How can something be 50% done but also only 5% complete simultaneously? Well in the case of the human genome project this was exactly what happened — looking at the sequencing over the period from 1990 when the project was funded to 2000 – when the “rough draft” was published, almost none of the genome had been sequenced at the halfway point (1995). Even taking the six year period from 1996 to 2002 (when substantially all of the sequencing had been completed) we see that 3 years in, 1999, less than 10% of the genome had been sequenced:
(Image from Strategic Genomics)
What is happening here is simple – it is the interface between linear time (that which we biological organisms deeply comprehend) and the exponential time that technology operates at. Stop and think about this for a moment. Assume that this notion of “time” that you have is not a constant, but in fact is the subject of your particular ability to perceive change. Our bodies, brains, and the culture around us are all calibrated to linear time. But the technology world operates on an exponential pace. And increasingly our world depends upon technology.
The Human Genome Project depended upon improvements in technology in order to achieve its goal. Sequencing technology improved every year and allowed the team to sequence more than twice the material each year that had been sequenced in the year before. This trend line continues — research and entrepreneur Craig Venter recently observed that each year more sequencing is done than the aggregate of all prior years combined. Such is the magic of exponential growth.
Dr. Andreas Weigend has similarly observed (The Social Data Revolution) that each year more data is created and stored than in all prior years combined. Technology is moving exponentially. Biology continues on at a linear pace. Are our lives more bounded by the biology of our bodies and brains? Or by the technology that defines our environment?
Smithsonian Magazine sought to answer this question in their latest issue, which celebrates the magazine’s 40th anniversary. This issue looks both backwards and forwards, imagining what life in 2050, 40 years from now, will be like. But they and the people they interview (visitors views of the Smithsonian at 50) fail to comprehend the big picture.
Over the linear timeline of 80 years, the first half, or 40 years, represents less than 5% of the changes that are driven by technology which are arguably the most important changes in defining what our lives will be like in the future. Or put another way, the next 40 years will bring 20 times more change then the last 40 years.
Reflecting on jet air travel, digital communications, personal computers, mobile phones, the Internet… the last 40 years did bring about 20 times more change then the 40 years prior — think about 1970-2010 vs. 1930-1970. Think about any linear (biological) timeline against an exponential (technological) timeline:
200 years ago exponential technological change didn’t matter to most people. We didn’t notice because technology wasn’t part of the way we lived our lives. Today everything we do is mediated by technology, and all of it is changing, radically, daily.
Are you ready for 20 times more change in the next 40 years than in the last 40 years?
