For the most time of human history, life was local and linear. Local in the way that anything that happened was close by, a least within a walking distance. Linear in the way that your life was the same as your father and your childs. Nothing changed. Just like the evolution of man, technology improvements follow an evolutionary progress. New ideas or products are to begin with immature and fragile with slow improvements. Then the progress accelerates until the products become mature and taken for granted. Then the cycle repeats and a new layer of technology is added to the previous. This process is exponential. One such observation of exponential is Moore’s Law. Any new technology that gets wide acceptance in society needs to be adopted by people. We will explore that type of people are the first to adopt new things, and what types come later.

1. LECTURE L03
EXPONENTIAL WORLD

2. How
does
technology
evolve?

3. Evolution of technology
is closely linked with the
evolution of mankind

4. Charles Darwin published
“On The Origin of Species”
in 1852

5. Evolutionary Process
Each generation
breeds the next, and
becomes an input

6. Samuel Butler published 1859
a letter to the editor of the Press
in New Zealand, called
“Darwin among the Machines”
Kingdom of the machines

7. Kevin Kelly: The Seventh Kingdom

8. Kevin Kelly’s
The Seventh Kingdom

9. Evolution of the
human brain
http://www.bordalierinstitute.com/images/brainEvolution.jpg

10. THE EXPONENTIAL

11. The
S-­‐Curve

12. The S-curve
Based on the notion of the
Technical Life Cycle
Improvements in
performance varies
throughout the life of the
technology

13. The S-curve
Product Perfomance
Maturity phase
Growth
phase
Research and development
phase
Time and effort

14. The S-curve
Exponential
trends
can
be
composed
of
a
sequence
of
S-­‐curves
where
each
curve
is
faster

15. The S-curve
Exponential
trends
can
be
composed
of
a
sequence
of
S-­‐curves
where
each
curve
is
faster

16. Technology
Life
Cycle

17. Technology Life Cycle
The technology life-cycle
(TLC) describes the
commercial gain of a
product through the
expense of research and
development phase, and
the financial return
during its "vital life".

18. Technology Life Cycle
In the early days
In the later days
!
!
The innovators and technology
enthusiasts drive the market
They demand technology
Small percentage of the market
The pragmatists and conservatives
dominate; they want solutions and
convenience
The big market

19. The
Digital
Revolution

20. Computers in 1964
IBM System/360
360/20 with 24K of memory

21. The Digital Revolution
Transistor, 1947
Vacuum tube, 1904
Intel 4004, 1971
Integrated circuit, 1959

22. Gordon Moore published
an article
in 1965 called
“Cramming More
Components onto
Integrated Circuits”

23. Moore’s Law
Number of transistors on
an integrated circuit will double
in about 18-24 months

24. Moore’s Law
Number of transistors on
an integrated circuit will double
in about 18-24 months.

25. Technological growth
accelerates

28. The Fifth Paradigm

29. 30 years of product improvements
1977
Apple II $1,298
4000 bytes memory
Motorola 6502 1MHz
2007
iMac 17-inch $1,199
1GB memory
Intel 2.0GHz

30. 30 years of product improvements
iPad
2
as
fast
as
Cray
2
supercomputer,
fraction
of
the
size
Cray 2 1985
Apple iPad 2 2011
Read
more:
http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/05/10/ipad.2.benches.as.fast.as.cray.2.from.1985/#ixzz1jdOS0Es4

31. Exponential Growth
Slow growth in the beginning
than accelerates

32. Second half of the Chess board
Flickr
picture
by
spwelton

33. The Legend of the
Ambalappuzha Paal Payasam

35. Moore’s Law
Number of transistors on
an integrated circuit will double
in about 18-24 months.

36. Exponential growth

37. Computers will be faster

38. Computers will be smaller

39. Computers will be cheaper

40. Computers will be everywhere

41. Things that once were impossible become possible

43. From a 1946 Comic strip to CES 2009

44. And from 2009 to 2014

45. The Long Nose of Innovation
Bill Buxton’s
Long nose of
Innovation
Source:
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jan2008/
id2008012_297369.htm

46. Growth of
Technology
Evolutionary processes – both
biology and technology, tend to
accelerate

47. Ray Kurzweil on how technology will transform us (from TED.com)

48. The Law of
Accelerating Returns
Evolution applies positive feedback in that
the more capable methods resulting from
one stage of evolutionary progress are
used to create the next stage.
As a result, the rate of progress of an
evolutionary process increases
exponentially over time.

49. “An analysis of the history of technology
shows that technological change is
exponential, contrary to the commonsense ‘intuitive linear’ view. So we won't
experience 100 years of progress in the
21st century -- it will be more like 20,000
years of progress
(at today's rate).”
- Ray Kurzweil

50. S-Curve

51. S-Curve

52. S-Curve

53. S-Curve

54. S-Curve

55. S-Curve

56. Is this evolution of technology good?

57. Kranzberg’s 1. law of technology
Technology is
neither good nor
bad; nor is it neutral

58. Peter Diamandis

59. NEXT:
!
The Adjacent Possible