Maes-Garreau Law

The Maes-Garreau Law is the statement that "most favorable predictions about future technology will fall within the Maes-Garreau Point", defined as "the latest possible date a prediction can come true and still remain in the lifetime of the person making it".^[1] Specifically, it relates to predictions of a technological singularity.^[1]

Origin of the Law

Kevin Kelly, editor of Wired magazine, created the law in 2007 after being influenced by Pattie Maes at MIT and Joel Garreau (author of Radical Evolution).^[1]

In 1993, Maes listed a number of her colleagues at MIT that had publicly predicted mind uploading (the replication of a human brain on a computer), and noted that the innovations were generally slated to occur within the lifetime of the predictor.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Kevin Kelly: The Maes-Garreau Point March 14, 2007