I was listening to an interesting podcast from Supernova 2005 about Reinventing Media (if you want a partial transcipt check out the Strange Attractor blog)
While the panel discussion was interesting, the bit that raised my interest was a question from the floor from a guy called Greg Allen. Part of his query involved the notion that technology has now reached escape velocity.
That’s a powerful idea, and a concise way of summing up the rate of exponential change that Ray Kurzweil talks about. It seems that we’re about to reach critical mass with the convergence of many technologies.
I’m currently working on a large project for a massive global European company looking at how the world is going to look in twenty years based upon where technology is taking us. Almost every field I look at – from transport to healthcare – there are massive advances happening every couple of years. It’s no longer a doubling rate of change.
One of the key themes is the massively increased understanding of the nano world. It’s easy to think that nano relates simply to pure technology, but it seems that the further you delve into a field the more the key advances are at the molecular level.
However to anchor this post, and to stop it hitting an all time high on the breathless hype meter, consider the following quote :
We live, as it were, upon the front
edge of an advancing wave-crest
Now try and guess the date of that quote. It’s very relevant becuase it reflects the idea that this is not the first itme in history that people have felt this way. It’s not from the 90s, not even the 60’s. But 1904. The author is William James.
