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I am reading The New Wave, the last book from Microsoft AI CEO Suleyman. He mentioned that a massive study pegged down the General Purpose Technologies to be only 24 in the last 10000 years (so fire is not included for example), but I can’t find the study. Does anybody know the study? This is the list btw:

Domestication of plants Domestication of animals Smelting of ore Money Wheel Writing Bronze Iron Water wheel Three-masted sailing ship Printing Factory system Steam Engine Railways Steamship Internal combustion engine Electricity Automobile Airplane Mass production Computer Lean production Internet Biotechnology

EDIT: I found the source https://www.amazon.com/Economic-Transformations-General-Purpose-Technologies/dp/019929089X

  • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    1 day ago

    Sounds like some totally arbitrary bullshit someone made up to meet a word count. Some are specific, some are vague. Some (lean production) are corporate bullshit

    • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      You could easily argue that things like washing machine, refrigerator and fertilizers should be added to the list. If you really wanted to make a serious list like this, it’s going to have hundreds of entries.

      • psud@aussie.zoneEnglish
        1·
        15 hours ago

        Fertilizer gave us the green revolution. Allowed the enormous populations that now exist. Without fertilizer there would have been famines

      • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 day ago

        But then he wouldn’t be able to say AI is 25! And 25 is a cool number or something