The Promethean Option
“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” - Roy Amara Back in the 90’s, it sounded as if everything that could be digitized would be digitized. And yes, while that indeed happened (think ticket bookings, tax returns and e-books), in the longer run, software has disrupted more and more industries that seemed non-digitizable. Like cab services getting replaced by Uber; manned spy planes being replaced by drones; and as Venkatesh Rao points out : “The Nest thermostat achieves energy savings not by exploiting new discoveries in thermodynamics, but by using machine learning algorithms in a creative way.” But what’s different from previous technological upheavals is this: “It is a revolution that is being led, in large measure, by brash young kids rather than sober adults… and proceeding largely without adult supervision.” And another key difference? “...