Robin Hanson's Really Big Thing.

[swestrup]

In Robin Hanson's article The Next Really Big Enormous Thing he tries to analyze changes in economic growth rates over time, and to predict what changes may lay ahead. I'm not sure I agree completely with his methodology, but I like his conclusion:

If a new growth transition were to be similar to the last few, in terms of the number of doublings and the increase in the growth rate, then the remarkable consistency in the previous transitions allows a remarkably precise prediction. A new growth mode should arise sometime within about the next seven industry mode doublings (i.e., the next seventy years) and give a new [world] wealth doubling time of between seven and sixteen days. Such a new mode would surely count as “the next really big enormous thing.

He then goes on to attempt to determine what sort of innovation might lead to this. His conclusion is Strong AI. Its interesting that he didn't mention a mature nanotechnology, but then again since I consider Strong AI to be a necessary enabler for mature nanotech, I can hardly fault him for that.