“No more hard work!” the headline proclaimed. An emerging technology meant there would be no more menial labour within the next century, freeing us up for a life of leisure. The year was 1923 and New York scientist Charles P. Steinmetz wrote in an article that “the time is coming at the present rate of world progress when there will be no long, back-breaking drudgery, and when people will work not more than four hours a day.”
Dr Steinmetz was writing about the arrival of electricity, believing it would “ease the dull duties of this complex existence”. 100 years later, and with his prophecy failing to materialise, the same is now being written of artificial intelligence. Last year proved to be a breakout year for the technology, with some headlines echoing Steinmetz’s sentiment, while others warned of the ever-looming existential threat that AI potentially poses.
Predictions for electricity, and now AI, illustrate how tricky it is to forecast the future when it comes to technology. Technological progress is not linear, it is exponential: New technologies converge to make others possible, compounding the rate of progress until even the rate of exponential growth becomes exponential.
