In this blog post, I want to explore if we are living in an Exponential age where our technology and knowledge are growing exponentially. This question has been in my head for several years after reading Azeem Azhar’s Exponential.
I also want to consider some of the impacts on our society that are driven by increasingly rapid changes. I’m not expecting to answer this question. However, as someone who finds science and technology interesting, I think it’s an important and interesting question to explore.
Defining the Exponential Age
An exponential age is a period of time during which a society and its economy are impacted by several key technologies growing exponentially simultaneously.
Azeem Azhar defines the four key technologies for the 21st century as being.
- Computing
- Energy
- Biology
- Manufacturing
Why don’t we take a look at each one in turn?
Computing
Advancements in Computer technology have grown exponentially since around the 1950s. Much of this growth is due to Moore’s law, first defined in 1965 by Gordon Moore. It states that the performance of silicon chips doubles every 18 to 24 months.
Moore’s law has held, but the rate has slowed over the last few years. Intel has stated that it is likely that an Intel processor will have over a trillion transistors by 2030, suggesting that Moore’s law will hold until at least 2030.
This has already had a massive impact on our society with the invention and rise of personal computing devices such as laptops, tablets and mobile phones and how these devices connect.
Future breakthroughs in computing are likely to include Artificial Intelligence and Quantum computing.
Energy
During the last twenty years or so, we have seen exponential growth in energy harvested from renewable sources such as wind and solar power, driving the cost of energy generation down year upon year.
Biology
Computers and Artificial Intelligence have led to some major breakthroughs in Biology, from mapping the human genome at the beginning of the 21st century to an Artificial Intelligence system called Alhafold mapping every protein that our genome can build. Major scientific breakthroughs helped by computer technology showing that exponential growth in one field can help drive exponential growth in another area. I will link to a Guardian story about this achievement.
Manufacturing
Ongoing developments in 3d printing could drive exponential growth in manufacturing.
What is the Exponential gap?
The Exponential gap between organisations and individuals who can take advantage of the exponential technologies driving exponential growth could have a real negative impact on those who have been left behind.
Why don’t we look at the field of computing and see if we can find any evidence of an Exponential gap?
In May 2021, I wrote a blog post on the number of homes in the UK that the British telecom regulator OFCOM considers offline. In that post, I stated, “I think that as a society, we should be very concerned that one in five children was considered by Ofcom to not have equipment appropriate for online learning.”
At the time, I was taken aback that one-fifth of children had difficulties studying when they were unable to go to school during the COVID-19 pandemic.
You might be thinking, “That was unusual circumstances, but will those children have the same opportunities in life as those who have suitable equipment and can make use of all those valuable online resources?”
That is what the Exponential gap looks like, and we need to do what we can to manage it and reduce its impact on our society.
How does an Exponential Age impact our Society and Economy
In this section, I will consider the impact of the exponential age on our society, as how much our lives are disrupted isn’t just reliant on how quickly our technology is changing but on our reaction to it as a society.
An interesting case study for this could be the reaction to what appeared to be the sudden arrival of chat GPT in October 2022, from the excitement to the fear brought on, as many of us feared losing our livelihoods.
As I wrote the paragraph above, it reminded me of the concern shown to my generation about growing up with video games during the 1980s. However, I think we have to be a bit more careful about the likely impact of artificial intelligence on our society.
Since 2000, a larger share of company income has gone to the company owners than to the people who work for that company, which seems to be similar to the Engels pause defined by economic historian Robert Allen.
Engels pause defines a 50-year period in the 19th century when Britain’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) grew quickly, but the wages of the workers failed to keep up. Due to the growth being driven by technology, most of the money went to the machine owners.
According to Azeem Azhar, in his book Exponential Company Value, company value has grown significantly. The book’s example compares General Motors in 1980, whose revenue was $66.3 billion and employed 900,000, with an average contribution of $74,400 per employee. In 2019, Alphabet, which owns Google, employed 120,000, and its revenue was $162 billion, with an average contribution of $1.4 million per employee.
This is leading to a widening gap in our society between those who have and those who do not.
What is the impact of the Exponential age on society?
The widening societal gap between those benefiting from the Exponential growth driven by these technologies and those of us who don’t benefit will continue to grow as the Exponential gap widens. According to an article by Scott Hendricks in Big Think, income inequality between individuals and countries has been at the lowest level since the 14th century.
In 2022, the Global economy was worth $100 trillion, of which 51% was located in just 5 countries and 66% in 10 countries.
This growing inequality is likely to be one of the reasons why our society has become more divided. The growth of the far right across many European countries, Britain’s exit from the European Union, and Trump’s rise in the US are all symptoms of this.
Steps need to be taken to examine this increasing inequality and how some of the increasing revenue created by these exponential technologies can be delivered more fairly, using options such as a Universal Basic Income.
Conclusion
As I have written this blog post, it is becoming clear that we are living in an Exponential age. This age will likely continue for at least the rest of this century, driven by computer technology and the continued development of AI and potentially Quantum computers.
Along with the growth of Exponential technologies in energy, and potentially in the near future, electricity generated by fusion reactors and biological breakthroughs.
We could even be on the verge of entering a technological singularity.
Further reading
I would recommend that you read
- Azeem Azhar, Exponential
- Scotty Hendricks, Is a Capitalist-Socialist Economy Inevitable
- Countries by Share of the Global Economy
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