...there are somewhere between six and ten billion people. At any given time, most of them are making mud bricks or field-stripping their AK-47s. - Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
When we think of new technologies, we typically think of expensive, high-tech innovations, like energy production, robotics, etc. I would suggest that broader adoption of existing technologies, including social technologies, would have a bigger global impact.
For example, one technology that could dramatically impact GDP is improved managerial technology. This paper describes a study of this in India. Among the findings in the paper (or in references that it cites):
100% productivity spreads between the 10th and 90th percentile in US commodity-producing firms
A ratio of the 90th to the 10th percentiles of total factor productivity is 5.0 in Indian and 4.9 in Chinese firms
After improving management in the studied firms, “We estimate that within the first year productivity increased by 17%; based on these changes we impute that annual profitability increased by over $300,000. These better-managed firms also appeared to grow faster, with suggestive evidence that better management allowed them to delegate more and open more production plants in the three years following the start of the experiment”
FWIW, world GDP growth rates have if anything been decreasing over the last ~80 years
Interesting. Yeah, I guess if the less-developed world suddenly adopted cutting-edge tech and practices, that would be enough of a boost to grow at 9%+ for a few years until they caught up to the developed countries and slowed down to developed-country rates.
What could cause that to happen, though? Shouldn’t we expect the diffusion of cutting-edge tech and practices to take place over several years (decades, even) in the absence of AGI?
China had 40 years of that kind of growth. For poor African countries there’s more then a few years of growing like that to catch up.
What could cause that to happen, though?
If someone manages to solve online teaching in a scaleable way it might be able to change the way people in developing countries run their businesses in shorter amounts of time.
Yeah, someone else suggested a novel nootropic drug as one answer—online education is basically an alternative form of that drug that is easier to realize (or at least, it’s hard is a very different way)
...there are somewhere between six and ten billion people. At any given time, most of them are making mud bricks or field-stripping their AK-47s. - Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
When we think of new technologies, we typically think of expensive, high-tech innovations, like energy production, robotics, etc. I would suggest that broader adoption of existing technologies, including social technologies, would have a bigger global impact.
For example, one technology that could dramatically impact GDP is improved managerial technology. This paper describes a study of this in India. Among the findings in the paper (or in references that it cites):
100% productivity spreads between the 10th and 90th percentile in US commodity-producing firms
A ratio of the 90th to the 10th percentiles of total factor productivity is 5.0 in Indian and 4.9 in Chinese firms
After improving management in the studied firms, “We estimate that within the first year productivity increased by 17%; based on these changes we impute that annual profitability increased by over $300,000. These better-managed firms also appeared to grow faster, with suggestive evidence that better management allowed them to delegate more and open more production plants in the three years following the start of the experiment”
FWIW, world GDP growth rates have if anything been decreasing over the last ~80 years
Interesting. Yeah, I guess if the less-developed world suddenly adopted cutting-edge tech and practices, that would be enough of a boost to grow at 9%+ for a few years until they caught up to the developed countries and slowed down to developed-country rates.
What could cause that to happen, though? Shouldn’t we expect the diffusion of cutting-edge tech and practices to take place over several years (decades, even) in the absence of AGI?
China had 40 years of that kind of growth. For poor African countries there’s more then a few years of growing like that to catch up.
If someone manages to solve online teaching in a scaleable way it might be able to change the way people in developing countries run their businesses in shorter amounts of time.
Yeah, someone else suggested a novel nootropic drug as one answer—online education is basically an alternative form of that drug that is easier to realize (or at least, it’s hard is a very different way)