AI Impacts

Incomplete case studies of discontinuous progress

Published 7 Feb 2020 This is a list of potential cases of discontinuous technological progress that we have investigated partially or not at all. Contents ListThe Haber ProcessPrevious explanationAluminiumThe sewing machineVideo compressionInformation storage volumeUndersea cable

Effect of AlexNet on historic trends in image recognition

AlexNet did not represent a greater than 10-year discontinuity in fraction of images labeled incorrectly, or log or inverse of this error rate, relative to progress in the past two years of competition data. Contents

Historic trends in transatlantic message speed

The speed of delivering a short message across the Atlantic Ocean saw at least three discontinuities of more than ten years before 1929, all of which also were more than one thousand years: a 1465-year

Historic trends in long-range military payload delivery

The speed at which a military payload could cross the Atlantic ocean contained six greater than 10-year discontinuities in 1493 and between 1841 and 1957: Date Mode of transport Knots Discontinuity size(years of progress at

Historic trends in bridge span length

We measure eight discontinuities of over ten years in the history of longest bridge spans, four of them of over one hundred years, five of them robust as to slight changes in trend extrapolation. The

Historic trends in light intensity

Maximum light intensity of artificial light sources has discontinuously increased once that we know of: argon flashes represented roughly 1000 years of progress at past rates. Annual growth in light intensity increased from an average

Historic trends in book production

The number of books produced in the previous hundred years, sampled every hundred or fifty years between 600AD to 1800AD contains five greater than 10-year discontinuities, four of them greater than 100 years. The last

Historic trends in telecommunications performance

Published February 2020 January 2023 note: This page contains errors that have not yet been corrected. Our overall conclusion, that there were likely no discontinuities in our metrics for telecommunications performance are likely unaffected by

Historic trends in slow light technology

Published Feb 7 2020 Group index of light appears to have seen discontinuities of 22 years in 1995 from Coherent Population Trapping (CPT) and 37 years in 1999 from EIT (condensate). Pulse delay of light

Penicillin and historic syphilis trends

Penicillin did not precipitate a discontinuity of more than ten years in deaths from syphilis in the US. Nor were there other discontinuities in that trend between 1916 and 2015. The number of syphilis cases