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.

Polymathica TV

Soon, radio and television will move to the Internet. Actually, to a limited degree, it already has. This will be good news for most people, but really great news for polymathic intellectuals. It means that refined, erudite television programming will become economically viable and, therefore, available in large doses, 24/7. It also means that a whole new community of producers of refined, erudite television will emerge. What is astounding is how completely Internet television and specifically Polymathica television will change the economic dynamics of the industry. Today, television programming requires massive audiences in order to survive. USA Network’s The Starter Wife was canceled due to poor ratings despite routinely attracting audiences of 2.5 million. Consequently, when new show concepts are considered, appeal to large demographic audiences is never far from the producers’ thoughts.

Internet television can survive on 100,000 viewers or less. The cost of producing a serviceable one hour program has been decreasing due to improving technologies. Today, costs in the $200K to $300K per episode are not impossible as long as the producers stay away from high cost talent, special effects or sets. At a download fee of two dollars, break even is between 100K and 150K viewers. Television that is produced with the Polymathica audience in mind will surely find secondary markets. Consequently, actual viewers required to sustain a refined, erudite show on Polymathica may be no more than 50K to 75K.

The critical difference between the old and the new is that broadcast, cable and satellite Networks have a limited number of time slots to fill. If, in the experience of the Network, the performance of a show is below the potential for the time slot, they will cancel the show, even if the producers are making a profit. Polymathica Television, however, has no such limitation. Its only concern is that it doesn’t oversupply the market and thereby cause the producers to lose money. If the average Polymathica subscriber acquires ten hours per week of content and the average show requires 100K of viewers per episode, a naïve calculation would conclude that Polymathica can support 2.5 million X 10 / 100K = 250 hours of production per week. Comparisons can become complicated, but this is generally equivalent to saying that Polymathica Television, in pre-Internet terminology, could support about six channels of programming. Another way of looking at it, an economically viable Polymathica show will only require 4% of the subscribers to watch.

It will, however, not work that way. Pareto and entertainment Darwinism will take over and the fittest programs will get more than 4% of the viewers, thereby eliminating some of the marginal ones. To a degree, large, mass audience programming will impinge upon the viewing time of more quintessentially Polymathica programming. The problem is a complex one. However, a back of the envelope monte carlo simulation suggests that the actual number of hours of production per week that can be supported by Polymathica will be about 120. Since all of it is community appropriate, it should be more than sufficient to produce a golden age of erudite television.

Polymathica is creating a community in advance of the content, products and services that will satisfy the appetites of the community. Particularly visionary Members may choose to create the content in advance of the community. Those so interested should consider joining our Founders’ Group. We are behind others. There is a Gaia.com. It does not yet have television, but it will. It already has some of the group specific products and services being advertised. We are behind them, but this is not a race. Gaia.com is good to look at because it is where we should be in six months.

Polymathica is just now embarking on an exciting journey. Simply by clicking the facebook ‘join’ button, subscribing to our blog or visiting Polymathica.com and subscribing to our mailing list, you can join us. It will be a lot of fun and you will meet some wonderful and amazing people.