Technology as a Catalyst: Our Alarming Rate of Progress

Moore’s Law

Gordon Moore, the father of Moore’s Law, states that computing power per dollar doubles, on average, every 18 months. The number of transistors in a circuit doubles every two years. Even though this trend has been slowing, it is still significant because we are now heading towards a crossover point.

The question becomes, at what speed will we progress after we pass this crossover point. The takeoff can be either fast(hours, days, or weeks) or slow(stretching over years) or any rate in between.

Evolution

It took tens of thousands of years for humans to spread all over the world.

1.) Agricultural Revolution: we transitioned from hunters and gatherers to farmers, which took thousands of years.
2.) Industrial Revolution: we transitioned from farmers to manufacturing jobs, which took only hundreds of years.
3.) Information Revolution: we transitioned from manufacturing and labor intensive jobs to an an age of information/data based jobs, which has taken only a few decades.
4.) AI/Superintelligence Revolution: as we transition away from the information age, who knows how fast we will proceed to the next ‘revolution’. Regardless, it will be within a relatively short time frame.

Take a moment to understand the implications of the current rate of growth and the important consequences it has and will continue to have. Despite the doomsday news on both a domestic and global stage, note this interesting fact about our rate of growth from an economical standpoint.

“If the world economy continues to grow at the same rate as it has the last 50 years, the world will be 4.8 times richer by 2050 and 34 times richer by 2100.”

Which means?

Technology has been the catalyst for this rapid development of mankind. As we gain more knowledge and wisdom, which can be defined as the ability to get the important things right, we need to ask ourselves what is important; as both local, national, and global citizens.

For example, take blockchain, bitcoin, and electric cars. If you asked someone 10 years ago if they believed a cryptocurrency would be worth over $15,000/coin they would laugh in your face. Well, maybe not “Satoshi Nakamoto,” the ominous and anonymous creator of bitcoin.

Or the fact that electric trucks and automated vehicles would threaten the trucking and automobile industry. In 20 years, Elon Musk has gone from building financial payment systems(Paypal) to launching a fleet of fully electric vehicles that are disrupting the $900B+ car and trucking industries.

However, one should also consider the estimated costs of auto accidents accumulate to over $870B+ a year. What if we took the cost-saving money from automated vehicles, and reinvested it into: A.) the people who lost their jobs and B.) society as a whole.

Or perhaps Jeff Bezos, who went from selling books online to selling anything and everything - at a fraction of the retail cost and their technology will be in most homes within a couple years. Jeff Bezos surpassed Bill Gates as the world’s richest person in a matter of 2 decades. Which took Bill Gates almost 4 decades. Yes, Amazon is disrupting entire industries, but it is at the benefit of the overall consumer. Natural selection, from a businesses standpoint, will do the rest.

The bottom line is that technology, no matter how disruptive it is, is advancing us as a civilization; and at a faster rate with each day that passes. No matter how much people try to slow down the rate of technological progress, they will not succeed.

The AI + decentralization + collective forms of rudimentary superintelligence train has already taken off, and it’s gaining Steam.

As Sam Altman states, “the hard part of standing on an exponential curve is when you look backwards, it looks flat, and when you look forward, it looks vertical.”

Thanks for reading!

Sources:

http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/27/news/companies/bezos-gates-billionaires/index.html

http://gdallashorton.com/how-much-do-auto-accidents-cost/

https://www.statista.com/topics/1721/us-automotive-

https://www.passeidireto.com/arquivo/19351294/nick-bostrom---superintelligence/3