The Practical Implications of the Transformation

The World is about to fundamentally, radically and rapidly change. We call it The Transformation. It actually began around 1980, however, it will reach its peak rate of change between 2010 and 2030. Here, we will primarily discuss the impending Income Explosion. Between 1875 and 2010, what we refer to as the High Industrial Age, GDP per capita in constant dollars increased between twelve and fifteen times throughout most of the developed world. Over the next few decades, through the implementation of robotics and artificial intelligence, the same will take place during the early Information Age. Because of accelerating change, it will require thirty to forty years, instead of 135 years. Because of globalization, the income explosion will encompass the whole world, not just a portion of it. Consequently, Gross World Product will likely increase thirty to forty fold, from $70 trillion to between $2,100 and $2,800 trillion.

One measure used to gauge the degree of automation is Robot Density or the number of installed robots per 10,000 workers. This measure is currently between 150 and 300 throughout most of the developed world. It has not been growing quickly, but rather at a very lackadaisical rate of 5%-10% per year. This has more to do with cultural inertia and restricted R&D funding than any underlying technological or economic limitations. As the cost of computing power has been halving every three years or so, the gap between automation and AI capability and implementation has been growing. Soon, we will reach a critical differential and a kind of ‘Moore’s Law of Robotics’ will take hold. If we experience a doubling every two years in Robot Density, within twelve years, there will be more robots in the workplace than people. Within twenty years, there will be twenty robots for every human worker.

Actually, by that time, the concept of Human Productive Equivalent (HPE) will probably replace Robot Density. The reason is that not all robots are equal and the disparity between a simple housecleaning robot and a complex surgical robot or bespoke auto making robot will be immense. We would interpret HPE to be a rather hypothetical quantity of ‘value added’ based upon late high Industrial Age machine multipliers. We would expect it to be approximately equal to current Robot Density measures, but substantially more accurate. As such, by 2030 or 2035 the world economy could have 20 HPE’s for every person on the planet.

This is all very fascinating, as are many of the other ideas put forth in the The Future 101 and on the Institute site. However, it really seems that it should be more much than just a provocative idea. Clearly, two quadrillion dollars is a lot of Gross World Product to be created and it sure would be nice to get a piece of it. It would be particularly nice if we did so doing something worthwhile. While hardly the only function of The Polymathic Institute, one of our objectives is to bring together extraordinary polymathic intellectuals, visionary entrepreneurs and aggressive, risk tolerant investors to do just that. You are cordially invited to consider such an involvement to your personal benefit.

Membership is similar to 'talk and blog' sites at $54.95 per year or $6.95 per month. Membership is a true bargain. It is a meaningful opportunity for early entrance into what we refer to as the ‘Knowledge Class’ and the characteristic Information Age lifestyles and incomes. What does that mean? A $50K per year Industrial Age professional will earn between $600K and $750K in the Information Age. They will be engaged primarily in gathering information, processing into knowledge and/or disseminating the result.

However, this transformation to Information Age income levels will not happen by all of us, lockstep, getting raises of 10% per year plus inflation. Rather some people will move to highly compensated Knowledge Professions quickly. We recently learned that when NPR analyst, Juan Williams was fired, he signed on to Fox News for around $650K per year. He is a typical Knowledge Professional. Not someday, but now. The number of people so engaged has been increasing rapidly and will continue to do so.

Most people, however, will follow a less positive path. They will be victims of technological unemployment, move to another Industrial Age profession. Find that, again, their job disappears as well. Eventually, they will understand that they need to become a Knowledge Professional. By becoming a Member of The Polymathic Institute, you are choosing to be in the first group, not the latter.

Your Membership will also provide you with access to a growing global community of extraordinary people. Our goal is to have 25,000 Members and Fellows within two or three years. In addition to benefiting you professionally, it will also benefit you intellectually and socially.

Please visit the Institute site or The Future 101. If, upon reflection, you think you may be interested in becoming a Member, simply press the 'Subscribe' button. If you are interested in exploring Institute Fellowship or certification as a Polymath, contact your sponsor or e-mail Fellows@polymathica.com.