ACM 97 Laws of Predictions Gordon Bell Microsoft The Folly 1.0
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ACM 97 I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. Thomas Watson Senior, Chairman of IBM, 1943
ACM 97 Harvard Mark I aka IBM ASCC
ACM 97 Predictions require some history. The computer hadnt been invented. Watsons prediction held for 10 years. You need history to predict.
ACM 97 Navy Delphi Panel 1969 Card readers will peak at 1500 cards per minute by 1974 and then their use will decline. Advances in cores, wire, and thin film will provide large memories with one million words by 1976.
ACM 97 Ill bet well be manufacturing cores in H. Lamire VP Manufacturing, Digital 1975
ACM 97 A technology can come from nowhere and wipe you out! MOS memories and micros were introduced in By 1976, MOS memories wiped out core memories.
ACM 97 Moores Law 60%/yr. Memory -- 4 x size every 3 years 10 G 1 G 100 M 10 M 1 M 100 K 10 K 1 K 0.1 K
ACM 97 Moore on Moores Law 1964: yearly density doubling 1975: 1.5 year density doubling CMOS micron, ability to resolve 0s & 1s; heat; and bandwidth $1 billion per acre has been constant Present trends to continue till process development make take longer Myhrvold: no limits, based on physics
ACM 97 Single Electron RAM Cell 1/97 -- Nathan Myhrvold observes U. of Minn. team built 7 nm. square cell 1 cm. square cell could hold 2.55 Petabytes 2010 Silicon chips to hold 8 Gigabytes Factor of 300,000 gap vs. Moores Law It would take Silicon 27 years to attain according to Moores Law
ACM 97 Moores Law predicts 2.55 PetaBytes/chip in 30 years. On 1/97 a U.of Minn. team stored one electron in a cell at this density. Nathan Myhrvold Microsoft, 1/97
ACM 97 Top 10 8 reasons we predict 10.A vision and challenge 7.To plan and avoid surprises – MBA schools say so – To maintain staff & budget 6.To extract great gobs of money – With a petaflops, we could … – Its our Grand Challenge...
ACM 97 Top 10 8 reasons we predict 5.You have to: business plans, … grants 4. To stimulate new zero growth markets and lure investors into new ventures 3. A job. Futurists do it for pay. 2. To celebrate anniversaries and have conferences
ACM 97 Top 10 8 reasons we predict 1. To bet on the future and earn $$$s.
ACM 97 By 1995 a single processor will handle communication, audio and Video in 10,000 set tops operating in homes. John Moussouris Microunity 1994 ($100)
ACM 97 AT&T will not have screwed up its purchase of NCR by anon 1992 ($100)
ACM 97 By 1997 Video-on-Demand will be available and operating in six cities and... Raj Reddy & Ed Lazowska 1992 (winners get fed)
ACM 97 Digital will be a major supplier of net servers in 1 year. --DEC marketing, 1995 By 1998 Altavista will be a brand name for Internet products and a profitable business. --Brian Reed,1996 ($100)
ACM 97 By April 1, 2001 videophones will ship in 50% of the PCs and be in use. Gordon Bell vs Jim Gray 1996 (one paper, loser gets fed)
ACM 97 For short-term predictions, bet against the optimist. They are likely to be wrong. Longer term, science-based predictions have a good chance... wait 11 years (Meads Rule) Organizations usually behave poorer than anyone can predict
ACM 97 Gordon Bell Future of Computing at MIT, 1972 Future computers are BOTH cheaper AND faster model posited Semiconductor companies may make the computers We need networks, else people are the network that serve computers Semiconductors (bipolar) just improve for 6 more years
ACM 97 Progress will continue for just 6 more years! One generation beyond the product being worked on If you are actually doing it as an engineer... you tend to be very conservative
ACM 97 Everything cyberizable will be in Cyberspace! Gordon Bell and Jim Gray ACM, 1997
ACM 97 Outline Cyberspace: platforms, networks, and cyberization Some Laws from failed predictions Useful exponentials for prediction Computers we might predict
ACM 97 Cyberization: interface to all bits and process information Coupling to all information and information processors Pure bits Bit tokens State: places, things, and people State: physical networks
ACM 97 Everything will be in Cyberspace Is this a challenge? Our goal? Our quest? or Fate? Cyberization enables new computing platforms that require new networks to connect them – Infrastructure supports the content – Three evolutionary dimensions
ACM 97 Region/Intranet Campus Home Body World Continent Cyberspace: A Network of... Networks of...
ACM 97 Data Cyberspace: one, two or three networks? Telephony Television
ACM 97 Cyberspace: A spiraling quest in 3D real space Computation Communication Cyberization
ACM 97 Some more Laws from failed predictions to guide the journey into Cyberspace
ACM 97 There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. Ken Olsen President, Chairman and founder of Digital, 1977
ACM 97 Weve got the hottest machine at the show … IBMs entry really was disappointing. Digital KO aka Pro Manager, NCC 1981
ACM 97 Ethernet is much too elegant to be a commercial success. Ken Olsen 1981
ACM 97 UNIX is Snake Oil. Ken Olsen 1987
ACM 97 I wouldnt put my company on the Internet. Ken Olsen, Chairman Modular Computer Systems ComputerWorld 1996
ACM 97 Equating yourself to the average user/buyer is risky... unless youre an average user.
ACM 97 Navy Delphi Panel Bernstein, 1969 Some form of voice I/O will be in common use by 1978 at the latest! A computer will interpret simple spoken sentences by 1975.
ACM 97 Speech systems will be commercialized because all significant steps have been made. Harry Olsen RCA Labs, 1962
ACM 97 Speech typewriter: Microphone analyzer code typer pages With translation: Microphone analyzer code translator code typer pages Translated speech: Microphone analyzer code translator code synthesizer output speech
ACM 97 Speech predictions are optimistic and have been wrong. Mobs and especially committees predict poorly.
ACM 97 ISDN will be ubiquitous by Irwin Dorros, VP Long Lines ATT, 1981 Unfortunately, ISDN is still likely to become the ubiquitous connection, by default, for the next 5 years. Gordon Bell, ACM 1997
ACM 97 Network bandwidth becomes available slower than the most conservative prediction.
ACM 97 We under-estimate the devastating power of companies & planners, lawyers & government, to foul up predictions. But to really foul up requires an econometric model!
ACM 97 Parallel processing computer architectures will be in use by Navy Delphi Panel 1969
ACM 97 In Dec computers with 1,000 processors will do most of the scientific processing. Danny Hillis 1990 (1 paper or 1 company)
ACM 97 DARPA, 1985 Strategic Computing Initiative (SCI) A 50 X LISP machine Tom Knight, Symbolics A 1,000 node multiprocessor Gordon Bell, Encore All of ~20 HPCC projects failed!
ACM 97 Bell Prize winners Speedup: 2000X Moores law: 100X Spend more: 2X ECL CMOS: 10X Teraflops 100 Gigaflops 10 Gigaflops Gigaflops
ACM 97 Petaflops by 2010 DOE Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI)
ACM : Over a Petaflops is possible Moores Law x Spend more ($100M $500M) 5x Centralization of centers3x Commoditization (competition)3x Gordon Bell, ACM 1997
ACM 97 Parallel processing is a constant distance away. Our vision... is a system of millions of hosts… in a loose confederation. Users will have the illusion of a very powerful desktop computer through which they can manipulate objects. Grimshaw, Wulf, et al CACM Jan. 1997
ACM 97 Predictions are easy… especially about parallelism. Doing is hard. Predictions about parallelism were risky… now they are predictable.
ACM 97 Vannevar Bush c1945 There will always be plenty of things to compute... With millions of people doing complicated things. memex … stores all his books, records, and communications, and... can be consulted with speed and flexibility Matchbook sized, $.05 encyclopedia Speech to text Head mounted camera, dry photography
ACM 97 Steve Mann in Cyberspace
ACM 97 Moores Law is based on data and understanding. Faith in science and a vision can be used as a predictor… but being Vannevar Bush and being really lucky helps!
ACM 97 Predicting with data when change is exponential Exponentials let you predict anything you want. But beware of how you use them!
ACM 97 Fact: The cost of tactical aircraft has increased a factor of 4 per decade. In 2054 the entire defense budget will purchase just one tactical aircraft. Augustines Law IX
ACM We get more
ACM New overtakes old
ACM Things get cheaper
ACM Newer & cheaper wins? Old New New
ACM 97 Bob Lucky, Vice President Bellcore, 1995 If we couldnt predict the Web, what good are we?
ACM 97 Exponentials change everything … you cant see em coming!
ACM 97 Internetters growth Internet Growth extrapolated at 98% per year World Population extrapolated at 1.6% per year
ACM 97 Internetters growth Internetters PCs TVs & Phones World Population Gp by 2000 Negroponte1 Gp by 2000 Negroponte
ACM 97 Build it and they will come Vision: Provide bandwidth and they will come to share supercomputers, do telemedicine, telescience, ship pictures around. Traffic continues to double. The web was serendipity! "A user... would build a process and launch it into the network... with explicit instructions about things to look for and what to do …."
ACM 97 Computing and communication predictions: processing, memory, and networks
ACM 97 EDSAC (c1949)
ACM 97 Tera Giga Mega Kilo Extrapolation from 1950s: 20-30% growth per yearStorage Backbone Memory Processing Telephone Service 17% / year ??
ACM 97 Microprocessor performance 100 G 10 G Giga 100 M 10 M Mega Kilo Peak Advertised Performance (PAP) Moores Law Real Applied Performance (RAP) 41% Growth
ACM 97 Gains if 20, 40, & 60% / year 1.E+21 1.E+18 1.E+15 1.E+12 1.E +9 1.E %= Teraops 40%= Petaops 60%= Exaops
ACM 97 New overtakes old
ACM 97 Processor performance RISC shift CMOS microprocessor Bipolar processors VAX 9000
ACM 97 Things get cheaper
ACM 97 Exponential change of 10X per decade causes real turmoil! $K MB 1 MB 256 KB 64 KB 16 KB Timeshared systems Single-user systems
ACM 97 VAX Planning Model 1975: I didnt believe it The model was very good – 1978 timeshared $250K VAXen cost about $8K in 1997! Costs declined > 20% – users get more memory than predicted Single user systems didnt come down as fast, unless you consider PDAs VAX ran out of address bits!
ACM 97 Computers by price are stable. Lower priced computers form! new models come at constant price and increased effectiveness constant performance, lower price computers come and establish new use
ACM 97 Newer & cheaper wins? Old New New
ACM 97 The mainframe is dead! … and for sure this time! PRICEPRICE Mainframe Server PC
ACM 97 The computer will not replace the book... digital media are not alternatives;... the interrelationship of modes of communication is... shaping public knowledge. Peter Lyman, UC/Berkeley 1996 Daedelus: Books, Bricks, and Bytes
ACM 97 Avoid absolutes in predicting technology … use may, could, almost Books arent so great. One can imagine an economy and technology that enables their replacement by 2047 GBell, ACM97
ACM 97 Predictable computers The network computer System-on-a-chip industry Home Area Network Body Area Network: on body, Guardian Angel
ACM 97 CMU wearable computers
ACM 97 Medtronics Implanted Cardioplastic
ACM 97 4 Experts Predict Bionics Wired, February 1997 Hi-Fi Cochlear Implants 2005 Bionic Limbs 2013 Artificial Vision 2040 Bionic Person (unlikely)
ACM 97 Observations on predicting Existence proofs are essential, otherwise its faith and luck. Numbers and data are our friends. Bet on predictors who are grounded, intuitive, imaginative, and lucky. Because it could, doesnt mean it will. Its usually just the economics, stupid!
ACM 97 Everything will be in cyberspace