- In the 13 billion years
that the universe has existed,
humans have occupied a
really short period of that time.
It's around 200 to 300,000 years in total.
Through that time,
we discovered how to make fire,
we invented mathematics,
created the written word,
built cities, cured diseases,
went to war many, many times,
and ended the 20th century
sending and returning humans to another world.
For most of our history,
human populations remained small
and lived in tight and largely disconnected communities.
Barely 200 years ago,
the entire population of our planet
was less than one billion people.
Today, we are approaching eight billion
and will likely reach 11 billion
by the end of the century.
The lifespan of a human was
between 30 and 40 years old.
Today, fortunately, on average,
it is double that.
And most of the population
now lives in vast, complex cities.
In the 21st century,
we expect access to electricity,
schools for our children,
a system of law and order,
efficient transport systems and
economic opportunity from factory jobs
to office occupations.
Today, few of us have any appreciation
for a pre-industrial world.
It's as unrecognizable as the 21st century
would look to someone who lived 200 years ago.
The modern world as we know it
is barely a few hundred years old.
For 99.9% of the time humans have existed,
progress was painfully slow.
Then everything suddenly changed.
The significant transformation of the
human experience in just a brief few centuries
is a consequence of a series
of monumental revolutions.
We'll focus on what are called
the industrial revolutions.
In each of these,
the world that entered the beginning of each
looked different at the other side,
particularly from the perspective of
technology, socioeconomics, and culture.
Each resulted in massive disruption.
The emergence of mass production factories
resulted in a whole range of remarkable outcomes
from leaps in the standard of living
to life conveniences such as washing machines
and the standardization of the 40 hour work week.
We are still struggling with the
negative impacts of each of these revolutions too.
For example, the first industrial revolution,
which originates in Britain in the late 1700s,
saw the beginning of widespread use of coal for industry.
Today, scientists believe coal
has radically contributed
towards human caused climate change
and to air quality problems
that have resulted in widespread disease.
These revolutions also produced an
uneven distribution of winners and, unfortunately,
a large number of losers.
Some nations and continents benefited early,
while others only began to prosper
in the late 20th century.
A few remaining nations have yet to see
the socioeconomic benefits.
Each of the three industrial revolutions
are deeply complex areas.
And let's recognize their deep consequences.
The emergence of the fourth
must be seen through the same lens.
The world that enters this revolution
will look different on the other side
with regard to technology,
socioeconomics, and culture.
Its effects will be unevenly distributed
and yes, there will be winners and losers.
And now an important word of caution.
It may be a grave underestimation
to believe that most fundamentals will remain intact,
to believe that core human experiences
will be, perhaps, only marginally altered.
Nobody can say with any certainty
what will happen next.
However, I'm making a bet that the scope,
impact, and velocity of change ahead
will far exceed what most expect.