Following my latest post about Artificial Intelligence, I’d like to talk about technology. More specifically the nature of technology.
What do we consider technology? How does it affect our lives? How does it evolve? What does the future hold for us?
Technology is everywhere
Take a look around you right now. How many pieces of tech do you see? I bet you it’s more than you think. The most obvious ones, the phone or computer where you’re reading this. However, tech goes far beyond that: the clothes you wear, the furniture in your house, lighting, heating, electricity, the house itself…
Most people won’t recognize most of those “inventions” as technology. However at some point in history, they were. We humans are good at adapting. We take most tech around us for granted. We act as if it existed for millennia.
Modern tech puts us way above old generations of humans. We’ve never had as many services and commodities. However, the increasing amount of tech is a double edge sword. The price we pay for all those conveniences is dependency and (in some cases) addiction.
The modern world depends on tech
Relying on tech is important for our own evolution. In fact, modern cities are quite dependent on it. Think about the underlying systems of a big city, from telecommunications to watering systems, public transportation and traffic control.
I find it entertaining to think about the relevance of tech from time to time. Specially for imagining the end of the world. The world we live in is just so sophisticated and interconnected. Think about the damage that a power outage could have on our every day routines.
Food for thought: living without Internet is already hard, imagine living without electricity. What would you do? Could you survive? For how long?
Technology cycles
Technology is always evolving. The more it does, the more invisible it is to us. By this point, tech is a form of magic for most people. In order to uncover the magic, we need to understand “tech cycles”.
Let’s simplify tech evolution to just two phases: breakthroughs and scale / adoption.
Breakthroughs are what happen when new tech is discovered. Every time they happen, barriers are broken. The impossible turns possible and after a short period of time we normalize it. Have you ever thought about the tech behind an airplane? Probably not. Even if you did, modern airplanes are hugely evolved versions of original idea.
Introducing the second phase: scale. This phase is what comes after a breakthrough. The original tech is usually expensive and complex. However, it’s a matter of time till we perfect the technology.
For example: Computers used to be the size of a large room (in 1945) and priced at 400k€ (6M current money). Nowadays, they are cheaper, widely spread and more capable. This pattern not only applies to computers and electronics. It repeats over and over through our history.
The cycle of breakthroughs and scale it’s the heartbeat of progress. Every beat transforms our worlds a little more. With enough time, what today is impossible, tomorrow would be possible and shortly after, ordinary.
Thanks to our ability to innovate and build upon previous discoveries, we’ve entered an era where technological growth is accelerating rapidly.
Tech advances exponentially
Technology advances quickly; more quickly than we’re able to perceive. It grows at an exponential rate. For us humans, understanding exponential rate is difficult. We are tied to a linear variable, called time. By “linear” I mean that time advances at a constant and stable pace. Your clock advances 1 second at a time. This holds true independent of location, age or any factor really.
Contrary to time, technology advances exponentially. An exponent is just some number multiplied by itself n times. For example: . Exponential growth is where x is a base and t is time.
This all sounds very mathematical. Perhaps a mental model would help you understand what I mean. Let me ask you something: how many times do you have to fold a paper sheet to reach the moon? Take your time…
Well, you probably thought of a big number, thousands or even millions. The answer is 42.
How could this be possible? Let’s analyze the problem.
Folding a paper on itself duplicates its thinness. We start at 0.1mm. After the first fold we have . Another fold gets us to . The formula is where f is the number of folds.
Following that formula we can calculate the thickness at different stages.
- 5 folds = 3.2mm
- 10 folds = 10.24cm
- 25 folds = 3.36km
- 30 folds = 107.37km (12 times Mount Everest)
- 42 folds = 439,805km (surpass the moon)
Noticed how the jumps in numeric value get larger and larger the more we fold. The same 5 folds in 25-30 provoke an absurd increase in thickness compared to 5-10. That’s the power of exponential growth.
Tech advances at that pace and we’re approaching the high exponents. In other words, technology is about to accelerate at a pace we’ve never seen before.
Unknown future of tech
Before concluding this article I’d like to briefly talk about the future. As I explained in the previous section, we’re about to experience a technological explosion. You might have already perceived a glimpse of it with latest advancements in AI and Robotics. However, the real paradigm shift goes far beyond that.
Most people I know (myself included) like to fantasize about the future. We all create futuristic theories of how it might look like. Some theories sound sub-real or too far away. However, remind yourself that most tech we have now was also thought to be impossible.
I have no cool theory for you. The truth is, no one knows for sure what the future holds. The current rate at which technology advances is just too steep. Furthermore, there’s so many of us (+8 billion) and it’s hard to keep track of all our actions. Futuristic theories are fun but they are just fantasies.
My advice is to be flexible. Live day-by-day, as I’d like to say: “your life is today repeated”. Keep your mind on the present and don’t let the future overwhelm you.
Thanks for reading.