Juan Orbea

A Thought Experiment

The Exponential Growth of Computation Revisited

As human brains increasingly interact with technology that mimics their own capabilities, the need for students to understand both the science and engineering of intelligence continues to grow as well. Addressing these challenges will require a deeper understanding of how the brain produces intelligent behavior and how we may be able to replicate... See more

Bill and I have been frequently paired in a variety of venues as pessimist and optimist respectively. Recently a Noble Prize winning panelist dismissed Bill’s concerns, exclaiming that, “we’re not going to see self-replicating nanoengineered entities for a hundred years.” I pointed out that 100 years was indeed a reasonable estimate of the amount... See more

But the lure of the current hill is strong. He ends up falling for a common trap highlighted by behavioral economists: people tend to systematically overvalue near term over long term rewards . This effect seems to be even stronger in more ambitious people.