Forecasting the Growth of Complexity and Change—An Update

Abstract

In 2002, Modis published an article forecasting that the rate of change in our lives was about to stop accelerating and indeed begin decelerating [DOI:10.1016/S0040-1625(01)00172-X]. Today, with twenty years’ worth more data, Modis revisits those forecasts. He points out that an exponential trend would have predicted the appearance of three “cosmic” milestones by now, namely in 2008, 2015, and 2018, but we have seen none. The logistic trend, however, predicted the next milestone around 2033 and could well turn out to be a cluster of achievements in AI, robotics, nanotechnology, and bioengineering, analogous to what happened with the milestone at the turn of the 20th century. He sees this as confirmation that the concept of a Singularity is not called for.