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JamesAndrix comments on Open Thread, August 2010 - Less Wrong
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It could if, for example, it were only available in large chunks. If you have $50 today you can't get the $/MIPS of a $5000 server. You could maybe rent the time, but that requires a high level of knowledge, existing internet access at some level, and an application that is still meaningful on a remote basis.
The first augmentation technology that requires surgery will impose a different kind of 'cost'. and will spread unevenly even among people who have the money.
It's also important to note that an increase in doubling time would show up as a /bend/ in a log scale graph, not a straight line.
Yes Kurzweil does show a bend in the real data in several cases. I did not try to duplicate that in my plots, I just did straight doubling every year.
I think any bending in the log scale plot could be fairly called acceleration.
But just the doubling itself, while it leads to ever-increases step sizes, is not acceleration. In the case of computer performance it seems clear exponential growth of power produces only linear growth in utility.
I feel this point is not made clear in all contexts. In presentations I felt some of the linear scale graphs were used to "hype" the idea that everything was speeding up dramatically. I think only the bend points to a "speeding up".