The amount of computing power driving our digital world is growing faster than ever, with acceleration far beyond just chips getting more complex. It is driven by trends such as specialized chips like Nvidia’s graphics processing units and cloud computing services such as Amazon’s AWS that allow renting time on the fastest computer systems.
That huge acceleration in what computing systems can do will have a huge impact on humanity’s future. The deep neural networks of today’s AI were made possible when computing power became inexpensive enough to make them economically feasible. We’ve seen some of that impact with today’s AI providing major advances in areas such as cancer treatment. The generative AI that writes documents or computer code and creates images has particularly raised expectations. The book argues that the impact of generative AI, despite it inspiring huge investments, is over-stated and has serious limitations.
The impact will be found more productively in other improvements made possible by the increased computing power. One major development will be a major improvement in digital assistants such as Apple’s Siri that makes them indispensable and a major change in the way we interact with digital systems.
Growing computing power will drive changes in our lives, the economy, and society in general at a pace much faster than previous major innovations.
1 Preface, Chaps 1 Introduction, 2 Computer Power
2 Chap 3 Software and Algorithms
3 Chap 4 Artificial Intelligence
4 Chap 5 Generative AI
5 Chap 6 AI Competition with China
6 Chap 7 An Alternative to Deep Learning
7 Chap 8 AI Exuberance
8 Chap 9 The Brain
9 Chap 10 Talking to Computers
10 Chap 11 Economics
11 Chap 12 War
12 Chap 13 The Evolution of Human-Computer Interaction
13 Chap 14 What Does It All Mean?
14 Recent News on the book's topics
Computing Power Drives the Future, William Meisel, 2025 and supporting articles.