Technology’s Exponential Progress

What’s the Latest Development?

Radical futurist Ray Kurzweil says the pace of innovation will only continue to accelerate because exponential evolution is built into the very nature of technology. He says that technological progress, from the discovery of fire through today’s headlines, follows a steady exponential curve which originates from the fact that we use the last generation of technology to build the next. 

What’s the Big Idea?

Because we multilpy past gains with each advance, the cycle inevitably brings smaller hardware, greater capability, and falling prices in a ladder of interlocking s-curves. While competition, innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship are unpredictable individually, the aggregate effect is consistent. Just like in thermodynamics any given molecule is unpredictable but the aggregate effect is consistent, says Kurzweil.