Why now? We are entering the most extraordinary times in human history: “The Exponential Era”
Reaction Blog - February 2021 By David Espindola
Measurably improve one billion lives within a decade. Is it even possible?
This may seem like a lofty goal for an organization, but that is exactly the bold mission of Reaction. What may seem like mission impossible to many, is a challenging but achievable target for a group of determined entrepreneurs, investors and executives who understand the power of exponential growth. Reaction reflects its mindset in the organization’s moniker: exponential change.
Founded by a group of Stanford GSB alumni, many of which met while attending Stanford’s Executive Education Program, Reaction is a global organization of loosely coupled, networked, high-charge innovation leaders whose vision is to leverage the power of technology, talent and capital to address the world’s most pressing needs. I came to know the organization through my connection to Stanford, and after talking to Dan Matthies, Reaction’s Co-Founder and Managing Partner, I could not be more enthusiastic and energized by the possibilities ensuing from the organization’s exponential change outlook – what is possible today and in the near future far exceeds what could have been achieved just a few decades ago.
The Exponential Era
I have recently co-authored a book titled The Exponential Era – Strategies to Stay Ahead of the Curve in an Era of Chaotic Changes and Disruptive Forces. In the book we explain how things are changing at unprecedented speeds, moving much faster than they did just a decade ago. This is due to a number of key factors:
First, technology is growing exponentially. The exponential growth of technology has its roots in Moore’s law which states that computing capacity doubles every eighteen months. Since most technologies are now supported by digital capabilities, they are all subject to Moore’s law.
Second, today we have several exponential platforms with astounding impact to business and society. We have identified eight such platforms in the book: AI, Blockchain, Biotechnology, Quantum Computing, Internet of Things, 3D Printing, Robotics, and Material Science. Other thought leaders categorize these platforms differently, so you could end up with as many as a dozen or so platforms. The key point is, we’ve never seen so many of these platforms flourish within such a short period of time. The last time this happened was in the early 1900s when there were only three such platforms - the internal combustion engine, electricity, and telephony – setting the stage for the modern world as know it today.
And third, these exponential technologies are converging, creating combinatorial multipliers that amplify even more their potential impact.
Once you understand the power of exponential growth, the possibilities are endless
The human brain has a hard time dealing with exponential growth because we tend to think in terms of linear progression. In order to illustrate this point, let me give you an example. If you take an 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper, and start folding it in half, you will be able to fold it about 6 or 7 times, and the paper will become about 1 inch thick. If you could fold it 50 times, how thick do you think the piece of paper would get?
Without looking at the answer, most people would say that the paper would become a few feet thick. That is how our linear brain works. But in reality, every time you fold the paper you are doubling its thickness, and this represents an exponential progression. After doubling the thickness of a regular piece of paper just 50 times, the thickness of the paper would become equivalent to the distance from the earth to the sun!
The point of this example is to illustrate the nature of exponential growth. The exponential curve looks flat for a long period of time, as if nothing is happening. Then, suddenly, it hits an inflection point and goes straight up. To a linear thinking brain, measurably improving the lives of one billion people within a decade may seem like mission impossible. But once you understand the power of exponential growth, the possibilities are endless.
The time to make this world a better place is now!
We are entering the most extraordinary times in human history. We are entering a new era characterized by the deepest, fastest and most significant transformation human civilization has ever experienced. The convergence of technologies is enabling a 10X increase in production efficiencies, resulting in 10X cost decrease and 90% reduction in the use of natural resources.
Consequently, for the first time ever, a new world order marked by abundance, low cost of living, and human freedom from the toil of labor is within reach. According to James Arbib and Tony Seba, in their book Rethinking Humanity, “Withing 10-15 years, everyone on the planet could have access to the ‘American Dream’ for a few hundred dollars a month. For the first time in history, poverty could be overcome easily.”
The implications for this great transformation are enormous
As we balance our enthusiasm for a future that promises abundance for all, we must also consider potential negative impacts, and the realities of the world we live in today. The identity-defining, work-centered life that we have grown accustomed to for more than a century is about to be unsettled. Technical unemployment, driven by advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Automation and Robotics, will displace workers at rates never seen before. A new wave of AI capable of learning by itself can create game-winning strategies that defeat other machines that use human-provided instructions. We have shown that we do not need to achieve the elusive Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or solve the mysteries of how the human brain operates to build machines that can outperform human beings.
Machines are gradually but relentlessly encroaching on what was once believed to be the exclusive realm of tasks performed by humans. Autonomous vehicles are already capable of driving more safely than we can. Robots today can already open doors, climb walls, go upstairs, tie knots, and perform many more tasks with remarkable dexterity and proficiency. McKinsey estimates that, as of 2015, 64% of worker hours in all areas of manufacturing were spent on tasks that could be automated with existing technologies. Balfour Beatty, a construction company, believes its construction sites will be human-free by 2050. JP Morgan has developed a system that reviews commercial loan agreements in a few seconds, compared to an estimated 360,000 hours of human labor. AI can make medical diagnosis at an increasingly higher rate of accuracy, surpassing human capabilities in many areas from eye diseases to skin cancer. Examples of task encroachment by AI, automation and robots are numerous.
This rate of social injustice and inequality is unsustainable
As technology continues to advance and encroach on tasks and professions that until now were performed by humans, what type of work will remain available for us to perform? If technology advancements indeed bring us abundance, low cost of living, and human freedom from the toil of labor, what will we do with our time? Will we be able to find a social-economic model that entails a fair distribution of the abundant wealth to be created so that all of humanity can benefit and we can all have our basic needs met? Based on recent evidence, there is still much work to be done to achieve social justice and a distribution system that ensures that those less fortunate can aspire to a life of dignity and provision for their basic needs.
According to the Social Justice Resource Center, as of 2019, the American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in prison, an increase of 500% in the last 40 years. If incarceration rates continue to grow at the pace they have since the 1970’s, 33% of black American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as can 16% of Latino males. In 2018, the world’s billionaires got richer by $2.5 billion — a day, while the poorest half of humanity got poorer by $500 million, each day. The world’s top 26 individual billionaires now own as much as the poorest 3.8 billion people. This rate of social injustice and inequality is unsustainable.
Let’s work together to build a better world for all humans, not just a select few
We have so much potential. The future looks so bright when we think about the abundance that exponential growth promises to bring. But the only way we can achieve peace, sustainability, and justice for all is if we work together and build a better world for all humans, not just a select few. We have an unprecedented opportunity and responsibility to make this world a better place for generations to come. It is organizations like Reaction that give me hope that the best is yet to come.
For further information about Reaction please visit the Reaction website at reaction.global or contact the Reaction team at change@reaction.global.
About the Author
David Espindola is co-author of The Exponential Era – Strategies to Stay Ahead of the Curve in an Era of Chaotic Changes and Disruptive Forces. He is Co-Founder and CEO of iLumina Tech, a technology company that accelerates customers’ digital transformation journeys. He is also a Founding Partner of Intercepting Horizons, a strategic advisory services firm that prepares clients to intercept strategic trends and converging technology vectors impacting their organization’s future. David also serves as a member of the Advisory Board at the University of Minnesota's Technological Leadership Institute (TLI).
About Reaction
Reaction is about creating exponential change. We are a global community of entrepreneurs, investors and executives who share a vision for a world where innovation can meaningfully change more lives in less time. Why now? Because more innovations will be created in more countries and more industries over the next decade than in the previous 50 years. Many will offer the potential to solve global issues. But will fail to reach the markets they could have benefited most. Reaction was founded by a global team of Stanford alumni who united to solve this problem together. Our mission is to measurably improve one billion lives, within a decade, by scaling innovations that will change the world.
