Interesting suggestion that resources for computing will eventually run out in some fashion, thereby invalidating the Singularity prediction. But what resources?
I wonder where energy costs fit into this. Already, Internet companies are seeing energy as a significant part of the costs for running their business. How much energy would be consumed by a $1000 computer with the same computing capacity as the entire human race? How much heat would it produce?
Of course, Kurzweil took this into account. The first link for a "kurzweil malthus" Google search is directly to a page in The Singularity is Near, via Google books. He seems to think the energy requirements are not significant.
Here's the URL, but might just work better to do the search yourself.
According to the chart on that page, at a much slower rate than Moore's law. So what is the implication of that for the Singularity? Will the increased demand for energy to power computation cheaply force the Singularity to wait until the energy growth curve catches up?
It is also relevant to note, I think, the current volatility in energy prices. We are having a difficult time already supplying all of humanity's energy demands.
Of course, as I note in another post Kurzweil has considered this and does not think it will be a significant barrier. I'm just curious about how the numbers work out.
I wonder where energy costs fit into this. Already, Internet companies are seeing energy as a significant part of the costs for running their business. How much energy would be consumed by a $1000 computer with the same computing capacity as the entire human race? How much heat would it produce?