Background
The tech revolution: we live in times of exponential change.
Moore’s Law is powering the rapid development of many disruptive technologies that enable exponential progress.
As microchips become more affordable and powerful, computing itself becomes more affordable, creating leverage. Those fields were until recently were still “out of the money”: too expensive to be of practical interest.
Examples of these disciplines are artificial intelligence, biotech, nanotechnologies, robotics, clean-tech, the blockchain. The enabling role played by computing is not mean to deny the intrinsic merits and advancements in these disciplines. Each discipline has uniquely added knowledge, sector specific advancements and new scientific and technical discoveries to the equation.
On the other hand, without the supporting effect of cheap computing they would not play the role they are promise to play in the foreseeable future.
What the past can teach us
We have witnessed already many waves of technological development, starting with the railway, the steam engine, then electricity, television, the pc revolution, the internet, mobile phones – just to name a few.
Nonetheless, none of these technologies have proven themselves truly transformative.
Or indeed they were transformative at a societal level, but nothing compares to what we are about to see with the coming of age of this newest technology wave: the tech and AI revolution.
Among the disciplines cited, Artificial Intelligence will play a double role, by virtue of making machines smarter. On one side it will make everything smarter, but at the same time it will improve also on itself, shortening the time that separates our species from being outsmarted by machines.
The impact of this last Kondratiev wave of disruption, the final one that we humans will catch still as the leading species on Mother Earth, will be very meaningful. Thereafter, we will pass on the baton to our brainchild offspring: machines.
What next?
Value will be created at a rate it has never been observed before.
Industries will be completely and abruptly disrupted and new ones will emerge. The society that we are going to build – for as as hard as it might be to foresee it at the moment – will for sure be a very different one from what we have today.
As it has oftentimes been the case with human society, the path – although uncertain – will be fully worth the effort and the journey will prove to be a very interesting ride. The “button-pushers” – those involved or in control of technology – are set to reap the most benefits from the tech revolution.
There still is and there will be for quite sometime a role for those who are willing to shape technology’s development. They are set to take responsibility to steer the tech revolution along the way, contributing to redefining the rules as we progress.
At the end of this development ride, the vision is much more blurred.
The outcome will largely depend on how we humans will contribute to shape it.
Samantha Fund will be among those.
Let the journey begin!