looks more discontinuous and not obviously a function of societal coherence.

[titzer]

I'd argue that what we're seeing is both a centralization of computational infrastructure as well as a massive infiltration of everyday life with digital (computational) technology, often for no good reason other than it's a way to make money. We certainly have not stagnated w.r.t. to hardware or software, but just keep trying to scale to the stars. I'm cynical in that I believe the "AI first" movement is basically offloading the next phase of computational progress on computers themselves, because we either too tired or ran out of ideas or can't keep up, or it's necessary as a competitive business strategy, or it's simply cheaper.

Technology keeps giving people nice gizmos and plenty of flashy entertainment, but it's mostly self-serving, technology begetting yet more technology without clear purpose, as evidenced by stupid shit like Bluetooth toothbrushes (https://www.lookfantastic.de/oral-b-pro4000-x-action-toothbr...) and the insane number of cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes. Toothbrushes that need a freaking network connection and bits worth absolutely nothing. The crescendo of our civilization! Well done. If there's an overmind, it's feeding us shit.

(Sorry again, I'm cynical.)

[AndrewKemendo]

I don't think your interpretation of that prediction is accurate. Rather it would be that there are "bursts" of technological progress followed by slower or no gains while the world "catches up." That seems to more accurately follow the history of technological progress.

I think a better interpretation would be that those "bursts" happen at tighter intervals, and if you look at the course of history that seems to be the case.

For example, the period between the introduction of horses/plows widely adopted in agriculture in the 1700s and the wide adoption of internal combustion in the 1940s was ~300 years. From Internal Combustion to wide adoption of transistors (1970s) was about 30 years from transistors, transistors to internet about 20 years, internet to ? (Deep Learning 2012) looks like about 15 years.

Not sure if that's a perfect fit but I think it represents a pretty compelling case.

[tristanm]

I think that bursts of technological progress follows more from the model of individualized intelligence, whereas continuous progress follows from the distributed, networked model of intelligence.

A promoter of the distributed model of intelligence might argue that Einstein was only able to produce the general theory of relativity because of the knowledge already contained within society, such as the mathematics and physics that had already been built up to that time. All the stuff from Euclid to Newton to Gauss to Poincare and Minkowski that Einstein's work relied upon.

Does that imply that Einstein wasn't really smart? If you narrow your focus to just the innovation Einstein made, where did that come from? Did it come from the "hivemind" or was Einstein himself doing something special that allowed him to develop the insight?

More individualized intelligence would predict that we would see smaller intervals between bursts as society increases in size and connectedness (more chances for Einsteins to appear, more likelihood that they can work together). But if intelligence is somehow an emergent process from the network of all humans itself, then as society grows we shouldn't see many bursts at all, just a fairly continuous increase in knowledge as little bits and pieces get absorbed and distributed.

[icebraining]

I think you're making too many assumptions about the inner workings of "the brain".

If we look at actual brains - including Einstein's - are they not bursty? Don't people have periods of greater intellectual output with lulls in between? Seems to match pretty well.