You probably haven’t heard of it, but in recent years a prediction whose consequences revolutionized society entered the beginning of the end of its usefulness. Moore’s law is a famous technological concept with wide-ranging economic consequences. Gordon Moore is one of Intel’s co-founders, and in 1965 he observed that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubled every year, while the costs of computing power to consumers halved every year. His 1965 paper predicted the continuation of the trend for a decade, and in 1975 the estimate was revised to a doubling every 18 months.
Now, the specific technological terms are less important than the general concept itself. Essentially, Moore’s Law states that the power of computers exponentially increases, getter faster and more efficient every 18 months. So, for the consumers, stronger and stronger computers are being produced, with the costs lowering further and further. The technological consequence of this theory is ubiquitous in society, with smartphones, tablet computers, and many other supercomputing personal devices only being available due to the technological advances that occurred as predicted by Moore’s Law. The economic consequences are even more far-ranging, as entire industries have been built on the computing power of this new era.
Speaking of economics, Moore’s Law creates an interesting situation for the producers of the goods that include these circuits, as well as the producers of the circuits themselves. These companies and corporations essentially assume Moore’s Law is true, despite it being driven by their own efforts. As a result, they model their research and development plans, business models, and manufacturing goals based on Moore’s Law. For this reason, a second law, based on the original law, is widely accepted. Moore’s Second Law states that the costs of producing the circuits will increase exponentially for the suppliers, despite the costs falling for the consumers.
What does this mean for the future, especially the future of Moore’s Law? Simply put, any form exponential growth is unsustainable eventually, and the same is true for Moore’s Law. There is a limit to the size the transistors can be reduced to, as the transistors today are already nearing molecular size. The physical limits of Moore’s Law as well as the fact that research reached its limit in recent years both indicate the eventual fall of Moore’s Law as a valid observation of the technological and economic growth of society. Society has advanced so far in the past few decades due to trends observed in Moore’s Law, so what will happen when Moore’s Law no longer applies? Will society’s progress slow? Or will we find another way to accelerate our progress exponentially? Only time will tell. But, until we know for sure, this era may be the beginning of the end for a time of great progress in the history of humanity.
This is an awesome post Henry! I really never thought about the economic downsides of Moore's Law, from one of Silicon Valley's most important innovators. You're definitely correct in identifying the fact that transistors are slowing down in rate of condensing and they are slowly becoming more efficient as opposed to the 90s. The smaller chips would become, you're getting closer to sub-atomic particle levels, and that could lead to a whole host of problems. Thankfully, multi-core processors can help make Moore's Law last a bit longer before it's all too late.
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