Slowing Moore's Law: Why You Might Want To and How You Would Do It

gwern

In this essay I argue the following:

Brain emulation requires enormous computing power; enormous computing power requires further progression of Moore’s law; further Moore’s law relies on large-scale production of cheap processors in ever more-advanced chip fabs; cutting-edge chip fabs are both expensive and vulnerable to state actors (but not non-state actors such as terrorists). Therefore: the advent of brain emulation can be delayed by global regulation of chip fabs.

Full essay: http://www.gwern.net/Slowing%20Moore%27s%20Law

In this essay I argue the following:

Brain emulation requires enormous computing power; enormous computing power requires further progression of Moore’s law; further Moore’s law relies on large-scale production of cheap processors in ever more-advanced chip fabs; cutting-edge chip fabs are both expensive and vulnerable to state actors (but not non-state actors such as terrorists). Therefore: the advent of brain emulation can be delayed by global regulation of chip fabs.

Full essay: http://www.gwern.net/Slowing%20Moore%27s%20Law

Looking at the pre-requisites and requirements for keeping a chip fab going, and then considering how much additional input is necessary to improve on the state of the art, I think I can safely say that stopping Moore's law is easier than nuclear nonproliferation.

And note that no rogue state has ever developed H-bombs as oppose to merely A-bombs; nor have any nation (rogue or otherwise) ever improved on the Russian and American state of the art.

I didn't suggest it would be physically harder than stopping nuclear proliferation. I suggested it would be politically harder. The success of the scheme "depends on whether the ones doing it are also the ones making the laws", and that means it depends on international politics.

Nuclear proliferation is a very, very bad analogy for your proposal because the NPT imposed no controls on any of the five countries that were already making nuclear weapons at the time the treaty was adopted, who between them were militarily dominant throughout the Ear... (read more)

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Slowing Moore's Law: Why You Might Want To and How You Would Do It

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Slowing Moore's Law: Why You Might Want To and How You Would Do It

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