Welcome to the Exponential Age

mars_2445397b-large_transqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwZwVSIA7rSIkPn18jgFKEo0Below is a cool thing I got from a friend.  Note the remarks on electric transportation, renewable energy, and the desalination of water.

The basic thrust of all this is exactly what we’ve been saying at 2GE since its inception:

A) The future always looks like the past—until it looks like something completely different.

B) All this is true in spades today, with the incredible acceleration of technology development.

C) Technology looks like a dream out on the horizon one day, and commonplace in our lives just a few years later.

D) Most of these technologies have nothing to do with humankind’s ability to survive the environmental damage its wreaking on the planet…but, fortunately, some of them do.

An issue, of course, is what all this means for the quality of life of the typical person.  If automation has been systematically eliminating jobs of people who work with their hands, and now it’s knocking out lawyers as well, precisely where are tomorrow’s jobs coming from?  Hint: it won’t be coal mines.  🙂

 

Welcome to the Exponential Age.  

In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide.  Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt.  What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years and, most people won’t see it coming. 

Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on film again?  Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975.  The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore’s law, digital cameras today have 24,000,000 and 36,000,000 million pixels.  So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a time, before it became way superior and became mainstream in only a few short years.  It will now happen again with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.  Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution.  Welcome to the Exponential Age!  

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

Uber is just a software tool, they don’t own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world.

Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties.

Artificial  Intelligence:  Computers are becoming exponentially better in understanding the world.  This year, a computer beat the best Go-player in the world, 10 years  earlier than expected.

In the US , young lawyers already don’t get jobs.   Because of IBM’s Watson, you can now get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy, compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans.

So if you study law, stop immediately.  There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.

Watson already helps nurses diagnose cancer;  it is 4 times more accurate than human nurses.

Facebook now has pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans can.  In 2030, computers may become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In  2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public.  Around 2020, the entire auto industry will start to be disrupted.  You won’t want to own a car anymore.  You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location, and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you will only pay for the distance driven and can be productive while driving.

The next generation will never get driver’s licenses, and will never own cars.

The only way for people to legally drive may be on private race tracks!  Yet already there are car races with driverless cars.  Will anyone want to see them race?

It will change the cities, because the need for cars will be only 15% of the cars in use now!  We can transform former parking spaces into parks.

1.2 million people now die each year in car accidents worldwide.  We now have one accident every 60,000 miles (100,000 km).  With autonomous driving that will drop to 1 accident in 6 million miles (10million km).  That will save a million lives each year.

Most car companies will probably become bankrupt.  Traditional car companies may try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will take the revolutionary approach and build a computer on  wheels.

Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi are completely terrified of Tesla.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper.   Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate will change, because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.

Electric cars will become mainstream about 2020.  Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity.

Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean:  Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but it is only now that you can see the burgeoning impact.

Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil.  Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the solar grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that can’t last.  Technology will take care of  that strategy.

With cheap electricity will come cheap and abundant water.  Desalination of salt water now only needs 2k Wh per cubic meter (@  0.25 cents).  We don’t have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water.  Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

Health:  There are companies who are building a medical device (called the “Tricorder” after a similar device on Star Trek) that works with your phone, which will take your retina scan, your blood sample and your breath.  From that it will be able to analyze 54 bio-markers that will identify nearly any disease.  The Tricorder X price will be announced this year.  It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medical analysis, nearly for free.  Goodbye, medical  establishment.

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400.

 

 

 

 

 

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5 comments on “Welcome to the Exponential Age
  1. marcopolo says:

    Craig,

    While it’s true human ingenuity and technology will continuously transform human society, it remains increasingly difficult to predict the future.

    The idea that law is a science, and a computer can determine the outcome of humans relationships is a fallacy commonly held by lay people. Some aspects of legal process have always been performed by clerks and can be replaced by computer programs.

    However, unlike medicine, law is not a ‘science’. Laws are made by human beings. Laws are interpreted by human beings, often in unique and unpredictable circumstances. The study of Law is the study of human behaviour. Humans are not predictable automatons, so lawyers will always be needed, since humans will always find themselves in disputes with one another..

    Likewise, not all technology is welcomed. Humans welcome useful technology that makes life more convenient, but reject technology that doesn’t appeal.

    Often older and newer technologies can co-exist, both creating and expanding human perspectives. A great example of co-existence is in art where the invention of the camera didn’t replace painters, but expanded artistic expression with another art form, sometimes even merging the two mediums.

    In the same way the theatre wasn’t replaced by Cinema, both learned to co-exist.

    An excellent example of co-existence is while the automobile replaced horse drawn transportation, both the horse and the automobile still thrive as sporting and recreational activities.

    I also doubt electric cars will become so mainstream in just 30 months time (2020)that “cities will become quieter because all new cars will run on electricity ” !

    Anyone who writes;

    “Most car companies will probably become bankrupt. Traditional car companies may try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will take the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels”

    Obviously doesn’t understand the nature of an electric car !

    Electric cars are not “computers on wheels” , they’re still “cars”. They may have a different fuel source, but the rest of the engineering is the same (and always was).

    EV’s still need batteries, electric motors, suspension systems , seating,electronics, safety glass, air conditioning, tyres, shell design,road dynamics, air bags, lights, braking systems, paint, hood linings and a myriad other components that go into constructing an automobile.

    Which is why Apple and Google have both backed away from becoming auto manufacturers.

    Futurists are always excitably enthusiastic and boundlessly optimistic ! To a certain extent, this is a good thing, society needs active dreamers and first adopters.

    However, society also needs realists to curb excess and encourage the practical over the utopian.

    • craigshields says:

      “Obscene” is just my subjective take on it. Given the option to buy a $1 million car or a $33K Prius and invest $967K in a strategy to ameliorate human suffering or environmental decay, I have a low of anyone who would choose the former–especially given that we’re talking about a garish automobile that principally serves to show off one’s wealth. But again, that’s just me.

  2. marcopolo says:

    Craig,

    Your comment appears to be a reply to another article ?

    But it’s indeed fortunate that everyone doesn’t think like you do or there would be no Tesla.

  3. Cameron Atwood says:

    Great stuff, Craig – glad you shared.