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.
Fertilizer gave us the green revolution. Allowed the enormous populations that now exist. Without fertilizer there would have been famines
Before synthetic fertilizers were invented, people would fight for guano islands.
See also: Chincha Islands War
But then he wouldn’t be able to say AI is 25! And 25 is a cool number or something