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5 Genie Out of the Bottle
single city in the USA has been in the top 10 list of most livable cities. In other words,
we need entirely new medicines to heal the world’s ills, in particular as we are now
confronted with another unsolved challenge: the destabilization of our economy and
society by the digital revolution.
5.3 The Digital Revolution on Its Way
The digital revolution arguably deserves even more attention than climate change
because it will dramatically affect almost every aspect of our economy and society
within our lifetimes. Just about ten years ago, most of us didn’t have the slightest
idea that Facebook, Twitter, and iPhones would be an integral part of modern life.
Even large companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Nokia didn’t see some important
developments coming. Now, we are in the middle of a socio-economic transformation, which will create a world ruled by a different logic, and the progress of digital
technologies is further accelerating. What can we expect to happen in the next ten,
twenty, or fifty years? In the analysis that follows, I offer some suggestions which are
not wide-eyed futurology, but considerations based on existing evidence and trends.
However, before we discuss these trends, let us look at how the current situation
emerged.
According to a well-known anecdote, Thomas John Watson Sr. (1874-1956), the
then chairman of IBM, said in 1943:
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Although the statement is surprisingly inaccurate with the benefit of hindsight, at
that time almost nobody could imagine a mass market for computers. For decades,
computers were barely useful to anyone. Even in 1968, an engineer at the Advanced
Computing Systems Division of IBM asked of the microchip: “what … is it good
for?” In 1981, Bill Gates is claimed to have said that a computer memory of 640
kilobytes “ought to be enough for anybody”. Today, our smartphones have a hundred
thousand times more memory than that, and an iPhone has more processing power
than the Apollo rocket, which flew to the moon and back. Nevertheless, the early
innovators who pushed for the acceptance of information technology didn’t have an
easy life. The founder of Apple Computers Inc., Steve Jobs (1955–2011), remembers
his failed attempts to interest Atari and Hewlett-Packard in the personal computer
he co-developed with Steve Wozniak:
“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built
with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll
5 Genie Out of the Bottle
single city in the USA has been in the top 10 list of most livable cities. In other words,
we need entirely new medicines to heal the world’s ills, in particular as we are now
confronted with another unsolved challenge: the destabilization of our economy and
society by the digital revolution.
5.3 The Digital Revolution on Its Way
The digital revolution arguably deserves even more attention than climate change
because it will dramatically affect almost every aspect of our economy and society
within our lifetimes. Just about ten years ago, most of us didn’t have the slightest
idea that Facebook, Twitter, and iPhones would be an integral part of modern life.
Even large companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Nokia didn’t see some important
developments coming. Now, we are in the middle of a socio-economic transformation, which will create a world ruled by a different logic, and the progress of digital
technologies is further accelerating. What can we expect to happen in the next ten,
twenty, or fifty years? In the analysis that follows, I offer some suggestions which are
not wide-eyed futurology, but considerations based on existing evidence and trends.
However, before we discuss these trends, let us look at how the current situation
emerged.
According to a well-known anecdote, Thomas John Watson Sr. (1874-1956), the
then chairman of IBM, said in 1943:
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Although the statement is surprisingly inaccurate with the benefit of hindsight, at
that time almost nobody could imagine a mass market for computers. For decades,
computers were barely useful to anyone. Even in 1968, an engineer at the Advanced
Computing Systems Division of IBM asked of the microchip: “what … is it good
for?” In 1981, Bill Gates is claimed to have said that a computer memory of 640
kilobytes “ought to be enough for anybody”. Today, our smartphones have a hundred
thousand times more memory than that, and an iPhone has more processing power
than the Apollo rocket, which flew to the moon and back. Nevertheless, the early
innovators who pushed for the acceptance of information technology didn’t have an
easy life. The founder of Apple Computers Inc., Steve Jobs (1955–2011), remembers
his failed attempts to interest Atari and Hewlett-Packard in the personal computer
he co-developed with Steve Wozniak:
“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built
with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll