WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.060 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. So you've brought 00:00:03.060 --> 00:00:05.500 us a pretty dense stack of sources today. We've 00:00:05.500 --> 00:00:08.660 got historical timelines, economic analysis, 00:00:08.919 --> 00:00:11.919 some really deep engineering reports, and they're 00:00:11.919 --> 00:00:14.259 all trying to get their arms around, well, what 00:00:14.259 --> 00:00:16.739 might be the single most transformative era in 00:00:16.739 --> 00:00:19.780 human history? The information age. It's a huge 00:00:19.780 --> 00:00:22.160 topic and it's one we're still, you know, living 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:24.399 right in the middle of. We call it so many things. 00:00:25.100 --> 00:00:27.079 the digital age, the computer age. Some people 00:00:27.079 --> 00:00:28.699 even call it the third industrial revolution. 00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:31.620 But to really understand it, you have to step 00:00:31.620 --> 00:00:34.020 back. You have to treat it like any other major 00:00:34.020 --> 00:00:36.420 historical epoch. And that's exactly our mission 00:00:36.420 --> 00:00:38.280 for this deep dive. We're going to try and track 00:00:38.280 --> 00:00:40.020 a revolution that completely flipped the script 00:00:40.020 --> 00:00:42.000 on what has economic value. I mean, the central 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:45.359 question is, how did society pull off this massive, 00:00:45.420 --> 00:00:48.479 incredibly rapid shift from an economy all about 00:00:48.479 --> 00:00:51.399 atoms, you know, physical stuff, factories, land, 00:00:51.560 --> 00:00:53.960 one that's now centered almost purely on bits? 00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:56.759 How did information go from being a support tool 00:00:56.759 --> 00:00:59.560 to the main event? That is the core question. 00:00:59.979 --> 00:01:02.920 We define the information age as a pretty distinct 00:01:02.920 --> 00:01:05.599 historical period. It starts right around the 00:01:05.599 --> 00:01:08.060 mid -20th century. And it's characterized by 00:01:08.060 --> 00:01:10.560 this incredible acceleration of information technology 00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:13.900 and the shift away from that old industrial age 00:01:13.900 --> 00:01:16.989 economy to one built on knowledge and data. Right. 00:01:17.069 --> 00:01:18.890 And your sources are, I mean, they're incredibly 00:01:18.890 --> 00:01:20.750 comprehensive. They cover everything from the 00:01:20.750 --> 00:01:22.989 atomic physics of a semiconductor all the way 00:01:22.989 --> 00:01:25.469 up to these huge macro level sociological changes. 00:01:25.790 --> 00:01:28.269 So our deep dive today is designed to trace that 00:01:28.269 --> 00:01:30.390 entire path from a single critical invention 00:01:30.390 --> 00:01:33.950 back in 1947, right up to the global, mobile, 00:01:34.069 --> 00:01:36.609 always on world we have today. And by the time 00:01:36.609 --> 00:01:38.810 we're done, you, the listener, should walk away 00:01:38.810 --> 00:01:41.290 with the critical context for just how fast and 00:01:41.290 --> 00:01:45.159 how profoundly our world was remade. Okay, let's 00:01:45.159 --> 00:01:46.739 get into this history. And I think to really 00:01:46.739 --> 00:01:49.659 appreciate the sheer speed of the information 00:01:49.659 --> 00:01:51.480 age, we have to start with what came before. 00:01:51.519 --> 00:01:54.400 We need a baseline. Absolutely. I mean, for thousands 00:01:54.400 --> 00:01:57.239 of years, humans have been trying to find better 00:01:57.239 --> 00:01:59.769 ways to calculate and manage data. It's a fundamental 00:01:59.769 --> 00:02:03.310 need. For millennia, we relied on purely mechanical 00:02:03.310 --> 00:02:05.790 aids, things like the abacus, the astrolabe, 00:02:05.950 --> 00:02:08.250 the slide rule. Tools that help a single person 00:02:08.250 --> 00:02:11.030 think faster. Exactly. But the Industrial Revolution, 00:02:11.229 --> 00:02:13.490 especially in the 1800s, that's when we see the 00:02:13.490 --> 00:02:16.189 first real steps toward automating data processing 00:02:16.189 --> 00:02:19.090 on a larger scale. Which brings us to someone 00:02:19.090 --> 00:02:21.930 like Herman Hollerith and his punch card system. 00:02:22.129 --> 00:02:24.889 It's easy to forget now, but that was a monumental 00:02:24.889 --> 00:02:27.389 shift. It wasn't just about counting faster. 00:02:27.569 --> 00:02:29.409 It was a revolution in information management. 00:02:29.729 --> 00:02:32.909 It absolutely was. Hollerith's devices, which 00:02:32.909 --> 00:02:35.789 he developed for the 1890 U .S. Census, were 00:02:35.789 --> 00:02:38.189 electromechanical. They used electrical currents 00:02:38.189 --> 00:02:40.090 to sense where holes were punched into these 00:02:40.090 --> 00:02:43.090 standardized cards. This took a process tabulating 00:02:43.090 --> 00:02:45.969 the census that used to take years of painstaking 00:02:45.969 --> 00:02:48.879 manual labor. mechanized it. It was essential 00:02:48.879 --> 00:02:51.400 for handling large -scale data well before we 00:02:51.400 --> 00:02:53.639 had a true electronic computer. It proved you 00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:55.860 could standardize information and process it 00:02:55.860 --> 00:02:57.979 with a machine. Okay, so that sets a kind of 00:02:57.979 --> 00:03:01.300 baseline for mechanical data processing. Then 00:03:01.300 --> 00:03:04.400 we jump forward to the World War II era, and 00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:08.020 you get these massive, specialized analog computers. 00:03:08.060 --> 00:03:11.819 We're talking about room -sized vacuum tube behemoths. 00:03:12.479 --> 00:03:16.280 The ENIAC, the Z3, incredible engineering, but 00:03:16.280 --> 00:03:18.419 they had some pretty severe limitations. Oh, 00:03:18.419 --> 00:03:20.139 massive limitations. That's the crucial point. 00:03:20.199 --> 00:03:22.659 Those machines, while you could call them digital 00:03:22.659 --> 00:03:25.340 in concept, were fundamentally constrained by 00:03:25.340 --> 00:03:27.560 the physics of their parts. They were hot, they 00:03:27.560 --> 00:03:29.960 consumed staggering amounts of electricity, and 00:03:29.960 --> 00:03:31.659 the vacuum tubes were so fragile they'd burn 00:03:31.659 --> 00:03:33.719 out constantly. You had teams of people just 00:03:33.719 --> 00:03:35.539 running around replacing tubes to keep the thing 00:03:35.539 --> 00:03:37.439 running. So they were one -off, custom -built. 00:03:37.710 --> 00:03:39.830 Multi -million dollar projects. You couldn't 00:03:39.830 --> 00:03:41.490 scale them down. You couldn't mass produce them 00:03:41.490 --> 00:03:44.169 for, you know, an office or a home. You couldn't. 00:03:44.169 --> 00:03:46.110 We needed a completely new kind of component 00:03:46.110 --> 00:03:48.250 to break through that size and power barrier. 00:03:48.430 --> 00:03:52.229 And that component arrived in 1947. Your sources 00:03:52.229 --> 00:03:54.550 pinpoint this as the official starting gun, the 00:03:54.550 --> 00:03:56.969 critical catalyst that truly kicks off the information 00:03:56.969 --> 00:03:59.689 age. We're talking about the transistor. Precisely. 00:03:59.689 --> 00:04:04.110 It was 1947 at Bell Labs. John Bardeen and Walter 00:04:04.110 --> 00:04:06.330 Hauser Bratton, working in a group led by William 00:04:06.330 --> 00:04:08.750 Shockley, they demonstrated the first working 00:04:08.750 --> 00:04:11.129 point contact transistor. It was made of germanium. 00:04:11.689 --> 00:04:14.930 And it is... Truly hard to overstate the seismic 00:04:14.930 --> 00:04:17.370 shift this one little device represented. So 00:04:17.370 --> 00:04:20.310 explain that for us. Why was this tiny piece 00:04:20.310 --> 00:04:22.490 of solid material so much more revolutionary 00:04:22.490 --> 00:04:25.250 than the entire room full of vacuum tubes it 00:04:25.250 --> 00:04:27.810 was designed to replace? Because it solved all 00:04:27.810 --> 00:04:30.129 those existential physical problems in one go. 00:04:30.269 --> 00:04:32.829 A vacuum tube works by heating a filament boiling 00:04:32.829 --> 00:04:35.550 off electrons. It needs high voltage and it gets 00:04:35.550 --> 00:04:38.110 incredibly hot. All that heat is wasted energy 00:04:38.110 --> 00:04:40.550 and it's what makes them burn out. The transistor 00:04:40.550 --> 00:04:42.569 is solid state. There are no... moving parts, 00:04:42.629 --> 00:04:45.110 no vacuum, no filament. It operates on low voltage, 00:04:45.269 --> 00:04:47.170 generates very little heat, and it's incredibly 00:04:47.170 --> 00:04:49.730 small and durable. Just instantly vaporize the 00:04:49.730 --> 00:04:51.649 power and size barrier. And the sources you brought 00:04:51.649 --> 00:04:54.649 make this explicit, right? The UN Public Administration 00:04:54.649 --> 00:04:57.470 Network points directly to this invention. They 00:04:57.470 --> 00:04:59.870 do. They cite this breakthrough, the one that 00:04:59.870 --> 00:05:02.449 enabled computer miniaturization, as the single 00:05:02.449 --> 00:05:04.850 key driving force for modernized information 00:05:04.850 --> 00:05:07.569 systems and the social evolution that followed. 00:05:08.089 --> 00:05:10.930 It's a simple truth. If you can't make the machine 00:05:10.930 --> 00:05:13.829 small, You can't make it personal. And if you 00:05:13.829 --> 00:05:15.910 can't make it personal, you certainly can't make 00:05:15.910 --> 00:05:17.970 it global. Okay, so the hardware is suddenly 00:05:17.970 --> 00:05:20.850 tiny and efficient. But that's just one piece. 00:05:20.949 --> 00:05:24.009 It's like building a faster highway. You still 00:05:24.009 --> 00:05:26.269 need traffic laws to manage all the new cars. 00:05:26.550 --> 00:05:28.730 That is a perfect analogy. And that's where the 00:05:28.730 --> 00:05:31.069 second pillar of this revolution comes in, from 00:05:31.069 --> 00:05:34.709 Claude Shannon. A year later, in 1948, Shannon, 00:05:34.829 --> 00:05:36.689 who was a brilliant mathematician also working 00:05:36.689 --> 00:05:39.990 at Bell Labs, publishes a paper called A Mathematical 00:05:39.990 --> 00:05:42.500 Theory of Communication. Now, for anyone listening 00:05:42.500 --> 00:05:44.240 who might not be familiar with that paper, break 00:05:44.240 --> 00:05:46.379 down what Shannon's theory actually provided. 00:05:46.459 --> 00:05:48.980 What was the traffic law? It provided the entire 00:05:48.980 --> 00:05:52.480 theoretical bedrock for digitalization. He's 00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:53.879 the one who figured out how to mathematically 00:05:53.879 --> 00:05:56.939 quantify information in bits, binary digits. 00:05:57.339 --> 00:06:00.339 But crucially, his work also laid out the principles 00:06:00.339 --> 00:06:03.519 of data compression and error correction. He 00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:05.660 showed the fundamental limits of how much information 00:06:05.660 --> 00:06:07.980 you could reliably send over a noisy channel. 00:06:08.319 --> 00:06:10.829 Without that framework, Digital communication 00:06:10.829 --> 00:06:13.129 would be a mess. Every time you copied a file, 00:06:13.230 --> 00:06:15.189 it would get corrupted. The whole system breaks 00:06:15.189 --> 00:06:18.490 down. His theory made it economical and, more 00:06:18.490 --> 00:06:21.310 importantly, reliable. So once you have Shannon's 00:06:21.310 --> 00:06:24.310 theory, the software, so to speak, and the transistor, 00:06:24.449 --> 00:06:26.889 the hardware, the race was on, it wasn't just 00:06:26.889 --> 00:06:28.610 about building one transistor anymore. It was 00:06:28.610 --> 00:06:30.730 about figuring out how to cram thousands and 00:06:30.730 --> 00:06:32.649 then millions and now billions of them together. 00:06:33.009 --> 00:06:36.459 And the acceleration was just phenomenal. The 00:06:36.459 --> 00:06:39.199 1950s became this decade of rapid integration. 00:06:39.540 --> 00:06:43.319 In 1958, Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments creates 00:06:43.319 --> 00:06:46.500 the first integrated circuit, the IC. He basically 00:06:46.500 --> 00:06:48.680 figured out how to put multiple components onto 00:06:48.680 --> 00:06:52.100 a single block of semiconductor material. Right 00:06:52.100 --> 00:06:55.319 on his heels, Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor 00:06:55.319 --> 00:06:58.740 invented the monolithic IC chip in 1959, which 00:06:58.740 --> 00:07:01.399 made it much easier to manufacture. But the sources 00:07:01.399 --> 00:07:03.740 you have really stress... That the real pivot 00:07:03.740 --> 00:07:05.459 point, the thing that unlocked mass production, 00:07:05.660 --> 00:07:08.079 wasn't just the IC in general. It was a very 00:07:08.079 --> 00:07:10.519 specific type of transistor. Yes, and this is 00:07:10.519 --> 00:07:12.540 the kind of critical detail that a lot of general 00:07:12.540 --> 00:07:14.519 histories just gloss over. We're talking about 00:07:14.519 --> 00:07:17.230 the MOSFET. the metal oxide semiconductor field 00:07:17.230 --> 00:07:19.670 effect transistor. It was invented in 1960 by 00:07:19.670 --> 00:07:22.129 Muhammad Atala and Anand Kong, again at Bell 00:07:22.129 --> 00:07:24.790 Labs. The MOSFET was the absolute game changer 00:07:24.790 --> 00:07:27.790 for scaling up. Okay, so why? What made the MOSFET 00:07:27.790 --> 00:07:29.910 so much better for building these complex circuits 00:07:29.910 --> 00:07:33.009 than the earlier bipolar ICs from Kilby and Noyce? 00:07:33.230 --> 00:07:36.370 It came down to two things, really. Density and 00:07:36.370 --> 00:07:38.899 the cost of manufacturing. MOSFETs were just 00:07:38.899 --> 00:07:41.180 significantly easier to miniaturize. They consumed 00:07:41.180 --> 00:07:44.139 less power and were simpler to fabricate in these 00:07:44.139 --> 00:07:46.360 huge high -density arrays on a silicon wafer. 00:07:46.519 --> 00:07:48.800 So this technology allowed chip makers to just 00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:51.139 cram more and more logic gates into the same 00:07:51.139 --> 00:07:54.220 small space, which drove down the cost per function. 00:07:54.399 --> 00:07:56.759 This is what enabled what we call LSI, or large 00:07:56.759 --> 00:07:59.040 -scale integration. By the late 1960s, you had 00:07:59.040 --> 00:08:01.560 LSI chips holding hundreds of transistors. It 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:03.790 paved the way for the microprocessor. So if you 00:08:03.790 --> 00:08:05.509 trace that arc, it's just astonishing. About 00:08:05.509 --> 00:08:08.389 24 years, we go from a fragile, glowing vacuum 00:08:08.389 --> 00:08:11.009 tube to a tiny, manufacturable chip that could 00:08:11.009 --> 00:08:13.470 hold the entire brain of a computer. That's the 00:08:13.470 --> 00:08:16.269 narrative. And that new capability, that incredible 00:08:16.269 --> 00:08:19.089 rate of growth it unleashed, it demanded a new 00:08:19.089 --> 00:08:22.870 set of, well, laws to even describe what was 00:08:22.870 --> 00:08:24.750 happening. Right. So if the transistor was the 00:08:24.750 --> 00:08:28.209 spark, then these exponential laws that governed 00:08:28.209 --> 00:08:30.579 its replication, they were the engine. the engine 00:08:30.579 --> 00:08:33.120 that drove the information age forward at a speed 00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:35.899 humanity had just never seen before. And to get 00:08:35.899 --> 00:08:37.379 it, you really have to look at two fundamental 00:08:37.379 --> 00:08:40.120 forces that are completely intertwined, computation 00:08:40.120 --> 00:08:43.000 power and storage capacity. Let's start with 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:45.039 computation, which is pretty much defined by 00:08:45.039 --> 00:08:47.100 that famous observation Gordon Moore made back 00:08:47.100 --> 00:08:50.980 in 1965. We all know it as Moore's Law. It states 00:08:50.980 --> 00:08:52.659 that the number of transistors you can fit on 00:08:52.659 --> 00:08:54.860 a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately 00:08:54.860 --> 00:08:57.679 every two years. And what's amazing about Moore's 00:08:57.679 --> 00:09:00.340 Law is that it wasn't just a prediction. It became 00:09:00.340 --> 00:09:02.740 a self -fulfilling prophecy. It became the roadmap 00:09:02.740 --> 00:09:05.659 for the entire semiconductor industry. Engineers 00:09:05.659 --> 00:09:08.840 at Intel, at Texas Instruments, they used Moore's 00:09:08.840 --> 00:09:11.039 Law as their target. And because everyone was 00:09:11.039 --> 00:09:13.480 pushing for that same goal, this persistent, 00:09:13.580 --> 00:09:16.480 dedicated doubling of density just drove the 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:18.580 cost of computing power through the floor year 00:09:18.580 --> 00:09:21.299 after year. A task that would have cost thousands 00:09:21.299 --> 00:09:24.659 of dollars on a mainframe in the 70s became practically 00:09:24.659 --> 00:09:27.840 free 20 years later. Exactly. And that continuous 00:09:27.840 --> 00:09:30.759 cost erosion is what made digital tools accessible, 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:34.279 first to businesses and then to everyone, everywhere. 00:09:34.559 --> 00:09:37.059 But all that processing power is useless if you 00:09:37.059 --> 00:09:39.440 have nowhere to put the results. You need somewhere 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:42.460 to store all those bits. Which brings us to the 00:09:42.460 --> 00:09:45.379 counterpart law for storage capacity, often called 00:09:45.379 --> 00:09:48.460 Crider's Law. Right. Crider's Law describes that 00:09:48.460 --> 00:09:50.659 same... Right. And there's this fascinating calculation 00:09:50.659 --> 00:09:54.039 from Fremont Rider in 1945. He figured out that 00:09:54.039 --> 00:09:56.460 the capacity of university libraries was doubling 00:09:56.460 --> 00:09:59.570 roughly every 16 years. Just think about that. 00:09:59.809 --> 00:10:02.570 16 years to double the physical space for books. 00:10:02.730 --> 00:10:05.129 You're limited by land, by bricks, by mortar. 00:10:05.389 --> 00:10:08.210 Compare that slow physical doubling to what happened 00:10:08.210 --> 00:10:11.090 with digital storage. And to do that, we have 00:10:11.090 --> 00:10:13.370 to start talking in these almost incomprehensible 00:10:13.370 --> 00:10:16.730 units. Exabytes and zettabytes. An exabyte is 00:10:16.730 --> 00:10:18.830 a billion gigabytes. A zettabyte is a thousand 00:10:18.830 --> 00:10:21.970 exabytes. The numbers are just staggering. Let's 00:10:21.970 --> 00:10:23.429 look at the stats from the sources to show the 00:10:23.429 --> 00:10:27.240 explosion. In 1986, the world's total technological 00:10:27.240 --> 00:10:30.960 capacity to store information was just 2 .6 exabytes. 00:10:31.419 --> 00:10:34.139 And that's if it was optimally compressed. 2 00:10:34.139 --> 00:10:36.039 .6 exabytes, that sounds like a lot, but what 00:10:36.039 --> 00:10:37.879 does that actually mean on a per -person basis 00:10:37.879 --> 00:10:40.779 back in 1986? It means that the entire world's 00:10:40.779 --> 00:10:43.440 stored information was equivalent to less than 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:47.259 one single 730 megabyte CD -ROM per person. Wait, 00:10:47.299 --> 00:10:49.080 less than one CD for every person on the planet? 00:10:49.120 --> 00:10:51.399 That's everything? All government records, all 00:10:51.399 --> 00:10:54.200 libraries, all business data? Everything. It 00:10:54.200 --> 00:10:56.539 just shows you how information poor we were, 00:10:56.659 --> 00:10:59.320 technologically speaking. Now, let's do the jump. 00:10:59.639 --> 00:11:03.759 Fast forward just 21 years to 2007. World storage 00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:07.159 capacity had exploded to 295 exatic. Okay, what's 00:11:07.159 --> 00:11:09.299 the new per person equivalent? It's equivalent 00:11:09.299 --> 00:11:12.720 to almost 61 CD -ROMs per person. Not per year, 00:11:12.860 --> 00:11:16.379 per day. That's just an insane leap. Okay, what 00:11:16.379 --> 00:11:19.840 about 2014? By 2014, the scale just defies any 00:11:19.840 --> 00:11:22.440 normal physical comparison. It reached 5 zettabytes. 00:11:23.019 --> 00:11:25.299 The sources offer this analogy. The informational 00:11:25.299 --> 00:11:28.320 equivalent of 5 zettabytes is 4 ,500 stacks of 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:30.620 printed books, stretching from the Earth all 00:11:30.620 --> 00:11:33.019 the way to the sun. 4 ,500 stacks of books from 00:11:33.019 --> 00:11:35.460 here to the sun. I mean, at that point, the physical 00:11:35.460 --> 00:11:37.639 world is just irrelevant as a measure. The information 00:11:37.639 --> 00:11:39.980 has been completely dematerialized. That's the 00:11:39.980 --> 00:11:42.240 profound realization. The digital shift wasn't 00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:45.139 cragable. It was, as you said, a hostile takeover 00:11:45.139 --> 00:11:48.159 of information storage. In the late 1980s, less 00:11:48.159 --> 00:11:50.100 than 1 % of the world's stored information was 00:11:50.100 --> 00:11:55.000 digital. By 2007, it was 94%. By 2014, over 99%. 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:58.100 The physical constraints, the atoms, were just 00:11:58.100 --> 00:12:00.659 gone. And the computation speed ran in parallel 00:12:00.659 --> 00:12:04.159 with this, right? Let's talk MIPS. Millions of 00:12:04.159 --> 00:12:06.200 instructions per second. The growth there is 00:12:06.200 --> 00:12:08.519 just as mind -bending. The capacity of human 00:12:08.519 --> 00:12:10.940 -guided, general -purpose computers went from 00:12:10.940 --> 00:12:15.820 about 3 times 10 to the 8 MIPS in 1986 to 6 .4 00:12:15.820 --> 00:12:19.059 times 10 to the 12 MIPS in 2007. Okay, and this 00:12:19.059 --> 00:12:20.559 is where we hit what I think is one of the most 00:12:20.559 --> 00:12:24.320 critical and... In terms of raw operations per 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:27.159 second, yes. Vastly exceeded it. It's a staggering 00:12:27.159 --> 00:12:29.899 moment in history. And it happened, you know, 00:12:29.899 --> 00:12:33.080 more than a decade ago. The tools are now running 00:12:33.080 --> 00:12:35.240 the race for us. And the storage is similar. 00:12:35.399 --> 00:12:37.700 It's a similar story. Estimates put the storage 00:12:37.700 --> 00:12:40.240 capacity of a single human brain at around one 00:12:40.240 --> 00:12:43.200 terabyte, maybe a bit more. Given the five zettabytes 00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:46.559 available in 2014, our global digital storage 00:12:46.559 --> 00:12:49.460 now matches that individual capacity on a per 00:12:49.460 --> 00:12:52.679 capita basis. we have effectively built an external 00:12:52.679 --> 00:12:55.960 collective brain, both in terms of speed and 00:12:55.960 --> 00:12:58.220 memory. And the beauty of Shannon's information 00:12:58.220 --> 00:13:00.820 theory is that it wasn't just limited to computers. 00:13:00.919 --> 00:13:03.779 It started to be applied to biology itself, treating 00:13:03.779 --> 00:13:06.559 life as a form of data. Precisely. After DNA 00:13:06.559 --> 00:13:09.320 sequencing was invented in the late 70s, genetic 00:13:09.320 --> 00:13:11.740 code became just another data stream to be rendered 00:13:11.740 --> 00:13:14.080 and manipulated. And you see the same exponential 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:16.769 growth there. The amount of sequence data in 00:13:16.769 --> 00:13:19.250 GenBank, the public DNA database, has doubled 00:13:19.250 --> 00:13:21.850 roughly every 18 months. The information age 00:13:21.850 --> 00:13:24.450 isn't just about silicon chips. It's about applying 00:13:24.450 --> 00:13:26.389 digital principles to all forms of knowledge, 00:13:26.529 --> 00:13:28.929 including our own biology. OK, so the stage is 00:13:28.929 --> 00:13:31.289 completely set. The transistor gives us the hardware. 00:13:31.590 --> 00:13:34.070 Moore's law and Crater's law give us the scale. 00:13:34.309 --> 00:13:37.690 But now, how did this massive new capacity actually 00:13:37.690 --> 00:13:40.049 get out of the research labs and into the hands 00:13:40.049 --> 00:13:42.769 of billions of people? It required that foundational 00:13:42.769 --> 00:13:45.269 change, the conversion of everything from analog 00:13:45.269 --> 00:13:48.029 to digital. And that conversion is the absolute 00:13:48.029 --> 00:13:50.539 prerequisite for the world we live in now. As 00:13:50.539 --> 00:13:52.320 we mentioned, it allows information to be copied 00:13:52.320 --> 00:13:55.360 perfectly without any degradation. For most people, 00:13:55.460 --> 00:13:57.279 their first real experience with this was in 00:13:57.279 --> 00:14:00.299 the 1980s when CDs replaced vinyl records and 00:14:00.299 --> 00:14:02.559 cassette tapes. That was the first time the public 00:14:02.559 --> 00:14:05.419 got to experience the benefit of digital, quality 00:14:05.419 --> 00:14:07.919 -perfect sound every time that you could easily 00:14:07.919 --> 00:14:10.200 copy and share. So let's trace this journey to 00:14:10.200 --> 00:14:12.440 ubiquity. The sources break it down into three 00:14:12.440 --> 00:14:15.000 pretty distinct phases of public access. Let's 00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:18.440 start with phase one, from roughly 1969 to 1989. 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:21.600 The rise of home computing. It's funny. This 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:23.580 phase actually began with a military project. 00:14:23.860 --> 00:14:26.559 The public's first real introduction to the concept 00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:29.019 of a network was when the first message was sent 00:14:29.019 --> 00:14:32.450 over ARPANET in 1969. But for the average person, 00:14:32.649 --> 00:14:34.710 the revolution didn't show up as a network. It 00:14:34.710 --> 00:14:36.789 showed up as a box on their desk. Right. The 00:14:36.789 --> 00:14:38.889 1970s brought the home computer. I mean, you 00:14:38.889 --> 00:14:40.889 had to load programs from cassette tapes. The 00:14:40.889 --> 00:14:42.970 interaction was all through a command line. But 00:14:42.970 --> 00:14:45.570 that era was so formative. It was defined by 00:14:45.570 --> 00:14:48.649 what's often called the 1977 Trinity, the Apple 00:14:48.649 --> 00:14:53.070 II, the Commodore PE 2001, and the TRS -80. And 00:14:53.070 --> 00:14:55.779 you cannot forget the Commodore 64. When that 00:14:55.779 --> 00:14:58.539 came out in 1982, it hit a price point and a 00:14:58.539 --> 00:15:01.340 usability level that achieved true mass market 00:15:01.340 --> 00:15:04.139 penetration. It's often cited as the best -selling 00:15:04.139 --> 00:15:06.600 single computer model of all time. I think the 00:15:06.600 --> 00:15:09.100 sources say 17 million units sold through 1994. 00:15:09.820 --> 00:15:12.080 It made computing accessible, even if it was 00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:14.379 still mostly a hobby for enthusiasts. And the 00:15:14.379 --> 00:15:16.220 adoption numbers from that time really reflect 00:15:16.220 --> 00:15:18.960 that early niche status. The U .S. Census data 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:22.720 shows that in 1984, only 8 .2 % of American households 00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:25.019 owned a PC. But here's the important detail, 00:15:25.200 --> 00:15:28.379 that adoption was generational. If you looked 00:15:28.379 --> 00:15:30.419 only at households with children, the ownership 00:15:30.419 --> 00:15:33.799 rate was almost double, at 15 .3%. You can see 00:15:33.799 --> 00:15:35.440 parents buying these machines for their kids, 00:15:35.559 --> 00:15:38.220 for education, for games. They were seeding the 00:15:38.220 --> 00:15:40.720 next generation of users. By the end of this 00:15:40.720 --> 00:15:44.779 phase, in 1989, about 15 % of all U .S. households 00:15:44.779 --> 00:15:47.720 had a PC. The machines were starting to get out 00:15:47.720 --> 00:15:49.519 there, but the crucial piece, the connectivity, 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:52.139 just wasn't there yet for the public. Which brings 00:15:52.139 --> 00:15:55.899 us right to phase two, 1989 to 2005. This is 00:15:55.899 --> 00:15:57.820 the era of mainstreaming the Internet. This is 00:15:57.820 --> 00:16:00.580 Web 1 .0. This is when the network finally breaks 00:16:00.580 --> 00:16:03.110 out of its academic and government silo. And 00:16:03.110 --> 00:16:04.789 you really have to give tremendous credit to 00:16:04.789 --> 00:16:07.289 Tim Berners -Lee. He invented the World Wide 00:16:07.289 --> 00:16:09.950 Web in 1989, and it became publicly accessible 00:16:09.950 --> 00:16:13.590 in 1991. It created a standardized way for anyone 00:16:13.590 --> 00:16:15.570 with a computer to connect and share information. 00:16:15.909 --> 00:16:18.429 But the early web was still pretty clunky for 00:16:18.429 --> 00:16:20.409 the average person, right? Mostly text -based, 00:16:20.470 --> 00:16:23.029 hard to navigate. What was the thing that unlocked 00:16:23.029 --> 00:16:25.690 its mass appeal? Usability. It was all about 00:16:25.690 --> 00:16:28.610 usability. And the breakthrough was the Mosaic 00:16:28.610 --> 00:16:32.070 browser in 1993, created by Marc Andreessen and 00:16:32.070 --> 00:16:34.250 Eric Bina. It was the first browser that could 00:16:34.250 --> 00:16:36.590 display images in line with the text. It sounds 00:16:36.590 --> 00:16:38.769 so simple now, but it was revolutionary. It gave 00:16:38.769 --> 00:16:41.169 the web a visual, intuitive feel, and the commercial 00:16:41.169 --> 00:16:44.929 world jumped on it instantly. By 1994, Stanford 00:16:44.929 --> 00:16:47.929 Federal Credit Union was the first bank to offer 00:16:47.929 --> 00:16:50.549 online internet banking. The digital economy 00:16:50.549 --> 00:16:53.110 was being born. But we have to pause here and 00:16:53.110 --> 00:16:55.769 really emphasize the connectivity hurdle of the 00:16:55.769 --> 00:16:58.370 90s. The sources remind us that just getting 00:16:58.370 --> 00:17:00.669 online was still a really complicated and often 00:17:00.669 --> 00:17:03.750 painful experience. Oh, it was excruciating by 00:17:03.750 --> 00:17:05.789 today's standards. You had to configure modems. 00:17:05.789 --> 00:17:07.650 You had to deal with service providers like AOL 00:17:07.650 --> 00:17:10.490 or CompuServe. And most critically, you were 00:17:10.490 --> 00:17:13.210 on dial -up. Anyone over a certain age remembers 00:17:13.210 --> 00:17:16.130 that sound, that screeching handshake of the 00:17:16.130 --> 00:17:18.470 modem connecting. And it tied up your only phone 00:17:18.470 --> 00:17:20.960 line. And the speed was just a crawl, topping 00:17:20.960 --> 00:17:23.319 out around 56 kilobits per second. It severely 00:17:23.319 --> 00:17:25.720 limited what you could do. But even with those 00:17:25.720 --> 00:17:29.400 hurdles, adoption was incredibly fast. By 1999, 00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:32.220 nearly half of all Americans were using the Internet 00:17:32.220 --> 00:17:35.680 regularly. By 2000, a majority of U .S. households 00:17:35.680 --> 00:17:38.279 had a PC, and a year later, a majority had Internet 00:17:38.279 --> 00:17:40.740 access. And this is when the revolution started 00:17:40.740 --> 00:17:43.460 to become truly global. Which sets the stage 00:17:43.460 --> 00:17:47.029 perfectly for Phase 3. 2005 to the present. This 00:17:47.029 --> 00:17:49.410 is the age of ubiquity and mobile. This is Web 00:17:49.410 --> 00:17:52.589 2 .0. This phase is all about constant access 00:17:52.589 --> 00:17:55.029 everywhere. The metrics for this final phase 00:17:55.029 --> 00:17:58.230 are just, they're colossal. The global internet 00:17:58.230 --> 00:18:01.930 population hits 1 billion in late 2005. By 2012, 00:18:02.109 --> 00:18:04.490 that number doubles to over 2 billion people. 00:18:04.670 --> 00:18:06.789 And mobile just takes over everything. By the 00:18:06.789 --> 00:18:08.930 end of the 2000s, 3 billion people worldwide 00:18:08.930 --> 00:18:11.000 were using cell phones. But the launch of the 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:13.700 smartphone was the real catalyst. It put a powerful, 00:18:13.759 --> 00:18:16.880 connected computer in everyone's pocket. By 2013, 00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:19.740 a majority of Americans owned a smartphone. Let's 00:18:19.740 --> 00:18:21.259 bring those numbers right up to today for the 00:18:21.259 --> 00:18:22.900 listener because it really drives the point home. 00:18:23.039 --> 00:18:26.019 As of 2023, the vast majority of humanity is 00:18:26.019 --> 00:18:29.559 participating. There are 6 .31 billion cell phone 00:18:29.559 --> 00:18:32.119 subscribers. That's 78 percent of the entire 00:18:32.119 --> 00:18:36.200 world population. And 5 .4 billion Internet users, 00:18:36.440 --> 00:18:39.480 which is 67 percent of the world. The information 00:18:39.480 --> 00:18:42.619 age is now, without a doubt, a planetary phenomenon. 00:18:42.980 --> 00:18:45.200 And the underlying infrastructure had to completely 00:18:45.200 --> 00:18:47.980 transform to handle that kind of volume. We saw 00:18:47.980 --> 00:18:50.920 digital TV replace analog broadcasting. Broadband 00:18:50.920 --> 00:18:53.200 became the standard connection in homes. And 00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:55.519 all of the speed and capacity enabled the next 00:18:55.519 --> 00:18:57.569 wave of service. like cloud computing, which 00:18:57.569 --> 00:18:59.890 really hit the mainstream in the early 2010s. 00:18:59.910 --> 00:19:01.869 But we have to talk about the unsung hero that 00:19:01.869 --> 00:19:03.509 allowed all of this to happen. We talk about 00:19:03.509 --> 00:19:05.789 chips and computers, but the true circulatory 00:19:05.789 --> 00:19:08.470 system of the modern internet is optical networking, 00:19:08.769 --> 00:19:11.170 fiber optic cable. Okay, expand on that. Why 00:19:11.170 --> 00:19:13.410 was harnessing light for data so critical? Why 00:19:13.410 --> 00:19:15.470 couldn't we just keep using copper cables? Because 00:19:15.470 --> 00:19:18.009 copper has immense resistance over long distances. 00:19:18.289 --> 00:19:20.730 The electrical signal degrades, it picks up noise, 00:19:20.910 --> 00:19:23.049 and there's a hard limit to how much data you 00:19:23.049 --> 00:19:25.950 can push through it. Light... Traveling through 00:19:25.950 --> 00:19:29.190 these incredibly pure glass fibers loses very 00:19:29.190 --> 00:19:31.849 little signal and can carry exponentially more 00:19:31.849 --> 00:19:34.730 information. But the real magic was the engineering 00:19:34.730 --> 00:19:37.069 that let us multiply the light within a single 00:19:37.069 --> 00:19:40.049 fiber. It's a technology called dense wavelength 00:19:40.049 --> 00:19:44.009 division multiplexing, or DWDM. All right, break 00:19:44.009 --> 00:19:46.930 down DWDM in simple terms for us. Think of a 00:19:46.930 --> 00:19:49.490 single fiber optic cable as a long garden hose. 00:19:49.650 --> 00:19:51.650 Yeah. With copper, you can only send one stream 00:19:51.650 --> 00:19:54.500 of water through it. DWDM is a technology that's 00:19:54.500 --> 00:19:55.900 like being able to send hundreds of different 00:19:55.900 --> 00:19:59.119 colors of water, red, green, blue, yellow, all 00:19:59.119 --> 00:20:01.240 through that same hose at the same time without 00:20:01.240 --> 00:20:03.859 them mixing. Each color or wavelength of light 00:20:03.859 --> 00:20:06.660 is a separate data channel. This massive multiplication 00:20:06.660 --> 00:20:09.859 of capacity is why a tiny fiber optic cable can 00:20:09.859 --> 00:20:11.619 carry more data than a copper cable as thick 00:20:11.619 --> 00:20:13.599 as your arm. And the results of that technology 00:20:13.599 --> 00:20:16.180 are what enable our modern world. Absolutely. 00:20:16.319 --> 00:20:19.160 By 2018, these optical networks were hitting 00:20:19.160 --> 00:20:22.400 record data transfer rates, 30 .4 terabits per 00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:25.140 second over a single pair of fibers. That's enough 00:20:25.140 --> 00:20:29.180 data to stream 1 .2 million 4K HD videos simultaneously. 00:20:29.599 --> 00:20:32.019 That is the speed, that is the capacity that 00:20:32.019 --> 00:20:33.880 underpins global virtual media, e -commerce, 00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:36.660 and the cloud services billions of us use every 00:20:36.660 --> 00:20:39.000 single day. So we've traced the tech, we've traced 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:42.480 the hardware. But the most profound impact, really, 00:20:42.579 --> 00:20:44.960 is what all this did to society and to the economy. 00:20:45.240 --> 00:20:47.619 This revolution didn't just give us faster computers. 00:20:47.759 --> 00:20:50.259 It completely changed the conceptual model of 00:20:50.259 --> 00:20:52.779 what has value in the world. It absolutely redefines 00:20:52.779 --> 00:20:55.059 the concept of value. And we can go back to Norbert 00:20:55.059 --> 00:20:57.599 Wiener, who wrote in his 1948 book, Cybernetics, 00:20:57.599 --> 00:21:00.460 that information is information, not matter or 00:21:00.460 --> 00:21:02.529 energy. And it's a profound statement. He was 00:21:02.529 --> 00:21:04.950 proposing that information is a third constituent 00:21:04.950 --> 00:21:06.869 part of the universe, right alongside matter 00:21:06.869 --> 00:21:08.930 and energy. So if that's the theoretical model, 00:21:09.089 --> 00:21:10.829 then the core theory of the information revolution 00:21:10.829 --> 00:21:13.130 is that information's role fundamentally shifts. 00:21:13.250 --> 00:21:15.710 It becomes both a factor of production like capital, 00:21:15.869 --> 00:21:18.650 labor, and land, and maybe more importantly, 00:21:18.869 --> 00:21:20.970 a commercial product in its own right. That's 00:21:20.970 --> 00:21:23.890 the economic paradigm shift. Before, information 00:21:23.890 --> 00:21:26.230 might help you produce something like a recipe 00:21:26.230 --> 00:21:29.369 helps a baker. Now, the information is the valuable 00:21:29.369 --> 00:21:31.940 thing. a software license, a stream of market 00:21:31.940 --> 00:21:35.019 data, a patented genetic sequence. This idea 00:21:35.019 --> 00:21:37.720 led the economist Fritz Machlup, as early as 00:21:37.720 --> 00:21:40.660 1962, to talk about the knowledge industry, claiming 00:21:40.660 --> 00:21:44.480 it already made up 29 % of the US GNP. He was 00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:46.279 seeing the beginning of a whole new information 00:21:46.279 --> 00:21:48.640 sector in the economy. Okay, let's tackle the 00:21:48.640 --> 00:21:50.759 most visible, and I think for many people, the 00:21:50.759 --> 00:21:53.420 most painful consequence of this shift, the great 00:21:53.420 --> 00:21:55.980 labor transformation. What happened to jobs, 00:21:56.099 --> 00:21:59.170 income, and job security? The information age 00:21:59.170 --> 00:22:01.529 has created enormous wealth and incredible winners, 00:22:01.710 --> 00:22:04.490 but it has also put tremendous strain on traditional 00:22:04.490 --> 00:22:07.309 labor models across the globe. And you can see 00:22:07.309 --> 00:22:09.269 the strain in two parallel forces. The first 00:22:09.269 --> 00:22:11.009 is just straight up automation displacement. 00:22:11.210 --> 00:22:14.130 Any task that involves routine calculation, repetitive 00:22:14.130 --> 00:22:16.369 decision making or predictable physical movements. 00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:19.359 It's vulnerable. Computers and robots just do 00:22:19.359 --> 00:22:22.000 those jobs faster, cheaper and with perfect accuracy. 00:22:22.220 --> 00:22:25.119 So jobs like data entry clerks, assembly line 00:22:25.119 --> 00:22:27.599 workers, even some mid -level management roles 00:22:27.599 --> 00:22:29.359 that are really just about routing information. 00:22:30.400 --> 00:22:33.000 Those workers are forced to find something new 00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:36.410 to do. Which creates huge pressure. It creates 00:22:36.410 --> 00:22:38.789 immense pressure. The market starts demanding 00:22:38.789 --> 00:22:40.970 that workers shift into what the sources call 00:22:40.970 --> 00:22:44.289 indispensable professions. These are roles that 00:22:44.289 --> 00:22:47.190 require things machines aren't good at yet. Creativity, 00:22:47.369 --> 00:22:49.730 complex human interaction, high level engineering, 00:22:49.990 --> 00:22:52.369 scientific discovery, subjective consulting. 00:22:52.630 --> 00:22:55.529 They're high skill, high wage roles that can 00:22:55.529 --> 00:22:58.609 compete on a global stage. The brutal logic is 00:22:58.609 --> 00:23:00.750 if you're not indispensable, you're replaceable. 00:23:00.849 --> 00:23:03.309 And compounding that automation pressure is the 00:23:03.309 --> 00:23:06.250 second. force outsourcing because of that global 00:23:06.250 --> 00:23:08.970 fiber optic network we just talked about. A programmer 00:23:08.970 --> 00:23:11.269 or an accountant in a developed country is now 00:23:11.269 --> 00:23:13.089 competing directly with a skilled professional 00:23:13.089 --> 00:23:16.849 in India or Eastern Europe. Exactly. That digital 00:23:16.849 --> 00:23:19.660 infrastructure. dramatically increases the global 00:23:19.660 --> 00:23:21.859 supply of labor for many of these traditionally 00:23:21.859 --> 00:23:24.660 middle class jobs. And the result in developed 00:23:24.660 --> 00:23:27.019 nations is either wage stagnation for those who 00:23:27.019 --> 00:23:29.700 remain in those jobs, or they're forced to settle 00:23:29.700 --> 00:23:32.799 for low skill, low wage service jobs that can't 00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:35.140 be easily automated or outsourced. But the other 00:23:35.140 --> 00:23:37.220 side of that coin is that the same infrastructure 00:23:37.220 --> 00:23:39.900 is a massive benefit for developing economies. 00:23:40.099 --> 00:23:42.859 It's a path to higher wages for them. It is a 00:23:42.859 --> 00:23:45.400 phenomenal engine of opportunity for the developing 00:23:45.400 --> 00:23:48.480 world. The Internet allows workers there to plug 00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:50.880 directly into markets they were completely excluded 00:23:50.880 --> 00:23:54.079 from before. And that translates directly into 00:23:54.079 --> 00:23:56.180 higher wages and better opportunities, lifting 00:23:56.180 --> 00:23:58.700 millions of people out of poverty by giving them 00:23:58.700 --> 00:24:00.859 access to the global economy. Let's go back to 00:24:00.859 --> 00:24:03.160 that U .S. manufacturing example from the sources, 00:24:03.220 --> 00:24:05.259 because it just perfectly encapsulates this tension 00:24:05.259 --> 00:24:07.480 between creating value and employing people. 00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:10.630 The data is just shocking. Between 1972 and 2010, 00:24:10.930 --> 00:24:12.970 the number of manufacturing jobs in the United 00:24:12.970 --> 00:24:16.309 States fell by 6 million, a massive drop. But, 00:24:16.369 --> 00:24:18.690 and this is the critical part, during that exact 00:24:18.690 --> 00:24:21.690 same period, the value of U .S. manufacturing, 00:24:21.970 --> 00:24:25.589 the actual output, rose by 270%. So that's the 00:24:25.589 --> 00:24:28.289 core paradox. We're producing way more value 00:24:28.289 --> 00:24:31.049 with far fewer people. So where is all that new 00:24:31.049 --> 00:24:33.849 wealth going? Why isn't it translating into higher 00:24:33.849 --> 00:24:36.349 wages or more security for the workers who are 00:24:36.349 --> 00:24:38.589 left? Well, the sources suggest the value is 00:24:38.589 --> 00:24:41.049 accruing primarily to the owners of the information 00:24:41.049 --> 00:24:43.470 capital, the owners of the robots, the proprietary 00:24:43.470 --> 00:24:45.609 software, the patents, the algorithms that drive 00:24:45.609 --> 00:24:48.470 that productivity. Industry has become more information 00:24:48.470 --> 00:24:51.069 intensive and less labor intensive. The value 00:24:51.069 --> 00:24:53.250 of the technology itself goes up while the relative 00:24:53.250 --> 00:24:55.230 value of traditional human. labor goes down. 00:24:55.289 --> 00:24:57.710 This changes the entire model of how you even 00:24:57.710 --> 00:24:59.789 launch a successful company. It changes the role 00:24:59.789 --> 00:25:02.289 of capital itself. This is where the lean startup 00:25:02.289 --> 00:25:04.809 model comes from. Yeah. Contrast the old economic 00:25:04.809 --> 00:25:08.049 model where to succeed, you needed huge upfront 00:25:08.049 --> 00:25:10.750 investments in physical and human capital, you 00:25:10.750 --> 00:25:13.109 know, building the giant factory, hiring thousands 00:25:13.109 --> 00:25:16.410 of workers, getting massive loans. Contrast that 00:25:16.410 --> 00:25:19.509 with a digital paradigm. It's now possible for 00:25:19.509 --> 00:25:22.549 a small, inexperienced group with almost no initial 00:25:22.549 --> 00:25:25.029 capital like Mark Zuckerberg in his dorm room 00:25:25.029 --> 00:25:27.730 to create something that achieves planetary scale 00:25:27.730 --> 00:25:30.799 and success almost overnight. The required capital 00:25:30.799 --> 00:25:33.339 isn't physical anymore. It's intellectual and 00:25:33.339 --> 00:25:36.359 informational. The leverage you get from software 00:25:36.359 --> 00:25:38.680 that can be copied for free and distributed globally, 00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:41.299 it just fundamentally changes the game. It proves 00:25:41.299 --> 00:25:43.420 that in this new age, controlling the unique 00:25:43.420 --> 00:25:46.619 information asset is far more valuable than controlling 00:25:46.619 --> 00:25:49.200 the physical means of production. So let's wrap 00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:51.339 this up by looking at the broader societal and 00:25:51.339 --> 00:25:54.000 cultural impact. Beyond the economy, what does 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:56.380 this constant ubiquitous access to information 00:25:56.380 --> 00:25:59.019 mean for us as human beings? Well, there are 00:25:59.019 --> 00:26:01.759 two very different views on this. The sociologist 00:26:01.759 --> 00:26:04.759 Manuel Castells sees this as a profound transformation 00:26:04.759 --> 00:26:08.500 leading to a new society in the making. He talks 00:26:08.500 --> 00:26:10.559 about the autonomy of culture from its material 00:26:10.559 --> 00:26:14.160 basis. Because information flows so freely, culture 00:26:14.160 --> 00:26:17.420 and knowledge can now evolve and spread independent 00:26:17.420 --> 00:26:20.299 of geography or traditional economic power. That 00:26:20.299 --> 00:26:22.940 sounds pretty optimistic. It suggests we're building 00:26:22.940 --> 00:26:25.079 a smarter, more connected, more knowledgeable 00:26:25.079 --> 00:26:27.700 global society because all of human knowledge 00:26:27.700 --> 00:26:29.819 is at our fingertips. That's the potential. And 00:26:29.819 --> 00:26:32.059 it's also the paradox. Because while Castells 00:26:32.059 --> 00:26:34.720 sees that possibility, others, like the writer 00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:37.660 Thomas Chatterton Williams, offer a really strong 00:26:37.660 --> 00:26:40.380 counterpoint. He warns about the very real dangers 00:26:40.380 --> 00:26:42.680 of anti -intellectualism in the information age. 00:26:42.859 --> 00:26:45.660 The sheer volume of information is just overwhelming. 00:26:46.099 --> 00:26:48.740 And a lot of it is superficial, irrelevant, or 00:26:48.740 --> 00:26:50.960 just plain wrong. So their argument is that the 00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:53.599 speed and volume lead to a sort of shallow engagement 00:26:53.599 --> 00:26:56.670 with knowledge. Exactly. The culture starts to 00:26:56.670 --> 00:26:59.549 value speed over expertise. Why would you read 00:26:59.549 --> 00:27:01.589 a dense, difficult book when you can watch a 00:27:01.589 --> 00:27:04.130 two -minute video summary? The greatest thoughts 00:27:04.130 --> 00:27:06.690 and works in human history are all available 00:27:06.690 --> 00:27:09.690 instantly. Yet there's this societal tendency 00:27:09.690 --> 00:27:13.049 to dismiss deep expertise and critical thinking 00:27:13.049 --> 00:27:16.410 as sort of pointless in favor of quick, easily 00:27:16.410 --> 00:27:18.750 digestible content. We're basically drowning 00:27:18.750 --> 00:27:21.640 in information while starving for wisdom. This 00:27:21.640 --> 00:27:23.880 has been an incredible deep dive covering seven 00:27:23.880 --> 00:27:26.799 decades of just radical world altering change. 00:27:27.119 --> 00:27:29.920 We started with that spark in 1947, the transistor. 00:27:30.160 --> 00:27:32.119 We watched it ignite the exponential engines 00:27:32.119 --> 00:27:34.680 of Moore's and Crider's laws. We charted its 00:27:34.680 --> 00:27:36.559 incredibly swift journey through those three 00:27:36.559 --> 00:27:38.740 phases of adoption from military networks to 00:27:38.740 --> 00:27:41.140 the global mobile network we have now, all running 00:27:41.140 --> 00:27:43.019 on the unbelievable speed of light through fiber 00:27:43.019 --> 00:27:45.240 optics. And we've seen how it redefined information 00:27:45.240 --> 00:27:48.279 as the core economic asset, causing this ongoing 00:27:48.279 --> 00:27:50.700 massive structural change to labor and capital. 00:27:50.759 --> 00:27:53.859 all over the world. The single defining characteristic 00:27:53.859 --> 00:27:57.279 when you look at it all is just the speed. The 00:27:57.279 --> 00:27:59.140 Neolithic revolution, which gave us agriculture 00:27:59.140 --> 00:28:01.420 that took thousands of years to spread across 00:28:01.420 --> 00:28:03.779 the globe. The industrial age took hundreds of 00:28:03.779 --> 00:28:06.140 years. The information age achieved planetary 00:28:06.140 --> 00:28:09.680 saturation in just a few decades. That pace of 00:28:09.680 --> 00:28:12.460 change is completely unparalleled and it presents 00:28:12.460 --> 00:28:15.220 challenges that, frankly, humanity has never 00:28:15.220 --> 00:28:17.529 faced before. Which brings us back to our final 00:28:17.529 --> 00:28:19.750 provocative thought for you, the listener, to 00:28:19.750 --> 00:28:21.789 take away from all this. We talked about that 00:28:21.789 --> 00:28:24.950 cognitive benchmark, how by 2007 our computers 00:28:24.950 --> 00:28:26.930 had already surpassed the collective processing 00:28:26.930 --> 00:28:29.970 power of every human brain on Earth, and how 00:28:29.970 --> 00:28:32.990 our global digital storage capacity now matches 00:28:32.990 --> 00:28:35.450 the storage capacity of an individual human brain 00:28:35.450 --> 00:28:38.109 on a per -person basis. So what are the philosophical 00:28:38.109 --> 00:28:40.529 and practical implications for human relevance 00:28:40.529 --> 00:28:43.470 when our own tools can not only remember more 00:28:43.470 --> 00:28:46.329 than us, but can compute faster? than our collective 00:28:46.329 --> 00:28:49.730 minds. The sources suggest the next great challenge 00:28:49.730 --> 00:28:52.509 of this age is shifting our focus away from just 00:28:52.509 --> 00:28:55.890 acquiring raw information machines do that better 00:28:55.890 --> 00:28:58.789 than we ever could to generating actionable knowledge. 00:28:59.190 --> 00:29:01.950 The future you could argue belongs to the age 00:29:01.950 --> 00:29:04.819 of algorithms. Algorithms designed specifically 00:29:04.819 --> 00:29:07.200 to convert this overwhelming universe of existing 00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:09.859 information into meaningful, useful actions. 00:29:10.259 --> 00:29:13.079 The question then becomes, how do we make sure 00:29:13.079 --> 00:29:15.380 that human wisdom is guiding the machine's incredible 00:29:15.380 --> 00:29:18.740 processing speed? That is the ultimate question 00:29:18.740 --> 00:29:21.519 of relevance moving forward. Thank you for joining 00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:23.359 us for this deep dive into the structure and 00:29:23.359 --> 00:29:26.160 history of the information age. We hope you walk 00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:28.140 away better equipped to navigate the dense sea 00:29:28.140 --> 00:29:30.339 of bits that we all swim in every day. Continue 00:29:30.339 --> 00:29:31.940 your own deep dive and we'll see you next time.