If throughout most of history growth rates have been gradually increasing, I don’t follow why you would expect one technology to cause it to grow much faster, if it goes back to accelerating.
I currently don’t expect it to grow much faster, at least not until we have AGI. Is your question why I think AGI would make it grow much faster? Roughly, my answer is “Because singularity.” But if you think not even AGI would make it grow much faster—which in this context means >9% per year—then that’s all the more reason to think “Economy doubles in 4 years before the first 1-year doubling” is a bad metric for what we care about.
(To clarify though, I don’t intend for the question to be only answerable by single technologies. Answers can list several technologies, e.g. all the ones on my list.)
I meant: conditional on it growing faster, why expect this is attributable to a small number of technologies, given that when it accelerated previously it was not like that (if I understand)?
Another, somewhat different reply occurs to me: Plausibly the reason why growth rates have been roughly steady for the past sixty years or so is that world population growth has slowed down (thanks to education, birth control, etc.). So on this view, there’s technological growth and there’s population growth, and combined they equal GWP growth, and combined they’ve been on a hyperbolic trajectory for most of history but recently are merely on an exponential trajectory thanks to faltering population growth.
If this story is right, then in order for GWP growth to accelerate again, we either need to boost population growth, or boost technological growth even more than usual, i.e. even more than was the case in previous periods of GWP acceleration like the industrial revolution or the agricultural revolution or, well, literally any period.
So, I’d conclude that it’s unlikely for GWP growth to accelerate again, absent specific reasons to think this time will be different. AGI is one such reason. The other answers people are giving are other reasons (though I don’t find them plausible.)
Ah, OK. Good point. I think when it accelerated previously, it was the result of a small number of technologies, so long as we are careful to define our technologies broadly enough. For example, we can say the acceleration due to the agricultural revolution was due to agriculture + a few other things maybe. And we can say the acceleration due to the industrial revolution was due to engines + international trade + mass-production methods + scientific institutions + capitalist institutions + a few other things I’m forgetting. I’m looking for something similar here; e.g. Abram’s answer “We automate everything, but without using AGI” is acceptable to me, even though it’s only a single technology if we define our tech extremely broadly.
the acceleration due to the agricultural revolution was due to agriculture + a few other things maybe
This linguistic trick only seems to work because you have a single word (“agriculture”) that describes most human work at that time. If you want the analogous level of description for “what is going to improve next?” just look up what people are doing in the modern economy. If you need more words to describe the modern economy, then I guess it’s going to be “more technologies” that are responsible this time (though in the future, when stuff we do today is a smaller part of the economy, they may describe it using a smaller number of words).
we can say the acceleration due to the industrial revolution was due to engines + international trade + mass-production methods + scientific institutions + capitalist institutions + a few other things I’m forgetting
If you are including lists that long then I guess the thing that’s going to change is “improved manufacturing + logistics + construction + retail + finance” or whatever, just sample all the stuff that humans do and then it gets improved.
(I think “a few other things” is actually quite a lot of other things, unless you construe “mass-production” super broadly.)
It’s fair to call what I did a linguistic trick, but that cuts both ways—it’s equally a linguistic trick to say that my original question assumed a small number of technologies. I did have possibilities like the one you mention in mind when I wrote the question, though in retrospect I didn’t make that clear. I think the possibility you raise is a good one, and similar to Abram’s.
If throughout most of history growth rates have been gradually increasing, I don’t follow why you would expect one technology to cause it to grow much faster, if it goes back to accelerating.
I currently don’t expect it to grow much faster, at least not until we have AGI. Is your question why I think AGI would make it grow much faster? Roughly, my answer is “Because singularity.” But if you think not even AGI would make it grow much faster—which in this context means >9% per year—then that’s all the more reason to think “Economy doubles in 4 years before the first 1-year doubling” is a bad metric for what we care about.
(To clarify though, I don’t intend for the question to be only answerable by single technologies. Answers can list several technologies, e.g. all the ones on my list.)
I meant: conditional on it growing faster, why expect this is attributable to a small number of technologies, given that when it accelerated previously it was not like that (if I understand)?
Another, somewhat different reply occurs to me: Plausibly the reason why growth rates have been roughly steady for the past sixty years or so is that world population growth has slowed down (thanks to education, birth control, etc.). So on this view, there’s technological growth and there’s population growth, and combined they equal GWP growth, and combined they’ve been on a hyperbolic trajectory for most of history but recently are merely on an exponential trajectory thanks to faltering population growth.
If this story is right, then in order for GWP growth to accelerate again, we either need to boost population growth, or boost technological growth even more than usual, i.e. even more than was the case in previous periods of GWP acceleration like the industrial revolution or the agricultural revolution or, well, literally any period.
So, I’d conclude that it’s unlikely for GWP growth to accelerate again, absent specific reasons to think this time will be different. AGI is one such reason. The other answers people are giving are other reasons (though I don’t find them plausible.)
Ah, OK. Good point. I think when it accelerated previously, it was the result of a small number of technologies, so long as we are careful to define our technologies broadly enough. For example, we can say the acceleration due to the agricultural revolution was due to agriculture + a few other things maybe. And we can say the acceleration due to the industrial revolution was due to engines + international trade + mass-production methods + scientific institutions + capitalist institutions + a few other things I’m forgetting. I’m looking for something similar here; e.g. Abram’s answer “We automate everything, but without using AGI” is acceptable to me, even though it’s only a single technology if we define our tech extremely broadly.
This linguistic trick only seems to work because you have a single word (“agriculture”) that describes most human work at that time. If you want the analogous level of description for “what is going to improve next?” just look up what people are doing in the modern economy. If you need more words to describe the modern economy, then I guess it’s going to be “more technologies” that are responsible this time (though in the future, when stuff we do today is a smaller part of the economy, they may describe it using a smaller number of words).
If you are including lists that long then I guess the thing that’s going to change is “improved manufacturing + logistics + construction + retail + finance” or whatever, just sample all the stuff that humans do and then it gets improved.
(I think “a few other things” is actually quite a lot of other things, unless you construe “mass-production” super broadly.)
It’s fair to call what I did a linguistic trick, but that cuts both ways—it’s equally a linguistic trick to say that my original question assumed a small number of technologies. I did have possibilities like the one you mention in mind when I wrote the question, though in retrospect I didn’t make that clear. I think the possibility you raise is a good one, and similar to Abram’s.