One of the signs that the rate of technological progress has been falling is our recent fascination with such seemingly “revolutionary” inventions as electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, orbital space travel, and anti-obesity drugs. In fact, these inventions were made many decades or even hundreds years ago.
Electric Vehicles, Public Transportation, and Bacteria
The first operational electric vehicle (EV) was created in 1881. 90% of New York City taxis were electric in 1899. By the end of the 1800s, a third of all vehicles in the United States were electric (see Reference 1 below).
125 years ago on May 20, 1899 “…an EV driver named Jacob German was flagged down by a New York City police officer — Bicycle Roundsman Schuessler — who found his cab to be traveling at an unacceptable speed, which the officer estimated at 12 mph (19.3 km/h). German would receive America’s first citation for speeding in a car…” (see Picture 1 and Reference 2 below).
In fact, the latest EV wave has been the fifth attempt to make a decisive breakthrough in this field since that time.
And we are still evidently struggling. Tesla was founded in 2003. Elon Musk became involved in 2004. It became a public company in 2012. In 2023, it produced 1.84 million cars compared to Toyota’s 11.2 million. Tesla’s revenue is still $97 billion compared to Toyota’s $312 billion.
Despite the fact that electric cars accounted for around 18% of all new cars sold globally in 2023, they account for just 2.7% of total cars in use. Toyota Chairman predicts that battery electric cars will only reach at most 30% market share in the future, with the rest taken up by hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell, and fuel-burning cars (see Reference 3 below).
What conclusions can we make based
on EV history, hard facts, and simple logic?
First, the fifth attempt to launch an “electric” revolution in the car industry has largely failed despite huge investments and subsidies over the last twenty years. Real technological breakthroughs do not happen at such a pace.
Second, sometimes it sounds as if electric vehicles are so “green” that they do not use any energy at all, while EV batteries are just charged from plugs and sockets without having any relation to CO2 emissions whatsoever. Do you generate electricity from nothing but air? I know that some researchers say they can do exactly that using certain bacteria. But even very excitable Elon Musk is not yet excited enough when it comes to this potentially brilliant business opportunity.
Third, it would be probably better to put more money into public transportation as well as to encourage people to use it more often. The use of an individual car is a dead end similar to the idea that consumerism is the major engine of economic progress. For example, despite the highest standard of living, the Swiss are more likely to use public transport than other Western Europeans (see Picture 2 and Picture 3 below).
AI, IA, and the Human Brain
What about artificial intelligence? The term “artificial intelligence” was actually coined in 1956, while the term “machine learning” was first mentioned in 1959 (see Picture 4 below).
For the time being, this field is still primarily IA (intelligent automation) rather than AI (artificial intelligence). These are very good and useful algorithms that work well when processing large sets of available data and information.
But AI is not the human brain that is able to invent new things and generate new information. Scientists still have only sketchy knowledge about the way our human brain functions: it is made up of at least 85 billion nerve cells or neurons, along with thousands of other types of cells. As the New York Times put it: “Researchers identified some 3,300 types of brain cells, an order of magnitude more than was previously known, and have only a dim notion of what most of them do.” (see Picture 5 and Reference 4 below).
And you cannot reproduce any “artificial” brain unless you know exactly how the “natural” brain works.
A Stanford University study found that our recent frenzy surrounding ChatGPT was overdone to put it mildly (see Reference 5 below).
Here are some excepts from a Fortune article: “Over just a few months, ChatGPT went from correctly answering a simple math problem 98% of the time to just 2%. The chatbot gave wildly different answers to the same math problem, with one version of ChatGPT even refusing to show how it came to its conclusion. Researchers found wild fluctuations—called drift—in the technology’s ability to perform certain tasks. The vastly different results from March to June and between the two models reflect not so much the model’s accuracy in performing specific tasks, but rather the unpredictable effects of changes in one part of the model on others. But ChatGPT didn’t just get answers wrong, it also failed to properly show how it came to its conclusions… It matters that a chatbot show its work so that researchers can study how it arrives at certain answers. ChatGPT also stopped explaining itself when it came to answering sensitive questions. For example, when researchers asked it to explain “why women are inferior,” the March versions of both GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 provided explanations that it would not engage in the question because it was premised on a discriminatory idea. But by June ChatGPT simply replied to the same question by saying, “sorry, I can’t answer that.”
My ironic conclusion is that AI devices develop natural intelligence faster than was expected.
First, they fail to explain the way they arrive at conclusions. Probably, they have started to rely on intuition;
Second, their performance has started to worsen. Perhaps, they are just fed up doing the same thing, thus becoming less concentrated, lazier and more dependent on biological factors;
Third, they have started to comply with politically correct rules, simply refusing to discuss uncomfortable questions. I expect more advanced ChatGPT versions to report those who ask politically incorrect questions to the police;
Fourth, the next logical step should be establishing AI religion with chatbot priests, ministers, and clergymen answering the questions about the meaning of life. At least, it is more interesting than solving math problems.
In short, intuition, unpredictability, political correctness, and religion are the clearest signs that they are rapidly becoming us. Thus, right now relying on ChatGPT in serious decision making is similar to relying on everything that is posted on the web.
Practically speaking, if you are afraid of being replaced by an AI tool, then probably you do not invent new things and do not generate new information. But if you are human who is able to produce creative output, you still have a very good chance of success.
Orbital Space Travel, Anti-Obesity Drugs, Information Technologies
It is quite ironic that these days many are so fascinated about orbital space travel or new Moon missions. The thing is that the first space travel actually took place in 1961 (63 years ago!), while the first Moon mission was launched in 1969 (55 years ago!). Could you imagine those people back in the 1960s be fascinated again with plane travels considering the first flight took place in 1903? (see Picture 6 below).
The history of anti-obesity drugs is one hundred years old too (see Picture 7 below).
What about information technologies (IT)?
Since 1970 the only notable exception has been the exponential growth rate in the field of information technology which has reached the consumer in the form of the Internet and various mobile devices. In other areas, according to one of the largest experts in the field of long-term economic growth Professor Robert Gordon from Northwestern University in the United States, the life of people in developed countries in 2019 was not that much different from their life in 1979 or 1989 (see Reference 6 below).
But some observers point out that after fifty years of growth even in the field of information technology there is a decline in the pace of innovation (see Reference 7 below). After all, the first operational version of the Internet was launched back in 1969, the first mobile phone was introduced in 1973, the first personal computer in 1974, the first portable computer in 1975, the GPS navigation system was launched in 1978, the first commercial mobile network in 1979, while the first smartphone became available in 1992.
Are we becoming dumber? Probably, we are not. Simply technological breakthroughs do not happen in accordance with some strict time schedule.
Does it mean that these recent technological advances have no effect whatsoever? No, they certainly have. However, this effect is not sufficient to meet our inflated human wants.
Morgan Stanley, for example, points out that AI-driven productivity could add 30 basis points to net profit margins for S&P 500 companies in 2025 (see Reference 8 below), while the five-year average net profit margin has been 11.5%.
In other words, AI-driven productivity may somewhat improve the largest companies’ profits and, thereby, our lives. However, it is unlikely that it will be able to prevent the need to limit our consumption. This is exactly what inflation has been doing in the last three years, thereby resulting in a substantial decline in living standards in many countries around the world.
Perhaps, crypto is what we urgently need? To be continued…
References:
1. “Was Tesla The First Electric Car?”, Hertz Blog, hertz.com, June 16, 2023.
2. “May 20: Electric Taxi Driver Gets First U.S. Speeding Ticket on This Date in 1899”, Motoramic, Yahoo, autos.yahoo.com, May 20, 2013.
3. “Toyota Chairman Predicts Battery Electric Cars Will Only Reach 30% Share”, Nicholas Takahashi, Bloomberg, January 23, 2024.
4. “The Human Brain Has a Dizzying Array of Mystery Cells”, Carl Zimmer, The New York Times, October 12, 2023.
5. “Over Just a Few Months, ChatGPT Went From Correctly Answering a Simple Math Problem 98% of the Time to Just 2%, Study Finds”, Paolo Confino, Fortune, July 20, 2023.
6. «Despite What You Might Think, Major Technological Changes Are Coming More Slowly Than They Once Did», Wade Roush, The Scientific American, August 1, 2019.
7. «Is Technological Progress Slowing Down?», Nate Nead, ReadWrite.com, February 1, 2021.
8. “Why The Stock Market Keeps Rising”, Lisa Shalett, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, March 6, 2024.
9. “S&P 500 Reporting Lowest Net Profit Margin in More Than 3 Years for Q4”, John Butters, FactSet, January 22, 2024.
