I am reading The New Wave, the last book from Microsoft AI CEO Suleyman. He mentioned that a massive study pegged down the General Purpose Technologies to be only 24 in the last 10000 years (so fire is not included for example), but I can’t find the study. Does anybody know the study? This is the list btw:
Domestication of plants Domestication of animals Smelting of ore Money Wheel Writing Bronze Iron Water wheel Three-masted sailing ship Printing Factory system Steam Engine Railways Steamship Internal combustion engine Electricity Automobile Airplane Mass production Computer Lean production Internet Biotechnology
EDIT: I found the source https://www.amazon.com/Economic-Transformations-General-Purpose-Technologies/dp/019929089X
You could easily argue that things like washing machine, refrigerator and fertilizers should be added to the list. If you really wanted to make a serious list like this, it’s going to have hundreds of entries.
But then he wouldn’t be able to say AI is 25! And 25 is a cool number or something
Fertilizer gave us the green revolution. Allowed the enormous populations that now exist. Without fertilizer there would have been famines