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".Kevin Kelly
The Maes–Garreau Point
March 14, 2007 Specifically, it relates to predictions of a

technological singularity The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization. According to the m ...

or other radical future technologies. It has been referred to as a "law of human nature", although Kelly's evidence is anecdotal.

Origin

Kevin Kelly, editor of ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...

'' magazine, created the law in 2007 after being influenced by

Pattie Maes Pattie Maes (born 1961) is a professor in MIT's program in Media Arts and Sciences. She founded and directed the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group. Previously, she founded and ran the Software Agents group. She served for several years as ...

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

and

Joel Garreau Joel Garreau (born 1948) is an American journalist, scholar, and author. In 1981, Garreau published ''The Nine Nations of North America''. In 1991, he published '' Edge City: Life on the New Frontier''. In 2005, he published ''Radical Evolutio ...

(author of '' Radical Evolution''). In 1993, Maes listed a number of her colleagues at MIT that had publicly predicted

mind uploading Mind uploading is a speculative process of whole brain emulation in which a brain scan is used to completely emulate the mental state of the individual in a digital computer. The computer would then run a simulation of the brain's information pr ...

(the replication of a human brain on a computer), and noted that the innovations were generally slated to occur approximately 70 years after the birth of the predictor. As quoted by her colleague Rodney Brooks:

Failed attempts to verify Maes-Garreau

The

Machine Intelligence Research Institute The Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), formerly the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI), is a non-profit research institute focused since 2005 on identifying and managing potential existential risks from artifi ...

released a paper detailing a much larger set of 95 AI predictions extracted from a database of 257 AI predictions, which finds a broad array of estimates significantly before and after a predictor's estimated longevity, thus contradicting the law. MIRI states a stronger rule as being "Maes-Garreau": "the predictor expects AI to be developed at the exact end of their life."Armstrong, Stuart, and Kaj Sotala. 2012
"How We're Predicting AI — or Failing to."
In ''Beyond AI: Artificial Dreams'' ed. Jan Romportl, Pavel Ircing, Eva Zackova, Michal Polak, Radek Schuster, 52–75. Pilsen: University of West Bohemia.

References

Futures studies {{future-stub