essay technological revolution

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1 What is a Technological Revolution?

• Published: October 2020
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Almost daily we are told how some new technology will revolutionize in our lives. The truth of the matter is most technologies do not. However, occasionally a new technology does appear which provides the grounding for gradual changes that eventually transform our systems of production and the way we live our lives. Historically, we speak of these developments as technological revolutions. By focusing on how such technologies change the nature of work, occupational structures, and systems of production, this chapter attempts to answer two questions: “What is a technological revolution?” and, more importantly, “How do current technologies associated with artificial intelligence fit into the history of technological change?”

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Industrial Revolution and Technology

Whether it was mechanical inventions or new ways of doing old things, innovations powered the Industrial Revolution.

Social Studies, World History

Steam Engine Queens Mill

The use of steam-powered machines in cotton production pushed Britain’s economic development from 1750 to 1850. Built more than 100 years ago, this steam engine still powers the Queens Mill textile factory in Burnley, England, United Kingdom.

Photograph by Ashley Cooper

It has been said that the Industrial Revolution was the most profound revolution in human history, because of its sweeping impact on people’s daily lives. The term “industrial revolution” is a succinct catchphrase to describe a historical period, starting in 18th-century Great Britain, where the pace of change appeared to speed up. This acceleration in the processes of technical innovation brought about an array of new tools and machines. It also involved more subtle practical improvements in various fields affecting labor, production, and resource use. The word “technology” (which derives from the Greek word techne , meaning art or craft) encompasses both of these dimensions of innovation. The technological revolution, and that sense of ever-quickening change, began much earlier than the 18th century and has continued all the way to the present day. Perhaps what was most unique about the Industrial Revolution was its merger of technology with industry. Key inventions and innovations served to shape virtually every existing sector of human activity along industrial lines, while also creating many new industries. The following are some key examples of the forces driving change. Agriculture Western European farming methods had been improving gradually over the centuries. Several factors came together in 18th-century Britain to bring about a substantial increase in agricultural productivity. These included new types of equipment, such as the seed drill developed by Jethro Tull around 1701. Progress was also made in crop rotation and land use, soil health, development of new crop varieties, and animal husbandry . The result was a sustained increase in yields, capable of feeding a rapidly growing population with improved nutrition. The combination of factors also brought about a shift toward large-scale commercial farming, a trend that continued into the 19th century and later. Poorer peasants had a harder time making ends meet through traditional subsistence farming. The enclosure movement, which converted common-use pasture land into private property, contributed to this trend toward market-oriented agriculture. A great many rural workers and families were forced by circumstance to migrate to the cities to become industrial laborers. Energy Deforestation in England had led to a shortage of wood for lumber and fuel starting in the 16th century. The country’s transition to coal as a principal energy source was more or less complete by the end of the 17th century. The mining and distribution of coal set in motion some of the dynamics that led to Britain’s industrialization. The coal-fired steam engine was in many respects the decisive technology of the Industrial Revolution. Steam power was first applied to pump water out of coal mines. For centuries, windmills had been employed in the Netherlands for the roughly similar operation of draining low-lying flood plains. Wind was, and is, a readily available and renewable energy source, but its irregularity was considered a drawback. Water power was a more popular energy source for grinding grain and other types of mill work in most of preindustrial Europe. By the last quarter of the 18th century, however, thanks to the work of the Scottish engineer James Watt and his business partner Matthew Boulton, steam engines achieved a high level of efficiency and versatility in their design. They swiftly became the standard power supply for British, and, later, European industry. The steam engine turned the wheels of mechanized factory production. Its emergence freed manufacturers from the need to locate their factories on or near sources of water power. Large enterprises began to concentrate in rapidly growing industrial cities. Metallurgy In this time-honored craft, Britain’s wood shortage necessitated a switch from wood charcoal to coke, a coal product, in the smelting process. The substitute fuel eventually proved highly beneficial for iron production. Experimentation led to some other advances in metallurgical methods during the 18th century. For example, a certain type of furnace that separated the coal and kept it from contaminating the metal, and a process of “puddling” or stirring the molten iron, both made it possible to produce larger amounts of wrought iron. Wrought iron is more malleable than cast iron and therefore more suitable for fabricating machinery and other heavy industrial applications. Textiles The production of fabrics, especially cotton, was fundamental to Britain’s economic development between 1750 and 1850. Those are the years historians commonly use to bracket the Industrial Revolution. In this period, the organization of cotton production shifted from a small-scale cottage industry, in which rural families performed spinning and weaving tasks in their homes, to a large, mechanized, factory-based industry. The boom in productivity began with a few technical devices, including the spinning jenny, spinning mule, and power loom. First human, then water, and finally steam power were applied to operate power looms, carding machines, and other specialized equipment. Another well-known innovation was the cotton gin, invented in the United States in 1793. This device spurred an increase in cotton cultivation and export from U.S. slave states, a key British supplier. Chemicals This industry arose partly in response to the demand for improved bleaching solutions for cotton and other manufactured textiles. Other chemical research was motivated by the quest for artificial dyes, explosives, solvents , fertilizers, and medicines, including pharmaceuticals. In the second half of the 19th century, Germany became the world’s leader in industrial chemistry. Transportation Concurrent with the increased output of agricultural produce and manufactured goods arose the need for more efficient means of delivering these products to market. The first efforts toward this end in Europe involved constructing improved overland roads. Canals were dug in both Europe and North America to create maritime corridors between existing waterways. Steam engines were recognized as useful in locomotion, resulting in the emergence of the steamboat in the early 19th century. High-pressure steam engines also powered railroad locomotives, which operated in Britain after 1825. Railways spread rapidly across Europe and North America, extending to Asia in the latter half of the 19th century. Railroads became one of the world’s leading industries as they expanded the frontiers of industrial society.

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Related Resources

Technology over the long run: zoom out to see how dramatically the world can change within a lifetime

It is easy to underestimate how much the world can change within a lifetime. considering how dramatically the world has changed can help us see how different the world could be in a few years or decades..

Technology can change the world in ways that are unimaginable until they happen. Switching on an electric light would have been unimaginable for our medieval ancestors. In their childhood, our grandparents would have struggled to imagine a world connected by smartphones and the Internet.

Similarly, it is hard for us to imagine the arrival of all those technologies that will fundamentally change the world we are used to.

We can remind ourselves that our own future might look very different from the world today by looking back at how rapidly technology has changed our world in the past. That’s what this article is about.

One insight I take away from this long-term perspective is how unusual our time is. Technological change was extremely slow in the past – the technologies that our ancestors got used to in their childhood were still central to their lives in their old age. In stark contrast to those days, we live in a time of extraordinarily fast technological change. For recent generations, it was common for technologies that were unimaginable in their youth to become common later in life.

The long-run perspective on technological change

The big visualization offers a long-term perspective on the history of technology. 1

The timeline begins at the center of the spiral. The first use of stone tools, 3.4 million years ago, marks the beginning of this history of technology. 2 Each turn of the spiral represents 200,000 years of history. It took 2.4 million years – 12 turns of the spiral – for our ancestors to control fire and use it for cooking. 3

To be able to visualize the inventions in the more recent past – the last 12,000 years – I had to unroll the spiral. I needed more space to be able to show when agriculture, writing, and the wheel were invented. During this period, technological change was faster, but it was still relatively slow: several thousand years passed between each of these three inventions.

From 1800 onwards, I stretched out the timeline even further to show the many major inventions that rapidly followed one after the other.

The long-term perspective that this chart provides makes it clear just how unusually fast technological change is in our time.

You can use this visualization to see how technology developed in particular domains. Follow, for example, the history of communication: from writing to paper, to the printing press, to the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, all the way to the Internet and smartphones.

Or follow the rapid development of human flight. In 1903, the Wright brothers took the first flight in human history (they were in the air for less than a minute), and just 66 years later, we landed on the moon. Many people saw both within their lifetimes: the first plane and the moon landing.

This large visualization also highlights the wide range of technology’s impact on our lives. It includes extraordinarily beneficial innovations, such as the vaccine that allowed humanity to eradicate smallpox , and it includes terrible innovations, like the nuclear bombs that endanger the lives of all of us .

What will the next decades bring?

The red timeline reaches up to the present and then continues in green into the future. Many children born today, even without further increases in life expectancy, will live well into the 22nd century.

New vaccines, progress in clean, low-carbon energy, better cancer treatments – a range of future innovations could very much improve our living conditions and the environment around us. But, as I argue in a series of articles , there is one technology that could even more profoundly change our world: artificial intelligence (AI).

One reason why artificial intelligence is such an important innovation is that intelligence is the main driver of innovation itself. This fast-paced technological change could speed up even more if it’s driven not only by humanity’s intelligence but also by artificial intelligence. If this happens, the change currently stretched out over decades might happen within a very brief time span of just a year. Possibly even faster. 4

I think AI technology could have a fundamentally transformative impact on our world. In many ways, it is already changing our world, as I documented in this companion article . As this technology becomes more capable in the years and decades to come, it can give immense power to those who control it (and it poses the risk that it could escape our control entirely).

Such systems might seem hard to imagine today, but AI technology is advancing quickly. Many AI experts believe there is a real chance that human-level artificial intelligence will be developed within the next decades, as I documented in this article .

Technology will continue to change the world – we should all make sure that it changes it for the better

What is familiar to us today – photography, the radio, antibiotics, the Internet, or the International Space Station circling our planet – was unimaginable to our ancestors just a few generations ago. If your great-great-great grandparents could spend a week with you, they would be blown away by your everyday life.

What I take away from this history is that I will likely see technologies in my lifetime that appear unimaginable to me today.

In addition to this trend towards increasingly rapid innovation, there is a second long-run trend. Technology has become increasingly powerful. While our ancestors wielded stone tools, we are building globe-spanning AI systems and technologies that can edit our genes.

Because of the immense power that technology gives those who control it, there is little that is as important as the question of which technologies get developed during our lifetimes. Therefore, I think it is a mistake to leave the question about the future of technology to the technologists. Which technologies are controlled by whom is one of the most important political questions of our time because of the enormous power these technologies convey to those who control them.

We all should strive to gain the knowledge we need to contribute to an intelligent debate about the world we want to live in. To a large part, this means gaining knowledge and wisdom on the question of which technologies we want.

Acknowledgments: I would like to thank my colleagues Hannah Ritchie, Bastian Herre, Natasha Ahuja, Edouard Mathieu, Daniel Bachler, Charlie Giattino, and Pablo Rosado for their helpful comments on drafts of this essay and the visualization. Thanks also to Lizka Vaintrob and Ben Clifford for the conversation that initiated this visualization.

Appendix: About the choice of visualization in this article

The recent speed of technological change makes it difficult to picture the history of technology in one visualization. When you visualize this development on a linear timeline, then most of the timeline is almost empty, while all the action is crammed into the right corner:

In my large visualization here, I tried to avoid this problem and instead show the long history of technology in a way that lets you see when each technological breakthrough happened and how, within the last millennia, there was a continuous acceleration of technological change.

The recent speed of technological change makes it difficult to picture the history of technology in one visualization. In the appendix, I show how this would look if it were linear.

It is, of course, difficult to assess when exactly the first stone tools were used.

The research by McPherron et al. (2010) suggested that it was at least 3.39 million years ago. This is based on two fossilized bones found in Dikika in Ethiopia, which showed “stone-tool cut marks for flesh removal and percussion marks for marrow access”. These marks were interpreted as being caused by meat consumption and provide the first evidence that one of our ancestors, Australopithecus afarensis, used stone tools.

The research by Harmand et al. (2015) provided evidence for stone tool use in today’s Kenya 3.3 million years ago.

References:

McPherron et al. (2010) – Evidence for stone-tool-assisted consumption of animal tissues before 3.39 million years ago at Dikika, Ethiopia . Published in Nature.

Harmand et al. (2015) – 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya . Published in Nature.

Evidence for controlled fire use approximately 1 million years ago is provided by Berna et al. (2012) Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa , published in PNAS.

The authors write: “The ability to control fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution, but the question of when hominins first developed this ability still remains. Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence—in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains—that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately 1.0 Ma. To the best of our knowledge, this is the earliest secure evidence for burning in an archaeological context.”

This is what authors like Holden Karnofsky called ‘Process for Automating Scientific and Technological Advancement’ or PASTA. Some recent developments go in this direction: DeepMind’s AlphaFold helped to make progress on one of the large problems in biology, and they have also developed an AI system that finds new algorithms that are relevant to building a more powerful AI.

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Globalization of Technology: International Perspectives (1988)

Chapter: the technology revolution and the restructuring of the global economy, the technology revolution and the restructuring of the global economy.

UMBERTO COLOMBO

T HE WORLD IS IN THE THROES OF A TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION that differs from the periodic waves of technical change that have marked the progress of industrial society since its origins 200 years ago. A shift is occurring in the sociotechnological paradigm that underlies our current sophisticated industrial structure. This old paradigm consists of the mass production of essentially standardized goods in ever-larger units; an emphasis on quantitative goals for production, requiring ever higher inputs of capital, energy, and raw materials to produce more and more; and little attention to environmental impact, resource use, and conservation issues. In contrast, the new paradigm taking shape is identified with an emphasis on quality and diversification of products and processes, diffusion of small but highly productive units that rely on new technologies and are linked to a process of decentralization of production, adoption of process and product choices requiring far less energy and materials input per unit of output, and a greater awareness of the need to preserve the quality of local and global environments.

Thus, we are in a period of transition between two epochs, a time comparable to the industrial revolution, when the steam engine was introduced and coal was the emerging energy source. Then, as now, there was widespread fear of the future, a fear derived from the difficulty of even imagining the range of opportunities that an ongoing revolution brings in terms of new activities and related jobs.

During a transition of this magnitude, past equilibria are disrupted and conditions of mismatch occur in labor markets. The demand for new jobs and skills increases, and old activities disappear or lose their importance in the marketplace. These changes are visible; their impact is almost immediate. It is now clear that the paper-free office is going to be widespread in a few

decades, and in fact, we can see its beginnings with increased office automation, the spread of word processors, and the adoption of integrated workstations. The human-free factory is also in sight. With increasing automation and robotization, it is not only blue-collar jobs that will be eliminated. The change is more profound. We are witnessing the sharpened decline of the factory as the primary function and chief labor-absorber in industry. Research and development (R&D), marketing, finance, corporate strategy, legal affairs—functions that previously were to a certain extent ancillary to production—are assuming the center of the stage. Now manufacturing itself becomes ancillary and often even a candidate for contracting out.

This does not mean, however, that manufacturing technologies are becoming secondary in importance. The contrary is true, and here, too, history offers a parallel. Today’s situation presents an analogy with the position of agriculture after the industrial revolution. All through the history of industrial society, agriculture improved its output and productivity enormously, although it no longer dominated the economy and was not the main source of jobs as it once had been. Industry will repeat this pattern, as the transition to a postindustrial, service-oriented society is completed.

The present era of change is being brought about by a whole cluster of technologies, some of which have an exceptional capacity for horizontal diffusion in all sectors of the economy and society and an equally exceptional capacity for cross-fertilization. Key technologies in this category include the microelectronics-information technologies complex, the biotechnologies, and the new materials science.

This process of technological change spurs structural changes in the economy and society. Mature sectors (such as machine tools and textiles) can be rejuvenated by grafting new technologies onto their processes and products. When this rejuvenation occurs in industrialized countries, these traditional sectors take the lead in international competition. Italy is a case in point, since Italian prosperity is in no small measure due to the restored competitiveness of such sectors. These sectors demonstrate a highly flexible approach to production, making possible less standardized products specifically designed to satisfy the tastes and needs of customers. They also demonstrate considerable creativity through attention to design factors and closer links to the market and its fluctuations, attentiveness to moods and fashions with highly imaginative marketing, and a capacity to absorb new technology and indeed to interact with it to generate improvements and adaptations.

The fact that in Italy these sectors tend to consist of dynamic, small- to medium-size firms organized in industrial districts is extremely important. Such districts operate as coalitions of competitors, interdependent yet united by a common goal. This pattern encourages the diffusion of technology through all firms in the district. This is in marked contrast to experience elsewhere when competing firms tend to keep technological advances closely

to themselves in the hope of retaining competitive advantage. Ideally, rejuvenation of mature sectors is a “bottom up” process, though in Italy, for example, the European Nuclear Energy Agency offers a significant “top down” contribution in terms of information, expertise, support research and development, and project management.

Mature sectors that undergo such technological renewal and then strive continually to keep abreast of technological developments and market trends can retain competitiveness even in the face of increasing international competition. This pattern is one of the elements suggesting that long-established concepts of comparative advantage and ensuing international division of labor must be challenged. In today’s new economic environment, the availability of abundant, low-cost raw materials and a pool of cheap labor is no longer enough to ensure market advantage to developing countries. But the emerging technologies are not the exclusive domain of advanced countries, and their intelligent application in developing countries may speed up their economic growth and open possibilities for decentralized patterns of development.

Until recently in the advanced countries, the main technological innovations in production have involved mass production and standardization. The emerging technologies make it possible to give an effective answer to the demand for diversification, product customization, and personalization. Thus, the structure of supply is becoming more flexible and innovative. In other words, it is now possible to combine small-scale production units with high productivity and high quality efficiently at increasingly accessible prices. We may therefore say that small becomes beautiful again, although not in the sense that E.F.Schumacher used this phrase in the early 1970s.

The pace of innovation is extremely rapid. No individual firm or country can hope to gain or retain technological and market superiority in any given area for long. The pressure of competition and the rapid spread of production capabilities, innovative ideas, and new patterns of demand compel companies to measure themselves against rival firms at home and abroad early in the production cycle, and then rapidly exploit, in the widest possible market, any competitive advantages that arise from a lead in innovation.

We are witnessing a compression of the time scale by which new technology is introduced, with ever-shorter intervals between discovery and application. This compression is especially apparent in microelectronics and the information technologies, sectors in which international competition and academic and industrial research activities are intense. This phenomenon is widely visible though not universal. In some sectors (specifically, though not exclusively, those involving the life sciences) longer periods are imposed by the need for testing to satisfy regulatory criteria. Examples here come from the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries.

Simultaneously, firms acquire more strategic space in which to operate. In the past, the smaller the firm, the narrower its natural geographic horizon.

Today it is possible for both large and small firms to think in global terms. This new perspective implies the need for all interests, large and small, to seek arrangements such as transnational mergers, joint venture agreements, consortia, and shared production and licensing agreements with other companies. The partners often bring complementary assets: investment capital, market shares in different geographic areas, technological capabilities in adjacent domains, and different strategic approaches to advance innovation. In this way returns in different countries can be maximized rapidly. This worldwide change is being spearheaded by the industrial democracies—the countries that possess major resources in science and technology, innovative capability, and investment capital.

Today’s technology is becoming more and more scientific. Not only is it created and developed on scientific bases, but it also generates fundamental scientific knowledge. The discovery of new superconducting materials, for example, is simultaneously a great scientific achievement that implies fundamental advances in our understanding of the behavior of matter in the solid state and a technological invention that is immediately open to extraordinary applications in many fields, from energy transmission to computers and from high-field magnets to nuclear fusion. The development of artificial intelligence is another example of the increasingly scientific nature of technology; this effort requires the cooperation of the most disparate disciplines and in turn holds the potential for application in a wide variety of fields. These examples illustrate how the narrow, specialized, compartmentalized ways in which problems typically were approached in the past are giving way to a more global approach that breaks down the barriers of single disciplines to obtain a unified, cross-disciplinary vision.

Another unique aspect of the present technological revolution is that it brings about a dematerialization of society. In a sense, dematerialization is the logical outcome of an advanced economy in which material needs are substantially saturated. Throughout history there has been a direct correlation between increases in gross domestic product and consumption of raw materials and energy. This is no longer automatically the case. In today’s advanced and affluent societies, each successive increment in per capita income is linked to an ever-smaller rise in quantities of raw materials and energy used. According to estimates by the International Monetary Fund, the amount of industrial raw materials needed for one unit of industrial production is now no more than two-fifths of what it was in 1900, and this decline is accelerating. Thus, Japan, for example, in 1984 consumed only 60 percent of the raw materials required for the same volume of industrial output in 1973.

The reason for this phenomenon is basically twofold. Increases in consumption tend to be concentrated on goods that have a high degree of value added, goods that contain a great deal of technology and design rather than

raw materials, and nonmaterial goods such as tourism, leisure activities, and financial services. In addition, today’s technology is developing products whose performance in fulfilling desired functions is reaching unprecedented levels. For example, it is now possible to invent new energy sources that have energy densities far exceeding those of raw materials. One kilogram of uranium can produce the same amount of energy as 13 U.S. tons of oil or 19 U.S. tons of coal, and in telecommunications 1 ton of copper wire can now be replaced by a mere 25 or so kilograms of fiberglass cable, which can be produced with only 5 percent of the energy needed to produce the copper wire it replaces. Decoupling of the amount of raw material needed for a given unit of economic output, income generation, and consumption of raw materials and energy is an essential element in the dematerialization process.

But present trends go beyond this. Dematerialization also includes the emergence of what has been called an “information society.” The speed of information flow and its impact on the rate of innovation and diffusion and the capacity to overcome barriers have enormous implications.

World society is becoming more open; interdependence is increasing. World trade in goods and services has reached $3 trillion. This is certainly a high figure, but surprisingly, it is more than an order of magnitude lower than the volume of foreign currency transactions ($35 trillion) and of the estimated annual turnover of the London financial market alone ($75 trillion, or 25 times greater than the entire world’s visible trade). This is part of what is increasingly being termed the globalization of business and finance.

The comparison between the various forms of trade and transactions is, however, a matter of concern. It might be an indication that conditions for profit increasingly are more favorable in financial speculation than in capital investment in a world that still greatly needs economic growth and opportunities for employment. The alarming indebtedness of developing countries and the massive transfer of resources to advanced economies in interest payments are another facet of this problem.

But globalization affects all sectors of the economy. As noted earlier, the present wave of innovation, technological and otherwise, is spearheaded by the industrial democracies: the countries of North America, Western Europe, and Japan. Kenichi Ohmae (1985) refers to this as the emergence of the “triad,” and advocates a strategy of cross-cultural alliances in the industrial and business communities that will allow innovative companies from the three corners of the triad to become real powers, thus shaping a new pattern of global competition.

In this context, protectionism and defensive attitudes are losing bets. It is not by chance that even a superpower—the USSR—that had built barriers around itself and was striving to compete and advance by planning its economy in isolation is now being forced to come to terms with this new reality

and open up to the opportunities afforded by technological change. The implications of Gorbachev’s new course for the organization of Soviet society are immense, and the bureaucratic resistance to change is likely to be tough. In the largest developing country—the People’s Republic of China—a similar process is taking place, demonstrating that the new advances present immediate opportunities not only for already industrialized countries but for all nations.

In considering the triad, it is important to note that each of its three cornerstones faces problems. The United States retains its lead in the creation and development of the more important emergent technologies, and signs are that it will continue to do so for some time. But the size of the federal budget deficit and the size of the trade deficit, as well as the process of deindustrialization in many traditional sectors that were once the powerhouse of the U.S. economy, are surely causes for concern.

Japan is exceptionally good at exploiting the new technologies and creating large-scale applications for diverse markets. Yet the Japanese, too, are seriously worried, as can be deduced from Japanese reports calling for improved economic and scientific strategies. There are several reasons for their apprehension. Their economic success has been built on an excessive dependence on exports. Profits have been reinvested in industry at home, and the resulting overcapacity has spurred in a vicious circle the need for an even better performance abroad. Given the Japanese people’s high propensity to save, the domestic economy is finding it increasingly difficult to consume the income they generate. Meanwhile, the Japanese government’s inability to redress the country’s chronic balance of payments surplus leads to recurrent threats of retaliation from exasperated, less competitive trading partners.

The yen/dollar exchange rate implies that Japan has the highest per capita income in the world, yet few would deny that the living standards of ordinary people do not reflect this fact. Part of the production capacity devoted to promotion of exports needs to be switched to expansion of social infrastructures and improvement in the quality of life. The housing stock, the environment, and infrastructures in the less favored regions are all in need of upgrading.

With an economy long oriented toward “creative copying” and finding applications for advances achieved elsewhere, Japan admits a lack of individual creativity among its people, especially in the basic sciences. This is a by-product of a culture and an education system that instill virtues of obedience and teamwork rather than initiative and individualism. The future of Japanese technology must be based on independent effort in fundamental research and not on the import of technology from more advanced countries, as during the century-long process of catching up that began with the Meiji Restoration. Savings and consumption patterns will have to alter. All this is likely to mean major changes in the education system, a new role for the

young in what has been a traditionally hierarchical society, and wider opportunities for women (still a significantly smaller part of the labor force in Japan than in any other industrialized country).

Western Europe, on the other hand, appears less oriented toward the future. On the whole, the economies of Western European countries are less concentrated on advanced sectors and are more balanced in their strengths. High-tech sectors are not the most aggressive elements in their economies, even though some of these sectors constitute areas of strength—nuclear energy, aerospace, and robotics. Overall, Europe is too weak in certain critical areas of microelectronics and information technology—for example, in basic electronic components, very-large-scale integration technology, and supercomputers. The most negative aspects of the situation in Europe are a lack of cohesion in many emergent sectors, inadequate infrastructures, and a dispersed and fragmented market.

Europe’s cultural heritage, its deep-rooted traditions in the arts and craftsmanship, and the availability of welfare provisions—care and assistance for the individual citizen, typical of the “welfare state”—are equally distinctive characteristics. They give European nations an edge over the United States and Japan in applying new technologies to traditional industrial and services sectors and in creating diversified, personalized products in response to market needs. Productivity of labor has risen in Europe, although to the detriment of full employment, and so has product and process flexibility. Europe’s reputation for quality products is being maintained increasingly through the adoption and adaptation of new technologies in their production.

Globalization is moving faster than the long-heralded political and economic unification of Europe. Global competition came about suddenly, and it caught Europe off guard. These two unifying processes—on the one hand, the European Economic Community (EEC) and, on the other, the global economy—are now developing side by side; in some areas they are competing. Where the European firm is an acknowledged leader in an advanced sector, these processes run in tandem; where the reverse is true, European considerations tend to take second place.

Many European firms are seriously at risk of being left behind in this competition by becoming the weak link in the triad, a link that provides ideas, labor, services, and markets but essentially leaves strategic initiatives to their U.S. and Japanese partners. Europe is a divided continent and, considering only the EEC, an uneasy mix of old, established, industrialized countries and others in which rural cultures and outlooks still prevail. Policies to pump subsidies into ailing agriculture, declining industrial sectors, and overstretched nonmarket services such as public sector health care, road and rail networks, postal services, and primary and secondary education—Europe’s first response to the economic crises of the 1970s—are proving difficult to remove.

Basic scientific research is still in good shape in Europe, and individual scientists and relatively small, high-level research groups produce excellent results. The few large, cohesive research teams that were created in Europe in certain areas of scientific research, such as the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in high-energy physics, are highly competitive. Europe even occupies a leading position in some important industrial sectors: precision machine tools, electronic instrumentation, pharmaceuticals, and fine chemicals. In general, however, European industry still tends to think in terms of closed markets with the survival, wherever possible, of producer cartels. Public procurement policies remain largely at the level of single nations; this is a serious obstacle to a more active, relevant role in the world economy. There are, however, heartening signs that Europe is becoming more aware of its weaknesses in this area. Initiatives in science and technology are being undertaken at the EEC level and, separately, in the ambit of the so-called EUREKA program of coordinated, transnational research and development in advanced sectors.

An interdependent and more open world society will lend itself best to the challenge of innovation. The world needs much more material growth; the world population has reached 5 billion and will increase to 8 billion in 2050 before it stabilizes at something under 10 billion. The increase will take place almost entirely in the Third World. A quarter of the world’s population now inhabits today’s industrialized countries, but this proportion will fall to less than 20 percent in 50 years. The inhabitants of industrialized countries already consume three-quarters of the world’s energy and mineral resources. It is difficult to imagine that disparity on this scale can continue far into the next century.

It is essential for world society that the existing gap between North and South be narrowed. This narrowing should be seen not only as a moral obligation for prosperous nations but also as in their own long-term interest. Development in the Third World will create areas of complementary production that will expand and broaden the international economy. This will, in turn, generate new markets for tradable goods and services, thus replacing today’s frenetic paper market in financial instruments. If present trends continue, this market is bound to increase the disparity between the rich and the poor in the world and hamper investment in industry and other productive activities.

Patterns of development for the Third World need not follow those set by today’s industrial economies. Available new technologies (for example, in agriculture, rural industrialization, and education and for the delivery of services) make it possible to achieve a more balanced growth without the exaggerated and disorderly urbanization and subsequent unemployment and other social ills now occurring in much of the Third World.

In this optimistic vision of the future, multinational enterprises are very

important, but not in the traditional sense. Globalization will be increasingly linked to innovation. Furthermore, many small and medium-sized multinational corporations will emerge, relying on alliances that draw on the experience and information available to partners in each market in which the alliances operate. The role of government will not diminish. This role will not necessarily be antagonistic but will provide overall strategic direction, infrastructure, monitoring of conditions for fair competition, and preservation of cultural heritage and environmental quality.

Thus, the availability of abundant raw materials and cheap labor are no longer key factors for success in the world market. New technologies restore vitality to certain sectors in industrialized countries, sectors that were hitherto viewed as almost certain candidates for relocation to the Third World. At the same time, developing countries now have available to them a whole set of new technologies that lend themselves to blending with traditional technologies and thereby make faster development possible across the board.

Those developing countries endowed with raw materials and energy may convert them into more valuable commodities, but unless they are able to master the technology needed to upgrade such commodities, they will derive little benefit from this primary transformation. Emphasis must therefore be placed on research and development and enhanced international cooperation, because it is not in the interest of advanced countries to keep the developing countries’ margins so low as to hamper their advancement and preclude their becoming healthy producers and active market forces. Whether this happens depends largely on the wealthier societies of North America, Western Europe, and Japan. Responsibility therefore lies with them.

Ohmae, K. 1985. Triad Power: The Coming Shape of Global Competition. New York: Free Press.

The technological revolution has reached around the world, with important consequences for business, government, and the labor market. Computer-aided design, telecommunications, and other developments are allowing small players to compete with traditional giants in manufacturing and other fields. In this volume, 16 engineering and industrial experts representing eight countries discuss the growth of technological advances and their impact on specific industries and regions of the world. From various perspectives, these distinguished commentators describe the practical aspects of technology's reach into business and trade.

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Home — Essay Samples — Information Science and Technology — Impact of Technology — How Technology Has Changed Our Lives

How Technology Has Changed Our Lives

• Categories: Impact of Technology

About this sample

Words: 1130 |

Updated: 9 November, 2023

Words: 1130 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Table of contents

Hook examples for technology essay, technology essay example.

• A Digital Revolution: Enter the era of smartphones, AI, and the Internet of Things, where technology is the driving force. Join me as we explore how technology has transformed our lives and the profound impact it has on society.
• An Intriguing Quote: Arthur C. Clarke once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Let's delve into the magical world of modern technology and how it shapes our daily existence.
• The Paradox of Connectivity: Technology promises to connect us, yet it can also lead to isolation. Explore with me the paradox of our hyperconnected world and how it affects our relationships, both online and offline.
• The Impact on Work and Leisure: Discover how technology has revolutionized our work environments, blurring the lines between office and home. Together, we'll examine the changing landscape of leisure and entertainment in the digital age.
• Looking Ahead: As technology continues to advance, what lies on the horizon? Join me in discussing the future implications of emerging technologies and how they will further reshape our world in the years to come.

The Dark Side of Technological Advancement

• Increased Bullying
• Lack of Privacy
• Constant Distraction

Balancing Technology in Our Lives

Works cited.

• Anderson, M. (2018). The Effects of Technology on Teenagers. Verywell Family.
• Brown, B. W., & Bobkowski, P. S. (2011). Older and newer media: Patterns of use and effects on adolescents’ health and well-being. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21(1), 95-113.
• Calvillo, D. P., & Downey, R. G. (2010). Mobile phones and interruption in college classrooms: Instructors’ attitudes, beliefs, and practices. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(2), 223-231.
• Clarke-Pearson, K., & O'Keeffe, G. (2011). The impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families. Pediatrics, 127(4), 800-804.
• Livingstone, S., & Smith, P. K. (2014). Annual research review: Harms experienced by child users of online and mobile technologies: The nature, prevalence and management of sexual and aggressive risks in the digital age. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 55(6), 635-654.
• Oulasvirta, A., Rattenbury, T., Ma, L., & Raita, E. (2012). Habits make smartphone use more pervasive. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 16(1), 105-114.
• Przybylski, A. K., & Weinstein, N. (2017). A large-scale test of the goldilocks hypothesis: Quantifying the relations between digital-screen use and the mental well-being of adolescents. Psychological Science, 28(2), 204-215.
• Rosen, L. D., Lim, A. F., Carrier, L. M., & Cheever, N. A. (2011). An empirical examination of the educational impact of text message-induced task switching in the classroom: Educational implications and strategies to enhance learning. Psicologia Educativa, 17(2), 163-177.
• Schulte, B. (2018). The human costs of bringing smartphones to every student. The Atlantic.
• Twenge, J. M., Joiner, T. E., Rogers, M. L., & Martin, G. N. (2018). Increases in depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among US adolescents after 2010 and links to increased new media screen time. Clinical Psychological Science, 6(1), 3-17.

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Essay on Rise of Technology

Students are often asked to write an essay on Rise of Technology in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Rise of Technology

The advent of technology.

Technology has been evolving since mankind’s early days. From simple tools to advanced computers, the rise of technology has been remarkable.

Technology and Daily Life

Today, technology is an integral part of our daily life. It has made tasks easier, saving us time and effort.

Technology in Education

In education, technology has revolutionized learning. It made information accessible to everyone, promoting a more inclusive learning environment.

Future of Technology

The future of technology holds immense possibilities. It continues to evolve, promising to make our lives even more convenient.

250 Words Essay on Rise of Technology

The advent of the technological era, accelerating pace of innovation.

The technological revolution has been a gradual process, but the pace has significantly accelerated over the past few decades. The advent of the Internet, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technology are testament to this. These innovations have disrupted various sectors, from commerce and communication to healthcare and education, altering our interaction with the world.

Implications of Technological Advancements

The implications of the rise of technology are profound. It has democratized information, bridging the gap between different societal strata. However, it also presents challenges such as data privacy concerns and the digital divide. The key lies in harnessing technology responsibly and ethically.

The Future of Technology

The future of technology looks promising, with advancements like quantum computing and nanotechnology on the horizon. These developments will further revolutionize our lives, paving the way for a future that is as exciting as it is unpredictable.

In conclusion, the rise of technology is a testament to human ingenuity and the quest for progress. It is a double-edged sword that presents both opportunities and challenges. As we stand on the brink of a new era, it is imperative to navigate this technological landscape with a balanced and informed approach.

500 Words Essay on Rise of Technology

The dawn of the digital age.

The rise of technology has been a defining characteristic of the 21st century. It is an era marked by rapid technological advancements, which have transformed every aspect of our lives, from communication to transportation, education, healthcare, and entertainment.

The Evolution of Technology

Technology and communication.

One of the most significant changes has been in the realm of communication. The rise of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram has revolutionized the way we interact with each other. These platforms have made it possible to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time. They have also given rise to a new form of communication, where the written word is supplemented with images, videos, and even emojis.

Technology and Education

Technology has also had a profound impact on education. The advent of online learning platforms has made education more accessible and flexible. It has democratized education, making it possible for anyone with an internet connection to access high-quality educational resources. This has also changed the traditional classroom setting, with more emphasis on interactive and collaborative learning.

Technology and Healthcare

The flip side of technology.

Despite its numerous benefits, the rise of technology has also raised several concerns. Privacy and data security issues have become more prevalent with the increase in digital data. The digital divide, the gap between those who have access to technology and those who do not, has become more pronounced. Moreover, the increased reliance on technology has raised questions about its impact on our mental and physical health.

The rise of technology has undoubtedly been transformative, impacting every facet of our lives. While it has brought numerous benefits, it has also raised several challenges. As we continue to embrace technology, it is crucial to address these challenges and ensure that technology serves as a tool for progress and prosperity, rather than a source of disparity and discontent. The future of technology is promising, and its potential is immense. However, it is up to us to harness this potential responsibly and sustainably.

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Essay on Industrial Revolution

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The Industrial Revolution marks a pivotal period in human history, fundamentally transforming the fabric of society, economy, and technology. Spanning from the late 18th to the early 19th century, it commenced in Britain and gradually proliferated across the globe. This essay delves into the essence, causes, key developments, and profound impacts of the Industrial Revolution, offering insights for students participating in essay writing competitions.

Industrial Revolution

The genesis of the Industrial Revolution can be traced back to Britain, fueled by a confluence of factors including agricultural advancements, population growth, financial innovations, and a surge in demand for goods. Agricultural improvements led to food surplus, supporting a burgeoning population that provided labor and created a market for industrial goods. Moreover, Britain’s political stability, patent laws, and access to vast resources due to its colonial empire set a fertile ground for industrial innovation.

Technological Innovations

At the heart of the Industrial Revolution were groundbreaking technological innovations that revolutionized manufacturing processes. The introduction of the steam engine by James Watt and the development of power looms significantly enhanced productivity, transitioning industries from manual labor to mechanized production. The iron and coal industries also saw major advancements, with the smelting process being vastly improved by Abraham Darby’s use of coke, leading to stronger and cheaper iron.

Impact on Society and Economy

The Industrial Revolution ushered in dramatic social and economic shifts. Urbanization escalated as people flocked to cities in search of employment in factories, giving rise to burgeoning urban centers. While the revolution generated wealth and propelled economic growth, it also introduced stark social disparities and challenging working conditions. Child labor, long working hours, and unsafe environments became prevalent issues, sparking movements for labor rights and reforms.

Impact on Society

• Urbanization: The Industrial Revolution led to a massive shift from rural areas to cities as people moved in search of employment in factories. This urbanization changed the social fabric, leading to the growth of urban centers and the emergence of a new urban working class.
• Labor Conditions: Factory work during the early Industrial Revolution was often characterized by long hours, low wages, and harsh working conditions. This led to labor protests and the eventual emergence of labor unions advocating for workers’ rights.
• Technological Advancements: The Industrial Revolution saw the development of new technologies and machinery that revolutionized production processes. Innovations like the steam engine and mechanized textile mills transformed industries and increased efficiency.
• Social Stratification: The gap between the wealthy industrialists and the working class widened during this period, resulting in increased social inequality. The emergence of a capitalist class and the growth of industrial capitalism contributed to this divide.
• Education and Literacy: The need for a skilled workforce led to greater emphasis on education. Public education systems began to develop, contributing to higher literacy rates among the population.
• Family Life: The traditional family structure evolved as men, women, and children worked in factories. Child labor, in particular, became a contentious issue, eventually leading to child labor laws and reforms.
• Social Reform Movements: The harsh conditions of industrialization fueled various social reform movements, including the women’s suffrage movement, the abolitionist movement, and efforts to improve public health and housing conditions.

Impact on the Economy

• Economic Growth: The Industrial Revolution fueled rapid economic growth as production processes became more efficient, leading to increased output of goods and services.
• New Industries: New industries and sectors emerged, such as textiles, coal mining, iron and steel production, and transportation. These industries became the backbone of the modern economy.
• Global Trade: The Industrial Revolution facilitated global trade by improving transportation and communication networks. The expansion of railways, canals, and steamships allowed for the movement of goods on a larger scale.
• Entrepreneurship: The period saw the rise of entrepreneurship, with individuals and companies investing in new ventures and technologies. Innovators like James Watt and George Stephenson played pivotal roles in the development of steam power and transportation.
• Financial Institutions: The growth of industry led to the expansion of financial institutions, including banks and stock exchanges, to support investment and capital accumulation.
• Capitalism and Market Economies: The Industrial Revolution played a significant role in the development of capitalism and market-driven economies, with private ownership of means of production and the pursuit of profit as driving forces.
• Labor Markets: Labor markets evolved as people migrated to urban areas in search of work. The supply of labor increased, impacting wages, labor laws, and the development of employment contracts.
• Consumer Culture: Mass production and improved transportation made consumer goods more accessible and affordable. This contributed to the rise of consumer culture and the growth of retail markets.

Transportation and Communication Breakthroughs

Transportation and communication underwent transformative changes, shrinking distances and fostering global interconnectedness. The construction of railways and the steam locomotive revolutionized travel and commerce, enabling faster movement of goods and people. Similarly, the telegraph, patented by Samuel Morse, allowed for instantaneous communication over long distances, laying the groundwork for the modern connected world.

Environmental and Global Implications

The Industrial Revolution had profound environmental impacts, with increased pollution and resource exploitation becoming notable concerns. The reliance on coal and the expansion of industries contributed to air and water pollution, foreshadowing contemporary environmental challenges. Globally, the revolution catalyzed industrialization in other countries, altering global trade patterns and establishing new economic hierarchies.

Cultural and Intellectual Responses

The Industrial Revolution also sparked a rich cultural and intellectual response, inspiring movements such as Romanticism, which critiqued the era’s industrialization and its disconnect from nature. Philosophers and economists, including Karl Marx and Adam Smith, analyzed its implications on class relations and economic systems, offering divergent perspectives on industrial capitalism.

The Second Industrial Revolution

Following the initial wave of industrialization, a Second Industrial Revolution emerged in the late 19th century, characterized by further technological advancements in steel production, electricity, and chemical processes. Innovations such as the internal combustion engine and the harnessing of electricity for lighting and motors opened new avenues for industrial and societal development.

Challenges and Reforms

The Industrial Revolution’s darker facets, such as exploitative labor practices and environmental degradation, elicited calls for reform. The establishment of labor unions and the enactment of laws to improve working conditions and limit child labor were critical steps towards addressing these issues. These reforms laid the groundwork for modern labor rights and environmental consciousness.

Legacy and Continuing Influence

The legacy of the Industrial Revolution is enduring, laying the foundations for modern industrial society and shaping the contemporary world. Its innovations spurred continuous technological progress, setting the stage for the information age and the current technological revolution. Moreover, it has left lasting imprints on societal structures, economic practices, and global relations.

In conclusion, The Industrial Revolution was not merely a period of technological innovation; it was a profound transformation that redefined human society, economy, and the environment. Its multifaceted impacts, from spurring economic growth and global interconnectedness to introducing social challenges and environmental concerns, underscore its complexity and significance. As students delve into the intricacies of the Industrial Revolution, they uncover the roots of modern society and the ongoing evolution shaped by this pivotal era in human history. This exploration not only enriches their understanding of the past but also offers valuable lessons for addressing the challenges and opportunities of the future.

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution heralds a series of social, political, cultural, and economic upheavals that will unfold over the 21st century. Building on the widespread availability of digital technologies that were the result of the Third Industrial, or Digital, Revolution, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be driven largely by the convergence of digital, biological, and physical innovations.

Like the First Industrial Revolution ’s steam-powered factories, the Second Industrial Revolution ’s application of science to mass production and manufacturing, and the Third Industrial Revolution’s start into digitization, the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s technologies, such as artificial intelligence, genome editing, augmented reality, robotics, and 3-D printing, are rapidly changing the way humans create, exchange, and distribute value. As occurred in the previous revolutions, this will profoundly transform institutions, industries, and individuals. More importantly, this revolution will be guided by the choices that people make today: the world in 50 to 100 years from now will owe a lot of its character to how we think about, invest in, and deploy these powerful new technologies.

It’s important to appreciate that the Fourth Industrial Revolution involves a systemic change across many sectors and aspects of human life: the crosscutting impacts of emerging technologies are even more important than the exciting capabilities they represent. Our ability to edit the building blocks of life has recently been massively expanded by low-cost gene sequencing and techniques such as CRISPR; artificial intelligence is augmenting processes and skill in every industry; neurotechnology is making unprecedented strides in how we can use and influence the brain as the last frontier of human biology; automation is disrupting century-old transport and manufacturing paradigms; and technologies such as blockchain , used in executing cryptocurrency transactions, and smart materials are redefining and blurring the boundary between the digital and physical worlds.

The result of all this is societal transformation at a global scale. By affecting the incentives, rules, and norms of economic life, it transforms how we communicate, learn, entertain ourselves, and relate to one another and how we understand ourselves as human beings. Furthermore, the sense that new technologies are being developed and implemented at an increasingly rapid pace has an impact on human identities, communities, and political structures. As a result, our responsibilities to one another, our opportunities for self-realization, and our ability to positively impact the world are intricately tied to and shaped by how we engage with the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This revolution is not just happening to us—we are not its victims—but rather we have the opportunity and even responsibility to give it structure and purpose.

As economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee have pointed out, this revolution could yield greater inequality , particularly in its potential to disrupt labor markets. As automation substitutes for labor across the entire economy, the net displacement of workers by machines might exacerbate the gap between returns to capital and returns to labor. On the other hand, it is also possible that the displacement of workers by technology will, in aggregate, result in a net increase in safe and rewarding jobs.

All previous industrial revolutions have had both positive and negative impacts on different stakeholders. Nations have become wealthier, and technologies have helped pull entire societies out of poverty, but the inability to fairly distribute the resulting benefits or anticipate externalities has resulted in global challenges. By recognizing the risks, whether cybersecurity threats, misinformation on a massive scale through digital media, potential unemployment, or increasing social and income inequality, we can take the steps to align common human values with our technological progress and ensure that the Fourth Industrial Revolution benefits human beings first and foremost.

We cannot foresee at this point which scenario is likely to emerge from this new revolution. However, I am convinced of one thing—that in the future, talent, more than capital, will represent the critical factor of production.

With these fundamental transformations underway today, we have the opportunity to proactively shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution to be both inclusive and human-centered. This revolution is about much more than technology—it is an opportunity to unite global communities, to build sustainable economies, to adapt and modernize governance models, to reduce material and social inequalities, and to commit to values-based leadership of emerging technologies.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is therefore not a prediction of the future but a call to action. It is a vision for developing, diffusing, and governing technologies in ways that foster a more empowering, collaborative, and sustainable foundation for social and economic development, built around shared values of the common good, human dignity, and intergenerational stewardship. Realizing this vision will be the core challenge and great responsibility of the next 50 years.

This essay was originally published in 2018 in Encyclopædia Britannica Anniversary Edition: 250 Years of Excellence (1768–2018).

How the AI Revolution Will Reshape the World

We are about to see the greatest redistribution of power in history.

Over millennia, humanity has been shaped by successive waves of technology. The discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, the harnessing of electricity—all were transformational moments for civilization. All were waves of technology that started small, with a few precarious experiments, but eventually they broke across the world. These waves followed a similar trajectory: breakthrough technologies were invented, delivered huge value, and so they proliferated, became more effective, cheaper, more widespread and were absorbed into the normal, ever-evolving fabric of human life. 

We are now facing a new wave of technology, centered around AI but including synthetic biology, quantum computing , and abundant new sources of energy. In many respects it will repeat this pattern. Yet it will also depart from it in crucial ways only now becoming clear. Amidst all the hype, the hope, the fear, I think the fundamentals are getting lost; the unique characteristics of this wave are getting missed in the noise. Understanding them, seeing what, exactly, is changing, is critical to understanding the future.

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AI is different from previous waves of technology because of how it unleashes new powers and transforms existing power. This is the most underappreciated aspect of the technological revolution now underway. While all waves of technology create altered power structures in their wake, none have seen the raw proliferation of power like the one on its way. 

Think of it like this. Previous era’s most powerful technologies were generally reserved to a small capital rich elite or national governments. Building a steam powered factory, an aircraft carrier or a nuclear power plant were costly, difficult and immense endeavors. With the leading technologies of our time, that’s no longer going to be true.  

If the last great tech wave—computers and the internet—was about broadcasting information, this new wave is all about doing . We are facing a step change in what’s possible for individual people to do, and at a previously unthinkable pace . AI is becoming more powerful and radically cheaper by the month—what was computationally impossible, or would cost tens of millions of dollars a few years ago, is now widespread.

These AIs will organize a retirement party and manage your diary, they will develop and execute business strategies, whilst designing new drugs to fight cancer. They will plan and run hospitals or invasions just as much as they will answer your email. Building an airline or instead grounding the entire fleet each becomes more achievable. Whether it’s commercial, religious, cultural, or military, democratic or authoritarian, every possible motivation you can think of can be dramatically enhanced by having cheaper power at your fingertips. These tools will be available to everyone, billionaires and street hustlers, kids in India and pensioners in Beverly Hills, a proliferation of not just technology but capability itself.

Read More: The Case Against AI Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

Power, the ability to accomplish goals, everywhere, in the hands of anyone who wants it. I’m guessing that’s going to be most people. This is far more empowering than the web ever was. 

And it’s coming faster than we can adequately prepare for. This is an age when the most powerful technologies are open-sourced in months, when millions have access to the cutting edge, and that cutting edge is the greatest force amplifier ever seen. This new era will create giant new businesses, empower a long tail of actors—good and bad—supercharge the power of some states, erode that of others. Whether a giant corporation or a start-up, an established party or an insurgent movement, a wild-eyed entrepreneur or a lone wolf with an ax to grind, here is an immense potential boost. Winners and losers will emerge quickly and unpredictably in this combustible atmosphere as power itself surges through the system. In short this represents the greatest reshuffling of power in history, all happening within the space of a few years.

Those most comfortable today look vulnerable. Even as the discourse around AI has reached a fever pitch, those with power today, the professional classes, feel shockingly unprepared for the disruptions and new formations of power this tumult will bring. They—the doctors, lawyers, accountants, business VPs—will not emerge unscathed, and yet most I speak to are still incredibly blasé about the changes afoot. It’s not just automated call centers. This wave will fundamentally reshape and reorder society and it is those with most to lose, reliant on established capital, expertise, authority and security architectures, who are precisely the most exposed.

I’ve seen this kind of willful blindness before. I call it “pessimism aversion”: a tendency to look away from sweeping technological change and what it really means. Until recently it was a common affliction of the Silicon Valley elite, many of whom pursued technological “disruption” without considering the likely outcomes. The arrival of generative AI and other AI products has started to change that. Although there is much further to go, leaders in Silicon Valley have begun taking a more proactive and precautionary approach to the development of the very largest AI models. But more widely it’s vital that societies facing this wave do not dismiss it as hot air, turn away, and get caught out. The preparation for what I call containment, a comprehensive program of managing these tools, needs to begin now. 

As we start to see power itself proliferating, its distribution and nature fundamentally changed, pessimism aversion is no answer. It’s time to confront the consequences of this shift in who can do what, when and how, understand what it means, and begin to plan for how we can control and contain it for everyone’s benefit. History can be a useful guide. But with AI, synthetic biology and the rest, we can be confident of one thing: we are facing the genuinely unprecedented. 

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Technology Revolution in Learning Essay

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Introduction

Technology for learning content, technology in instructional strategy and planning, technological equipment for education.

With the immense growth in technology and its application in various fields, it has become indispensable in the delivery of educational content, educational strategies, and equipment. Technology now plays a big role in increasing educational productivity as an enabling platform for educational planning, content delivery, and equipment (Desai, Hart, & Richards, 2004). With the Internet age, content delivery has been facilitated via e-learning, simulation, video conferencing, and virtual classes. Proper utilization of technology in learning does not replace conventional education but provides students with significant tools to be successful.

As technological growth advances, institutions step forward in their adoption of asynchronous and synchronous methodologies of delivering learning content (Desai, Hart, & Richards, 2004). This is through various available media like the Internet, virtual classes, video conferencing, educational blogs and social media. Here, educational content is posted on the institution’s website, communication devices, customized educational software and simulations (Bullen & Janes, 2007). Digitizing of educational content saves student-teacher time and the costs associated with print materials.

Technology is widely applied in various aspects of instructional strategy and planning (Aldridge, & Goldman, 2007). This is through administrative purposes for efficiency and effective communication, optimal decision making, accountability and operational efficiency. Technology facilitates a cycle of professional development, innovation, resource allocation and forecasting of future trends and resource needs. It is further applied in technical support, educational assessment and quality assurance (Dewey, 1938). Technology enriches the curriculum by providing an interactive and hands-on level platform that allows students to work for their success.

Technology offers numerous versatile platforms for delivery of educational and learning materials. This includes computing and mobile devices and the use of the Internet. With the world wide web, the available intellectual resources are increased by providing a dynamic learning environment (Desai, Hart, & Richards, 2004). There is the use of mobile web-enabled devices, notebooks, I-pads, laptops, smartphones and tablets with educational content. These devices have revolutionized communication, evaluation, education and management. With easy access to the Internet via the devices, students can easily access flexible e-learning (Bullen & Janes, 2007). This saves training costs in terms of time, hiring instructors, convenience and the costs involved in travelling for training. Companies further develop their own m-learning platforms for employee training to enhance their skills and productivity.

Advantages of technology use in education

• Technology helps enhance understanding through simulations and elaborate diagrams (Marzano, Pickering & Pollock, 2001).
• Technology helps students improve in areas of vocabulary, reading comprehension, conceptual facts and creativity.
• Use of technology improves student attitudes and interest. Visual and audio aids are vital for students with special needs (Johnson, Dupuis, Gollnick, Hall, & Musial, 2008).
• Technology enhances academic skills through communication and collaboration. Students are able to communicate across the globe and exchange ideas in social forums, blogs, at video conference and through social media (Pérez-Prado, & Thirunarayanan, 2005).
• Joint learning by students on computers facilitates understanding, self-esteem and attitude towards the process of learning.
• Web-multimedia content promotes interactive learning that surmounts the provisions of traditional static content hence distance learning is easier (Desai, Hart, & Richards, 2004).

The full adoption of technology by educational institutions has a significant impact on performance and grades. There are gains in the reduction of financial costs and operational efficiency in the educational system (Gutek, 2004). Technology presents a personalized platform that assists students to address their unique learning requirements. E-learning provides for equal and flexible access to higher education (Pérez-Prado, & Thirunarayanan, 2005). The use of technology in learning is extensive and influences or is influenced by the various educational stakeholders who should have consensus for technology change implementation.

Aldridge, J., & Goldman, R. (2007). Current issues and trends in education (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education. Web.

Bullen, M., & Janes, D. P. (2007). Making the transition to e-learning: Strategies and issues . Hershey, Pa. [u.a.: Information Science Pub. Web.

Desai, M. S., Hart, J., & Richards, T. C., (2004), E-learning Paradigm Shift in Education, Education 129 (2): 327-334. Web.

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education . New York, NY: Touchstone Books. Web.

Gutek, G. L. (2004). Philosophical and ideological voices in education . Boston, MA: Pearson Education. Web.

Johnson, J. A., Dupuis, V. L., Gollnick, D. M., Hall, G. E., & Musial, D. (2008). Foundations of American education: Perspectives on education in a changing world (14th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education. Web.

Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement . Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Web.

Pérez-Prado, A., & Thirunarayanan, M. O. (2005). Integrating technology in higher education . Lanham, Md. [u.a.: University Press of America. Web.

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Technological Revolutions and the Role of the State in the Governance of Digital Technologies

This essay is part of Global Cooperation on Digital Governance and the Geoeconomics of New Technologies in a Multi-polar World.

Introduction

The view that the role of the state in the economy is constant over time clashes with reality. Usually, those who perceive the state’s economic role as static espouse a theoretical view that states should intervene as little as possible in markets, except to correct occasional “market failures” in order to allocate resources efficiently. From a historical perspective, this constant, hands-off governmental 1 approach is apocryphal. What can be observed is a changing role of the state, which varies with the cyclical surges of technological change as well as of geopolitical (and ideological) inclinations. This conference paper discusses the former: how the role of the state changes along the life cycle of a technological revolution while also taking into account the latter.

Several scholars propose different ways to conceptualize the evolution of technical change in terms of technological or industrial eras. One approach is to contrast the technological developments since the eighteenth century, which came to define our current era of “industrial modernity” with the ways that society organized itself and the economy in the preceding (mostly) agrarian era (Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014; Schot and Kanger 2018). Another approach does not see the post-Industrial Revolution period as monolithic but identifies successive “long waves” of industrial or technological “revolutions” (Perez 2002; Schwab 2016, viii). These revolutions would follow distinctive and recurrent patterns of emergence, diffusion and consolidation, yet creating unique impacts on established structures (Perez 2002). Schot and Kanger (2018) provide a periodization that actually could be seen as a bridge between both approaches: in their view, the several technological revolutions of the past three centuries represent a first “deep transition” (from the agrarian era to industrial modernity) and we would be witnessing, due to a wave of breakthrough renewable energy technologies and green innovations (powered by disruptive digital technologies), the emergence of a second deep transition — this time, from industrial modernity to sustainable post-modernity. Despite their distinct perspectives on the cyclical nature of capitalist technological development, these authors tend to agree that the wave of digital innovation from the past 40 years has created challenges and opportunities — for incumbent firms, industries, regions and whole nations — posing new demands for the role of the state, particularly in relation to the governance of disruptive digital technologies.

My discussion of the role of the state is based on the periodization of technological revolutions proposed by Perez (2002) because of its comprehensiveness, level of conceptual detail and coherence, which provides a compelling picture of the long-term dynamics of capitalist technological development. Working in the neo-Schumpeterian long-wave (or Kondratiev cycle 2 ) tradition, Perez (ibid.) identifies five technological revolutions, each triggering “great surges of development” (GSD) (see Table 1): “the process by which a technological revolution and its paradigm [ 3 ] propagate across the economy, leading to structural changes in production, distribution, communication and consumption as well as to profound and qualitative changes in society” (ibid., 15). Perez (ibid.) sees the emergence and diffusion of each GSD as divided into two: initially, the emergence of a new revolution is led by financial capital, while, in the second half of the process, diffusion of the revolutionary innovations is promoted by the state (I will return to and detail this conceptualization in the section titled “The Perezian Techno-economic Cycle”).

Table 1: Five Great Surges of Growth and Five Major Technology Bubbles

The second conceptual anchoring for the discussion of the role of the state in the process of technological development is the notion of a “double movement” in capitalism, proposed by Polanyi (2001): the idea that contradictory forces govern capitalist development in a dialectical process (Fiori 2004). One force is based on liberalizing principles that promote the expansion of free markets; the other is based on social self-protection principles that keep this expansion constantly in check to protect society from the “ravages of this [free market] satanic mill” (Polanyi 2001, 73). While such forces are always in operation, they come to the fore and subside in different historical moments, so that Polanyi’s double movement can also be interpreted as a secular pendulum (Kretschmer 2019; Nölke and May 2019; Stewart 2010). Perez’s (2002) theory seems consistent with Polanyi’s double movement: indeed, I will argue that Perez (ibid.) offers an explanation of Polanyi’s political-economic double movement in terms of technological dynamics.

Against this background, I shall discuss two interrelated propositions:

• From a Polanyian perspective, since the 2000s, the world has moved toward a period of a proactive role of the state, most visible in the level of political and policy discourse (but also increasingly put into action).
• From a Perezian perspective, this new proactive role calls for specific regulations and investments to address technological externalities and social inequalities caused by and associated with the digital technologies of the fifth technological revolution (which is yet to be put into action).

The conference paper 4 is structured around these two propositions (sections titled “The Polanyian Pendulum” and “The Perezian Techno-economic cycle,” respectively), and concludes with a discussion of the implications for the prospects of global cooperation on digital governance.

The Polanyian Pendulum

Karl Polanyi (2001, 3–4) introduces his thesis of a capitalist “double movement” in the beginning of the first chapter of The Great Transformation : “Our thesis is that the idea of a self-adjusting market implied a stark Utopia. Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness. Inevitably, society took measures to protect itself, but whatever measures it took impaired the self-regulation of the market, disorganized industrial life, and thus endangered society in yet another way.”

Only in chapter 8 does Polanyi refer to this dynamic as a double movement and, later, in chapter 11, he explains that whenever “the market expands itself continuously […] this movement [is] met by a countermovement checking the expansion in definite directions” (ibid., 130). Polanyi’s double movement represents a constant dialectical process: “the two principles have material and social roots that coexist in a necessary, permanent and contradictory way within capitalism” (Fiori 2004, 60 [my translation]). Indeed, in the history of capitalism, the state was and is responsible for establishing rights and duties that define the limits of the free market (Chang 2002). The liberal market itself is embedded in social, political and cultural institutions (Granovetter 1985) that define its boundaries of free action, such as law and public order, execution of contracts, property rights, public goods, conditions of business conduct and economic regulations. Polanyi (2001, 140) is adamant that even in England, the cradle of capitalism, the free-market economy (what the author calls “ laissez-faire economy”) was produced by the deliberate action of the state: “The road to the free market was opened and kept open by an enormous increase in continuous, centrally organized and controlled interventionism.”

The capitalist double movement is often also interpreted as a secular pendulum, an idea that is rooted in Polanyi’s insight that “various countries of a widely dissimilar political and ideological configuration...each…passed through a period of free trade and laissez-faire , followed by a period of antiliberal legislation in regard to public health, factory conditions, municipal trading, social insurance, shipping subsidies, public utilities, trade associations, and so on. It would be easy to produce a regular calendar setting out the years in which analogous changes occurred in the various countries” (ibid., 147). This insight resulted in a stream of research that sought to identify the periods of laissez faire and the periods of interventionism. While the specific dates differ, the periods seem largely to coincide. Drawing on Burawoy (2010), Kretschmer (2019), Nölke and May (2019), and Stewart (2010), a periodization can be established for the Polanyian pendulum between the late eighteenth century and the early twenty-first century (Figure 1). Of course, the dates are approximate, because the forces are always in operation (it is a dialectical process), each slowly moving to the foreground or to the background (until certain events may catapult one or the other to prominence).

Figure 1: The Swings of the Polanyian Pendulum

While the identification of the first three periods of “social self-protection” and of laissez faire are based on an interpretation of those works, here I propose that the fourth period of social self-protection has started somewhen around 2010, or after the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007–2008. To be sure, this “new swing of the Polanyian pendulum” is discussed by other authors, such as Fiori (2004) and Kaldor (2018), who discuss a new “realist” period in the geopolitical dynamics. In this conference paper, I will, however, concentrate on the role of the state in the technological process and, therefore, in terms of innovation (and industrial) policy and regulation.

In Penna (2021), I argued that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic magnified those interrelated geopolitical and techno-economic trends, claiming that:

• The manufacturing global value chains overly dependent on China would eventually be a central target of national policy, which would aim at making the country’s economy less dependent on Chinese imports.
• Upgrading industrial structures and reshoring of value chains would become “the flavour of the month” in the policy makers’ menu of measures, i.e., a return to active industrial policy.
• Industrial and innovation policies would increasingly be “mission-oriented” (Mazzucato and Penna 2015), i.e., aimed not only at seizing technological opportunities associated with the new wave of disruptive digital technologies, but also at contributing to the solution of urgent societal challenges (such as mitigating climate change or caring for an aging population).
• As a consequence of the US-China technological and geopolitical competition, the policy space for multilateral governance of digital technologies would be diminished.

These speculations were a logical conclusion from the observed empirical trends (while also explained from the theoretical perspective of political economy). The new activist role of the state in innovation and technological policy is most visible in the policy discourse, as indicated by the number of governmental publications discussing how to ascertain “technological sovereignty” and make economies and value chains more resilient, while also focusing industrial and innovation strategies on the achievement of missions (Figure 2). 5

Governmental attention to industrial policy seems to have increased substantively in the aftermath of the GFC, reaching a peak in 2019, which is likely to be surpassed in 2021. Mission-oriented innovation policy received an impetus in 2018, which coincided with the publication of the European Commission’s “Mazzucato Report” (Mazzucato 2018). The catalyst effect of the COVID-19 pandemic seems most evident in the case of governmental attention to “technological sovereignty,” which was not mentioned in governmental documents in the Overton database before 2014 (except for one European Parliamentary Research Service report in 2011 on the impact of the GFC on European defence).

Figure 2: Government Documents Citing Technological Sovereignty, Mission-Oriented Research and Innovation, and Industrial Policy (2000–2021)

Concern with technological sovereignty at the EU level predates the pandemic (which is visible in Figure 1) and was triggered in 2019 by European Commission President (then elected) Ursula von der Leyen, who made the issue a priority in her presidential term (Cunningham 2020). Such prioritization of technological sovereignty will likely continue when France takes over the rotating presidency of the European Commission in January 2022, given French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent declarations (Macron, quoted in Kayali 2021) 6 on the need to ensure Europe’s “digital” and “technological” sovereignty. Macron also announced in October 2021 France’s own €30 billion technological and industrial plan to ensure the country’s domination of digital, robotic and genetic technologies. On the other side of the Atlantic, US President Joe Biden’s industrial and infrastructure plan can also be seen as a techno-economic sovereignty strategy that seeks to ensure the United States has the “most resilient, innovative economy in the world.” 7 Both the (French and US) plans are also “mission oriented,” as they seek to address climate change and other societal challenges.

These political discourses and policy plans expose a tension between the interests and strategies of different countries in terms of technological sovereignty, while revealing a new approach to the role of the state in the innovation process. This tension was evident in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when countries were holding back medical supplies for themselves: from China (O’Keeffe, Lin and Xiao 2020) 8 restricting exports of masks and other medical goods, to the United States supposedly “hijacking” (Ankel 2020; O Globo 2020) medical equipment shipped to third countries through US territory. These episodes show that, when a crisis looms, the actions of national governments suddenly become “realist” and any traces of the “liberal” international relations’ 9 rhetoric disappear: the nation-state and the interests and welfare of their citizens become the privileged frame of reference. But beyond the rhetoric of the political discourse and the action of active investments in new industries and technologies, what is the new role of the state in the governance and regulation of digital technologies? To address this question, we look at the Perezian techno-economic cycle (Perez 2002).

The Perezian Techno-economic Cycle

Perez (ibid., 36) calls the first half of the GSD the “installation period,...when the new technologies irrupt in a maturing economy and advance like a bulldozer disrupting the established fabric and articulating new industrial networks, setting up new infrastructures and spreading new and superior ways of doing things”; and the second half “the deployment period,...when the fabric of the whole economy is rewoven and reshaped by the modernizing power of the triumphant paradigm, which then becomes normal best practice, enabling the full unfolding of its wealth generating potential.”

Based on a historical analysis of the five surges, she further argues that, on the one hand, installation is led by financial capital, which thrives in free markets, while, on the other hand, deployment is promoted through state activism that supports production capital. This is the reason why the role of the state changes alongside a technological revolution: from a non-interventionist approach to the economy, facilitating entrepreneurial experimentation fuelled by financial capital, to a proactive leading role, promoting institutional change and investments to regulate negative externalities caused by new technologies, addressing inequalities and income polarization, and further supporting technological diffusion. Toward the end of a GSD, the role of the state becomes entrepreneurial itself, with public investments creating the very inventions that provide a fertile soil for the private entrepreneurial activity that will trigger the next technological revolution and GSD. This is the “entrepreneurial state” that Mazzucato (2013) talks about. What Perez does is to offer an explanation of the political-economic double movement identified by Polanyi that is linked to technological dynamics.

From the Perezian perspective, the new role of the state calls for an active approach to promote institutional changes (new laws and regulations), in order to address technological externalities and social inequalities caused by and associated with the digital technologies of the fifth technological revolution (or GSD). Or, to put it in a Polanyian “language”: to protect society from the ravages of the free-market “satanic mill.” In the fourth GSD — that of the automobile and mass production — the institutional recomposition and state activism started with then US president Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and, more crucially, with the new financial architecture provided by the Bretton Woods system. (The European reconstruction initiative known as the “Marshall Plan” can also be seen as part of this process, as can the developmental policies of Latin American and Asian countries).

In the fourth GSD, taming the externalities of the paradigm-carrying US automobile industry — the industrial sector that produces and disseminates the core technological innovation of the revolution, and thus establishes the “best practice” principles (i.e., the techno-economic paradigm) — required the establishment of new laws, which culminated with, for example, the US National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, which established mandatory safety standards for automobiles, and the US Clean Air Act of 1970, which mandated that automobiles would have to comply with stringent emission levels for carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons (Penna 2014). These laws established a new technological governance framework that further underscored the proactive role of the state in the second half of the fourth technological revolution (i.e., from the 1940s to the 1970s). It is such a technological governance framework that is absent from the current pro-state rhetoric, which mostly focuses on governance and regulatory aspects to assure technological sovereignty (with the notable exception of the case of data privacy 10 ).

Conclusion: Implications for Global Governance of Digital Technologies

Nowadays, the widespread diffusion of digital technologies is bringing about negative externalities in the form of disruption of established structures (work relations, business models, trade patterns). This potential disruption calls for a realignment of institutions and the establishment of a new governance system. Digital technologies result in many different types of issues, each creating a new demand for technological governance (Instituto Euvaldo Lodi et al. 2017):

• ethical (for example, the right to privacy and data confidentiality);
• proprietary (for example, ownership and access to data);
• industrial design (for example, the degree of autonomy of machines, which could become an issue of economic and political power);
• normative (for example, the establishment of open versus proprietary standards and of technical standards for tracking decisions, securing compatibility and retrofitting legacy systems);
• techno-economic (for example, support for the development of technical and organizational skills adapted to each production system); and
• socio-environmental (for example, rising unemployment due to robotization or the disposal of digital equipment, supplies and goods).

All such problems call for a new regulatory role of the state, and some of them may not be amenable to national regulations — they need a global framework if the problems are to be effectively addressed. Former US president Donald Trump’s discourse of distrust over the action and mandates of existing multilateral institutions (and threat to leave the World Health Organization and World Trade Organization) was at odds with the prospects of international agreements in the regulation of the digital economy. While it is expected that Biden will resort to a cooperative rhetoric, this benevolent discourse will likely disguise real action to safeguard the interests of the United States.

As I discuss in the section titled “The Polanyian Pendulum,” the current scenario is defined by increased realism in international relations, whereby nation-states will increasingly act to guarantee their own (economic, political, technological) sovereignty. The US-China technological and geopolitical competition that came to the fore of the global stage in the Barack Obama era and became most evident (until now) during the Trump years already indicated a diminishing policy space for multilateral governance of digital technologies (Penna 2021). The Annual Security Policy Forecast for 2021 by the Austrian Ministry of National Defence makes a scenario assessment that concludes that “the global strategic environment is moving towards deterioration into a fragmented, confrontational international environment with decreasing possibilities of steering at the global and regional levels” (Richter 2021, 55). Indeed, in this scenario, multilateralism tends “to assert the interests of the apparently benevolent liberal US hegemon” (Jedlaucnik 2021, 67).

In terms of digital technologies governance, what may be seen is a dispute between competing technological standards at the global level, for instance, for fifth-generation telecommunications technologies, but also for blockchain standards, data protection regulations or Internet of Things, for example. While a technological-standard tug of war between the United States and China is obvious, with the former trying to ascertain its techno-industrial prowess (and keep its status as technological leader) and the latter trying to advance its techno-industrial capabilities (and go beyond its status as the world’s manufacturing powerhouse to challenge the US technological leadership), we may also see the emergence of a European way for technological governance of digital technologies.

It was during the twentieth-century Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union that the world witnessed the “golden age” of capitalism — a period of widespread global welfare that Perez (2002) sees as a possibility for every second half of a technological revolution, as long as there is an adequate institutional framework to address the issues created in its first half. Thus, it could well be that during the current swing of the Polanyian pendulum we see a new global golden age. Yet, for that to happen, the role of national states will have to go beyond assuring narrowly defined technological sovereignty plans and promote a new institutional architecture that addresses the negative consequences of technologies and the socioeconomic inequalities at the global level.

• Despite important conceptual differences between “state” and “government” (and their derivations), I will use them as synonyms throughout this conference paper (unless otherwise specified).
• It was Joseph Schumpeter who named these capitalist cycles after Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev, who identified, based on statistical data, long-term periods of high economic growth followed by periods of relatively slow growth.
• Perez (2002) refers to a “techno-economic paradigm” as the best-practice principles of how to apply the technological revolution to continuously innovate or modernize the whole economy.
• The conference paper synthesizes and expands on the discussions in Penna (2021, forthcoming 2021).
• This section draws on the analysis in Penna (forthcoming 2021), which used the following search queries in the Overton database ( https://app.overton.io ): for technological sovereignty documents, (“technological sovereignty”); for value chain and industrial policy, (“industrial policy” and “value chain” or “supply chain”); for mission-oriented innovation policy, (“mission-oriented innovation” or “mission oriented research” or “mission oriented policy”). I restricted results to “government” as type source (excluding, for example, documents by policy think tanks). Overton claims to be “the world’s largest collection of policy documents, parliamentary transcripts, government guidance and think tank research.” While it is not expected to be complete, particularly for earlier years, it can provide an indication of governmental attention to certain topics in recent periods, which is the intended use here.
• See also Browne (2020).
• Quoted in www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/business/economy/biden-infrastructure-plan.html . See also Atlantic Council (2021).
• See Bradsher and Alderman (2020).
• On the different schools of international relations, see Snyder (2004).
• There is a parallel between the regulation of the externalities from the automobile and those from the digital technologies, which is discussed in Penna (2021). It is interesting that corporate scandals (for example, General Motors spying on consumer activist Ralph Nader and the “antitrust case of the century,” which showed that the American Big Three auto firms General Motors, Ford and Chrysler conspired not to develop emission-control technologies ahead of each other) played an important role in influencing public opinion in favour of the establishment of those regulations. Whether the latest Facebook “scandal” (Duffy 2021) will play such a role in the establishment of an online privacy and safety regulatory framework is yet to be seen.

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Originally published by the Project for Peaceful Competition .

The opinions expressed in this article/multimedia are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of CIGI or its Board of Directors.

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Technological Revolution in the 21 st Century: Digital Society vs. Artificial Intelligence

• Conference paper
• First Online: 03 November 2019
• Cite this conference paper

• Elena G. Popkova 11 &
• Kantoro Gulzat 12  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems ((LNNS,volume 91))

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Purpose : The purpose of the research is to determine the scenarios of socio-economic development of Russia under the influence of technological revolution in the 21 st century, until 2030.

Design/methodology/approach : The authors determine the causal connections of the technological revolution in the 21 st century with the help of the materials of a statistical collection of the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” “Digital economy – 2019”, which reflect the factors that restrain the usage of the Internet (as the most revolutionary technology of modern times) by the population.

Findings : It is substantiated that the technological revolution in the 21 st century is a very complex and variable process, which could take place according to one of the three scenarios, depending on formation of digital society and adoption of artificial intelligence. Scenario of deintellectualization is most probable in modern Russia, and its signs are seen as of now. It envisages low level of development of the digital society and low interest of consumers in artificial intelligence due to insufficient marketing support. That’s why investment flows will be redirected in favor of conventionally revolutionary (not providing completely new opportunities) intellectual technologies. Scenario of segmental intellectualization is also rather probably in Russia, as it is traditionally peculiar for the processes of innovative development of the Russian economy (e.g., it could be realized during dissemination of mobile communications). This scenario envisages elitism of artificial intelligence until 2030, due to its high cost. Scenario of intellectual breakthrough is most probable, but least probable in Russia. It is connected to mass dissemination of artificial intelligence – in entrepreneurship, consumption, and state management. The key condition of its implementation is active marketing support for artificial intelligence.

Originality/value : The described scenarios reduce uncertainty and open wide opportunities and perspectives for state management of technological revolution in modern Russia.

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The research has been performed with financial support from the Russian Foundation for Fundamental Research within scientific project No. 18-010-00103 A.

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Popkova, E.G., Gulzat, K. (2020). Technological Revolution in the 21 st Century: Digital Society vs. Artificial Intelligence. In: Popkova, E., Sergi, B. (eds) The 21st Century from the Positions of Modern Science: Intellectual, Digital and Innovative Aspects. ISC 2019. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 91. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32015-7_38

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Generative AI hype is ending – and now the technology might actually become useful

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Less than two years ago, the launch of ChatGPT started a generative AI frenzy. Some said the technology would trigger a fourth industrial revolution , completely reshaping the world as we know it.

In March 2023, Goldman Sachs predicted 300 million jobs would be lost or degraded due to AI. A huge shift seemed to be underway.

Eighteen months later, generative AI is not transforming business . Many projects using the technology are being cancelled, such as an attempt by McDonald’s to automate drive-through ordering which went viral on TikTok after producing comical failures . Government efforts to make systems to summarise public submissions and calculate welfare entitlements have met the same fate.

So what happened?

The AI hype cycle

Like many new technologies, generative AI has been following a path known as the Gartner hype cycle, first described by American tech research firm Gartner.

This widely used model describes a recurring process in which the initial success of a technology leads to inflated public expectations that eventually fail to be realised. After the early “peak of inflated expectations” comes a “trough of disillusionment”, followed by a “slope of enlightenment” which eventually reaches a “plateau of productivity”.

A Gartner report published in June listed most generative AI technologies as either at the peak of inflated expectations or still going upward. The report argued most of these technologies are two to five years away from becoming fully productive.

Many compelling prototypes of generative AI products have been developed, but adopting them in practice has been less successful. A study published last week by American think tank RAND showed 80% of AI projects fail, more than double the rate for non-AI projects.

Shortcomings of current generative AI technology

The RAND report lists many difficulties with generative AI, ranging from high investment requirements in data and AI infrastructure to a lack of needed human talent. However, the unusual nature of GenAI’s limitations represents a critical challenge.

For example, generative AI systems can solve some highly complex university admission tests yet fail very simple tasks . This makes it very hard to judge the potential of these technologies, which leads to false confidence.

After all, if it can solve complex differential equations or write an essay, it should be able to take simple drive-through orders, right?

A recent study showed that the abilities of large language models such as GPT-4 do not always match what people expect of them. In particular, more capable models severely underperformed in high-stakes cases where incorrect responses could be catastrophic.

These results suggest these models can induce false confidence in their users. Because they fluently answer questions, humans can reach overoptimistic conclusions about their capabilities and deploy the models in situations they are not suited for.

Experience from successful projects shows it is tough to make a generative model follow instructions. For example, Khan Academy’s Khanmigo tutoring system often revealed the correct answers to questions despite being instructed not to.

So why isn’t the generative AI hype over yet?

There are a few reasons for this.

First, generative AI technology, despite its challenges, is rapidly improving, with scale and size being the primary drivers of the improvement.

Research shows that the size of language models (number of parameters), as well as the amount of data and computing power used for training all contribute to improved model performance. In contrast, the architecture of the neural network powering the model seems to have minimal impact.

Large language models also display so-called emergent abilities , which are unexpected abilities in tasks for which they haven’t been trained. Researchers have reported new capabilities “emerging” when models reach a specific critical “breakthrough” size.

Studies have found sufficiently complex large language models can develop the ability to reason by analogy and even reproduce optical illusions like those experienced by humans. The precise causes of these observations are contested , but there is no doubt large language models are becoming more sophisticated.

So AI companies are still at work on bigger and more expensive models, and tech companies such as Microsoft and Apple are betting on returns from their existing investments in generative AI. According to one recent estimate , generative AI will need to produce US$600 billion in annual revenue to justify current investments – and this figure is likely to grow to US$1 trillion in the coming years.

For the moment, the biggest winner from the generative AI boom is Nvidia, the largest producer of the chips powering the generative AI arms race. As the proverbial shovel-makers in a gold rush, Nvidia recently became the most valuable public company in history, tripling its share price in a single year to reach a valuation of US$3 trillion in June.

What comes next?

As the AI hype begins to deflate and we move through the period of disillusionment, we are also seeing more realistic AI adoption strategies.

First, AI is being used to support humans, rather than replace them. A recent survey of American companies found they are mainly using AI to improve efficiency (49%), reduce labour costs (47%) and enhance the quality of products (58%)

Second, we also see a rise in smaller (and cheaper) generative AI models , trained on specific data and deployed locally to reduce costs and optimise efficiency. Even OpenAI, which has led the race for ever-larger models, has released the GPT-4o Mini model to reduce costs and improve performance.

Third, we see a strong focus on providing AI literacy training and educating the workforce on how AI works, its potentials and limitations, and best practices for ethical AI use. We are likely to have to learn (and re-learn) how to use different AI technologies for years to come.

In the end, the AI revolution will look more like an evolution. Its use will gradually grow over time and, little by little, alter and transform human activities. Which is much better than replacing them.

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How healthcare can leverage the hype to manage the ai revolution.

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Dr. Michal Tzuchman Katz, M.D., CEO and cofounder at Kahun Medical .

When we think of generative AI’s (GenAI) ongoing hot streak, it’s easy for industry outsiders to forget that the underlying technology behind the boom is not entirely perfect, especially when it is already making a sizable impact in so many different realms.

Industries such as fintech, cybersecurity, e-commerce and more have been the big winners thus far in generative AI, adding distinct value and convenience to their operations. But what about healthcare?

Although GenAI shows the most promise and potential out of any other technological novelty offered to the healthcare industry, we mustn’t set hopes too high before it’s been refined and built to meet the needs of healthcare professionals. Healthcare is a high-risk environment by nature. That fact leads to high pressure, which influences or exacerbates problems within the industry such as inconsistent patient care, extreme understaffing , high churn and the lengthy training process that goes hand in hand with the medical field.

So, as GenAI adoption spreads like wildfire across organizations and industries of all varieties, its usage within the healthcare sector has been a bit more complicated.

Why Artificial Intelligence Hype Isn't Living Up To Expectations

Seattle-tacoma airport in the crosshairs of hackers, aaron judge reaches and passes 50 homers, leaving the new york yankees in awe, genai's careful crawl into healthcare.

To begin, GenAI has been implemented in some areas of healthcare. In fact, it has been thriving within specific use cases and sectors.

Administrative tasks are a key driver for professional burnout among healthcare professionals. Since the turn of the century, physicians have faced an unbelievable amount of administrative work that has nothing to do with the clinical capabilities they have worked tirelessly to perfect. Solving issues through AI in these areas has proven to be an effective place to start and has distinctly improved the workflows and satisfaction of healthcare professionals.

Implementing AI in administrative realms aligns with the healthcare industry’s highly conservative approach to adopting new, hyped-up technologies. For one, it introduces tech to an area that "does no harm" and hands over lower-risk tasks to AI tools without potentially compromising the quality of care.

Also, these are areas where the AI impact can be felt immediately as physicians free themselves from administrative overload. However, while we should not minimize these advancements, we can’t deny that administrative support is only a fraction of what GenAI is capable of.

While this first dip in the AI waters has proven to be a success, it is time to incrementally move on to the next phase to address larger issues plaguing the healthcare industry, like understaffing and uneven quality of care. But what is keeping the wheels from turning?

The Adoption Dam

Again, healthcare has had a long and complex relationship with adopting new technologies, and something as transformative as generative AI is no different. This stems from several factors, including legal, professional and ethical compliance; data privacy concerns; complicated and timely workflow implementations; and even some resistance to change.

That being said, a chief pushback from medical professionals regarding generative AI is the difficulty in trusting an AI model that cannot explain its clinical reasoning path or reliably state which sources of knowledge are used to generate a specific insight. Without solving GenAI’s “black box” problem and introducing new models or tools grounded in clinical reasoning to gain physician trust, their position is unlikely to change.

Doctors and healthcare organizations will likely continue using a cautious “wait-and-see” approach before adopting complex AI tools, especially beyond the administrative realm.

While this can be frustrating to tech developers or physicians wanting a comprehensive AI assistant, the industry typically prefers to protect itself and rightfully ensure patient safety over trying to impose technologies and tools before they’re completely ready for widespread use.

It takes time to figure out how to integrate such dramatic technological advancements into rigid or sometimes outdated workflows. GenAI is not exempt from this. However, because its wide adoption didn’t happen instantaneously, healthcare organizations can better prepare themselves to integrate it correctly.

How To Integrate Beneficial AI Into Healthcare

Yes, it’s tempting for healthcare organizations to take a gamble and completely digitize their administrative and clinical tasks with a broad AI overhaul. But there’s no room for gambling in healthcare.

Preparing for the next wave of AI requires building the right team and implementation strategies while getting medical experts and healthcare professionals heavily involved from multiple angles. Gaining the trust of physicians who will ideally use clinically oriented AI tools regularly requires their input, and having experienced medical staff consulting throughout the development process will help optimize their utility within hospitals, clinics and healthcare facilities.

However, gaining physicians' trust is just step one. Once there is a buy-in from the medical community, it’s paramount that GenAI tools work alongside industry-specific models that are evidence-based, and as a result, promote transparency. This addresses the black box problem while ensuring that GenAI tools operate while being grounded in existing science and medical knowledge.

Beyond individual physicians, health-tech companies must also develop pilot projects with a wide range of healthcare organizations to understand their varying needs and what they require from an AI model. This could consist of having an “AI officer” working with hospitals, provider networks and buyer systems alongside clinicians and other healthcare providers to investigate the issues or problems that AI could meaningfully improve.

Additionally, collaborating with infrastructure giants such as electronic health record (EHR) companies can help developers adjust their solutions to systems that healthcare professionals already utilize, shortening the learning curve and integrating beneficial projects.

While instantaneous adoption sounds enticing now, a slow and strategic implementation will make AI tools in healthcare more thoughtful and likely to stick rather than become an experimental novelty used only by early adopters. At the end of the day, any tech innovations—AI or otherwise—must be created with the vision of improving patient care across the board.

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Rebellion and Revolution in African American Literature

A special issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787)

Website : https://www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities/special_issues/6L757WY6UC

Call For Papers

Rebellion and revolution have been a part of African American literature from its inception with the 19th century slave narratives that were used in the abolitionist movement to end chattel slavery and counter pro-slavery arguments.  These two themes were also prevalent during the Black Arts Movement of the 20th century when Black Arts Movement writers rebelled against the status quo and sought a revolution to center blackness by producing art for, by, and about Black people that complemented the Black Power Movement’s efforts to build economic, social, educational, and political independence for Black people.

While rebellion and revolution are distinct features of these two periods in African American literature where literature and politics melded together, the theme of rebellion and revolution are not exclusive to these periods. Works of literature by African American writers in the century between these two periods, as well as in the post -1970s and into the current millennium, have had rebellion and revolution as a major theme. The very presence of African American literature is an act of resistance especially against status quo, mainstream (i.e. white-authored) literary arts norms, canons and “classics”.  

In this special issue of  Humanities , we invite submissions on the theme of rebellion and revolution from any period and genre within the African American literary tradition.  Indeed, the central concepts of rebellion and revolution are expansive and complex theories, each multifaceted and often overlapping.  For our purposes here, rebellion implies a formidable, but temporary or reactive resistance, either individual or collective, against conditions of oppression, and revolutionentails an activity, movement, or shift in paradigm designed to effect long-standing changes to combat oppression and promote equality.  Revolution, then, often follows rebellion, but is more proactive.

             Some possible questions for consideration include the following:  

• How are contemporary Black American writers defining revolution and rebellion in their literary production, and how do these definitions reiterate, reject, or re-envision themes of rebellion/revolution at the onset of the Black American literary tradition?

• How does the trope of rebellion/revolution get interwoven into works by African American writers?

• In terms of our capitalist economy, what are some of the social paradoxes represented in rebellion/revolution literature, and what are some of the suggested ways writers encourage readers to unpack and resolve the paradoxes of liberation and empowerment?

• What seems to be the link between rebellion/revolution and collective African American cultural and socio-historical experience?  

• What are the ways in which Black American literature galvanizes and transforms theories of rebellion/revolution into a meaningful action? • What, according to African American literature have been the foremost struggles confronting Black people since their 17th Century forced arrival in the United States?

• What have been the most effective mechanisms/devices/tools (protest, …) implemented by Black Americans to combat those struggles?

• What are the ways in which literature reflects or represents the specific, on-going struggles confronting Black existence in the United States?

• Who have been the most prescient literary voices advocating for rebellion/revolution to ensure the well-being of African Americans?

• How might we talk about Black American literature as a form of activism?

Keywords:  

​African American, Literature, Rebellion, Revolution 

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the  Instructions for Authors  page.  Humanities  is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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An Old Bangladeshi Reflex Threatens Its Revolution

By Tahmima Anam

Ms. Anam is a Bangladeshi-born novelist.

In Bangladesh, we are experts at erasing history.

Ever since our young nation was born 53 years ago in a traumatic war of liberation from Pakistan, historical amnesia and censorship have afflicted Bangladeshis like a chronic illness. When a regime is toppled, its successor moves quickly to erase the symbols and legacy of the previous one as if it had never existed.

That is why, for decades, when one of the two political parties that have dominated Bangladesh — the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party — was in power, the other would often boycott Parliament or refuse to participate in elections it alleged were rigged. There has never been a healthy relationship between the people in power and those who oppose them. Party was always placed before country.

This has been a curse, preventing solid democratic institutions from flourishing in Bangladesh and making our politics fractious, hateful and peppered with violence and counterviolence.

The unexpected revolution that toppled the increasingly autocratic and corrupt rule of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina this month offers Bangladesh a chance to break free of this cycle. What makes this revolution unprecedented and so meaningful is that it was a grass-roots movement led by idealistic university students, not one of the warring main political parties. As a Bangladeshi, I am watching with jubilation.

Yet, I also worry that the old Bangladeshi reflex to expunge the past is kicking in.

Just a few weeks ago, when visitors flew into Dhaka, the capital, they were greeted at the airport by an enormous mural of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Ms. Hasina’s father, who was the leader of Bangladesh’s 1971 independence movement and the nation’s founding figure. In 1975, when he was president, he was assassinated in a military coup along with most of his family. The mural’s caption welcomed travelers to “Mujib’s Bangladesh.”

Since Ms. Hasina’s overthrow, portraits and statues of Sheikh Mujib are being defaced and taken down across the country. His former home, which had become a museum to his memory, was looted and set on fire . Ms. Hasina’s declaration of Aug. 15 — the anniversary of her father’s assassination — as a national day of mourning was canceled .

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