The Law of Accelerating Returns,” Ray Kurzweil did the math and found that we’re going to experience twenty thousand years of technological change over the next one hundred years. Essentially, we’re going from the birth of agriculture to the birth of the internet twice in the next century. This means paradigm-shifting, game-changing, nothing-is-ever-the-same-again breakthroughs — such as affordable aerial ridesharing — will not be an occasional affair. They’ll be happening all the time.

The Law of Accelerating Returns," Ray Kurzweil did the math and found that we're going to experience twenty thousand years of technological change over the next one hundred years. Essentially, we're going from the birth of agriculture to the birth of the internet twice in the next century. This means paradigm-shifting, game-changing, nothing-is-ever-the-same-again breakthroughs — such as affordable aerial ridesharing — will not be an occasional affair. They'll be happening all the time.

This interest in trends took on a life of its own, and I began to project some of them using what I call the Law of Accelerating Returns.

Faster-than-exponential growth also occurs in computing power, as measured by the evolution of the number of MIPS per $1,000 of computer from 1900 to 1997. Thus the so-called Moore's law is incorrect, since it implies only an exponential growth. This faster than exponential acceleration has been argued to lead to a transition to a new era, around 2030, corresponding to the epoch when we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence.

The Law of Diminishing Returns, true in life as well as in story, is this: The more often we experience something, the less effect it has. Emotional experience, in other words, cannot be repeated back-to-back with effect. […] The first time we experience an emotion or sensation it has full effect. If we try repeat this experience immediately, it has half or less than half of its full effect. If we go straight to the same emotion for the third time, it not only doesn’t have the original effect, it delivers the opposite effect

This paper has attempted to go beyond the usual static analysis of increasing-returns problems by examining the dynamical process that 'selects' an equilibrium from multiple candidates, by the interaction of economic forces and random 'historical events'. It shows how dynamically, increasing returns can cause the economy gradually to lock itself in to an outcome not necessarily superior to alternatives, not easily altered, and not entirely predictable in advance.

The Law of Diminishing Returns is true of everything in life, except sex, which seems endlessly repeatable with effect.

The 2nd law of thermodynamics... tells you that randomness increases with time. It's a sort of depressing law... It depends on how you look at it, really...

A primary reason that evolution—of life-forms or technology—speeds up is that it builds on its own increasing order.

Past a certain point, more effort doesn’t produce better performance. It sabotages our performance. Economists call this the law of diminishing returns:

Past a certain point, more effort doesn’t produce better performance. It sabotages our performance. Economists call this the law of diminishing returns.

once a technology becomes digital — that is, once it can be programmed in the ones and zeroes of computer code — it hops on the back of Moore's Law and begins accelerating exponentially.

Biotechnology isn't just accelerating at the speed of Moore's law, it's accelerating at five times the speed of Moore's law — doubling in power and halving in price every four months!

once a technology becomes digital — that is, once it can be programmed in the ones and zeroes of computer code — it hops on the back of Moore’s Law and begins accelerating exponentially.