A 1960 paper said human population would go infinite next month. It's about 8.3 billion
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Through the looking glass: The world's population is expected to reach roughly 8.3 billion by the middle of next month, far short of the mathematically infinite population predicted by a 1960 forecast. The failed prediction has relevance for debates over artificial intelligence. It shows how a model can track an accelerating trend for years without establishing that the trend will continue indefinitely. Forecasts of runaway technological progress face the same question: How long will the conditions behind today's growth persist?
Heinz von Foerster and his colleagues reached their prediction using a hyperbolic growth model. Unlike exponential growth, where a population increases at a constant percentage rate, hyperbolic growth assumes the rate itself rises as the population grows.
That feedback produces increasingly rapid expansion. Eventually, the model reaches a singularity, at which point the...
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