Kevin Drum over at the Washington Monthly has a nice extrapolation based on Ray Kurzweil’s new book (see his chart for added effect):
With that said, however, it turns out that I do have a bone to pick with Kurzweil over one of the trend charts that litter his book. Basically, he argues that the pace of change has been accelerating over time, so that major inventions are being created ever faster as time goes by. 10,000 years ago it took several thousand years between major inventions (agriculture –> wheel), while a century ago it took only a few decades (telephone –> radio).
Fine. But his cleverly constructed chart cheats: it stops about 30 years ago. So I decided to extend it. My version of his chart extends to last month (see pink shaded area), and it indicates that major, paradigm-busting inventions should be spaced about a week apart these days.
…
So what gives? Seems to me that the Singularity should be right on our doorstep, not 40 years away. And while 40 years may not seem like all that much in the great scheme of things, it means a lot if you’re 46 years old. Which I am.
So what happened?
If I had to guess without having read the book yet, I’d say what the chart really shows is the gloss of history: the longer ago something was, the less important we take it to be and the more we lump it together with everything else from that period. For example, the last four entries on Ray’s chart are the Industrial Revolution, the Telephone, electricity, and radio (as one event), the computer and the personal computer (as two events). Why did he decide to label these as four paradigm-busting inventions rather than seven, or as one? Contrarily, why are writing and the wheel lumped into the same invention, or printing and the experimental method? Depending on what you call a single “event” the spacing between those events could show accelerating change, constant change, or stability punctuated by short periods of rapid change (the last one being my own personal belief).
Could the one true constant be the belief that our generation is experiencing more change than any other?