No one 100 years ago predicted the existence of chips - only in 1947 solid-state physics makes astonishing discoveries and the Americans build the first transistor, one of the key inventions of mankind. Over the following years its design was improved, for example by changing the material from which it was made. Eventually someone came up with the idea of placing many identical transistors in a small area. This is how the first digital circuits were created. The number of transistors on this small wafer of silicon increased rapidly. In 1957 there was one, in 1963 - eight, in 1965 - sixteen. And in 1977 it was already 256 thousand. Today we have computers with more than 3,000,000,000 transistors. As is always the case in nature - each step in development created the next, there was a kind of positive feedback loop.
Currently, technology is becoming more and more complex and is used to invent the next generation of technologies until, at some point, they become so complex that they surpass humans themselves! Evidence of the constant acceleration of change is the ever-shortening time between events - it took 2 billion years from the beginning of life on Earth to the first cells, and only 28 years from the invention of the transistor to the PC, and only 14 years from the personal computer to the Internet. A billion years ago, not much happened in a million years. But a quarter of a million years ago, in just 100,000 years, there were very important and complex processes that included the evolution of our species. Similarly, today, in the field of technology - 200 years ago, not as much happened in a few decades as happens today in a year or even a few months.
The complexity of man-made technologies will continue to grow, and we will be able to use them to influence the reality around us more and more effectively and to design more and more perfect tools. Eventually, the level of complexity will be such that technology will take complete control over its own progress. In a few decades, machines will undergo a process of evolution that will be accelerated millions of times over, culminating in the Technological Singularity, a moment when machines will reach the intellectual level of humans and even surpass them. According to Ray Kurzweil - an American computer scientist who described the changes taking place with the help of mathematical equations - the technological singularity will arrive around 2045. Then an ordinary computer for 1000 dollars will be better than a man in all possible tasks. At that moment the process of technological evolution will become a continuation of biological evolution and will lead to the appearance of Life 3.0. The behavior of computers will then be incomprehensible to us. It may be that they will decide to leave virtual space by constructing mechanical bodies. It is hard to predict... Whatever happens, it will be the beginning of a new life that can change not only its software but also its organs, that is, its hardware. This life will thus free itself from the limitations that biological organisms such as humans have. And we may be the first generation to share the world with something (or someone) like this.