Introduction
Capitalism is a process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one
Joseph Schumpeter
Some people compare AI Revolution to Mobile Revolution, in this article I’m going to do in-depth analysis and answer the question is it accurate comparison.
Apple introduced the iPhone in June 2007 and Uber was founded in March 2009.
The lesson from charts about is that technology revolutions take time. Despite the hype for AI right now, we’re still early: while 58% of American adults have heard of ChatGPT, only 18% have used it [2]. On the other hand, technology adoption develops faster than in the past, so in my opinion we’re not able to make any accurate predictions
History’s Technology Revolutions
The invention of the microprocessor by Intel in 1971 marked the start of the “Information Age,” our most recent technological revolution.
According to Carlota Perez’s book Technology revolutions follow predictable boom-and-bust cycles. An exciting new technology leads to frenzied investment in that technology; frenzied investment leads to the formation of an asset bubble; that bubble eventually bursts, cooling an overheated market. [3] The fact that Perez wrote book in 2002, just after the dotcom bubble crashed, is what sets it apart. At the time, a lot of individuals predicted the end of the internet era. Perez countered that the dotcom crisis was a so-called “turning point” that would usher in the internet’s Golden Age (what she refers to as “Synergy”) and that the bubble bust was only the middle of an expected cycle. [1].
According to Perez, technology revolutions follow ~50-year cycles. “Turning points”—which often come in the form of a market crash—typically occur about halfway into the cycle. Many crashes bear the name of the revolution’s prevailing technology: canal mania (1790s); railway mania (1840s); the dotcom bubble (late 1990s) [3].
A technology moves into the deployment phase, which is roughly 20 years of continuous development and widespread wealth generation, following its turning point. This is supported by the fact that the internet was widely used in the 2000s and 2010s, thanks to the launch of mobile and cloud computing. When viewed in retrospect, Perez’s approach seems ideal. [1].
The corporations that lead an era can be seen to “shift” from one technological revolution to the next. For example, the biggest American corporations throughout the 1930s and 1940s were oil and car firms, taking the place of steel companies.
According to Rex Woodbury the arrival of AI is near-perfect timing to Perez’s framework. For AI, the “big bang” event—to use Perez’s terminology—was probably the release of ChatGPT last year [1].
The Next Revolution: AI
Artificial Intelligence emerges as the harbinger of the next revolution in computing. At its core, AI refers to the development of algorithms that enable machines to perform tasks that traditionally required human intelligence. One of the fundamental theories underpinning this revolution is machine learning, a subset of AI where algorithms iteratively learn from data and improve their performance over time. This transformative paradigm shift is exemplified by the advent of deep learning, a sophisticated neural network architecture inspired by the human brain. These neural networks consist of interconnected layers, each mimicking the neurons in our brain, fostering an unprecedented ability for machines to recognize patterns and make informed decisions. For instance, in the realm of natural language processing, models like GPT-3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3) showcase the prowess of deep learning by generating coherent and contextually relevant text based on extensive pre-training on diverse datasets. The fusion of machine learning and deep learning propels us into an era where AI not only augments but potentially surpasses human capabilities, laying the groundwork for a future defined by intelligent automation and data-driven decision-making.
In my opinion, this technology (as it was in every tech revolution), will transform the way how people around the world live. A lot of jobs will be replaced by AI, and Western countries will consider universal basic income for everyone [4]. People will have new psychological problems because work is an inseparable part of our lives, and sometimes even gives meaning to life. Big tech companies would have new problems – for example, Google would have to rethink a way how to construct SEO, because today’s algorithm is not the best in cases where more than 90% of content will be generated by Generative AI [5].
Conclusions
Rex Woodbury found that the economist Joseph Schumpeter once wrote: “Capitalism is a process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.” In his opinion the same is true for technology, which goes hand-in-hand with capitalism; innovation is capitalism’s spark, and technology its fuel.
On top of that, in my opinion, AI Revolution isn’t comparable to the Mobile Revolution, because computers were built to act like calculators, while AI is networks act like the human brain. Moreover, nowadays technology adoption is much faster than in the past. A perfect example of this is in fact that ChatGPT had 1M users after 5 days from launch, where the collecting the same about of users took Instagram 10 years ago 2.5 months.
Sources
- https://www.digitalnative.tech/p/the-mobile-revolution-vs-the-ai-revolution
- https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/28/most-americans-havent-used-chatgpt-few-think-it-will-have-a-major-impact-on-their-job/
- “Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages” by Carlota Perez
- https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/nov/16/ai-is-coming-for-our-jobs-could-universal-basic-income-be-the-solution
- https://fortune.com/2023/10/21/how-generative-ai-could-change-google-search-68-billion-seo-industry/
- I wrote part of one paragraph with ChatGPT “The Next Revolution: AI” with ChatGPT 3.5. Prompt: You are a university student that has to write a blog post about The Next Revolution: AI, please prepare a theory with and example for one paragraph. Use a scientific but bachelor student style while writing.