Peak Digital

 Random topic for your end-of-year brain break: I predict that we are at #PeakDigital, within a decade or so. Beyond that, we will have the #SecondQuantumRevolution and the #AnalogRenaissance. The idea of (classical) binary-only data processing will come to seem...quaint.

We will learn to create, process, store, transmit and correct analog data in myriad forms. Same with digital and continuous-variable quantum. All at fidelity and reliability that far exceed vinyl records, film, wax cylinders, differential analyzers and tide calculation machines, allowing essentially infinite rounds of processing and transmission with no detectable degradation.

It will be far faster and more efficient than digital computation, and after some teething pains will come to be seen as flexible and reliable.

People will talk of a quartet of information paradigms -- classical and quantum; digital/discrete and analog/continuous.

Information theory and computational complexity will merge completely.

And the kicker? P ?= NP turns out to be irrelevant, as complexity turns out to be a continuum instead of discrete classes, a topography of hills and valleys, and whether you roll downhill toward polynomial or exponential is a microscopic different on a ridge.

Now, do you think I actually believe this will work out exactly this way? I'll hedge my bets and keep my cards face down. But this might provoke some conversation. What do *YOU* think information will look like in, say, 2075?

https://twitter.com/rdviii/status/1476071997239336961