Four Time Scales for Technology Development and Deployment

> And then, people think that it can change the world economy in one or two or ten years. It really does take decades, essentially a human lifetime (and there is a causal correlation), to deploy a technology at large enough scale that it reshapes the world’s economy.

Hate to be the “it’s different this time” guy, but it really does feel like AI deployment and adoption is happening much more quickly than the cited timelines.

I don’t think it’s just the massive CapEx and easy distribution across major software interfaces (e.g. Microsoft suite, Google, Windows, etc.), though that certainly helps.

I think a lot of people (more than usual?) are also just excited to try AI tools. I’ve spoken to folks who are just a few years away from retirement and still experimenting with Copilot at work (non software industry) and having fun with ChatGPT, etc.

Re: Four Time Scales for Technology Development and Deployment

#5

Post by rixed » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 6:32 AM UTC

wxw wrote: post #4

> And then, people think that it can change the world economy in one or two or ten years. It really does take decades, essentially a human lifetime (and there is a causal correlation), to deploy a technology at large enough scale that it reshapes the world’s economy. Hate to be the “it’s different this time” guy, but it really does feel like AI deployment and adoption is happening much more quickly than the cited tim…

I don't see AI deployed much outside of text production (which includes code). I believe AI could, as of yesterday, already replace or supplement most of decision taking all across the org chart, but that's not what I'm seeing. It is less surprising if you consider the economy as a social game of work appropriation rather than a process to make production more efficient, though.

Re: Four Time Scales for Technology Development and Deployment

#6

Post by Sha1rholder » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 7:09 AM UTC

Friendly reminder:

- Capitalism took 300 years to change the world.

- The Age of Exploration took 200 years.

- Electricity took 100 years.

- The oil industry took 80 years.

- Computers took 50 years.

- The internet took 20 years.

- Mobile internet took 15.

Re: Four Time Scales for Technology Development and Deployment

#7

Post by simianwords » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 8:36 AM UTC

I read Rodney's past predictions on LLM's. There's not a _single_ one that was high information. Not a single one that made me go "hey this was actually a good call, it was very hard to catch that in hindsight".

Almost all his predictions were low signal, just correcting the hype and doom from extremes.

If I'm wrong, please show me one thing he said (almost everyone has one thing tbh but lets see) that would make everyone go: yeah this guy had foresight.

Edit: he made some directional claims on LLM's: that they were so hyped that OpenAI was not even worth the $30 billion valuation in 2024[1]. It is now worth ~$1 trillion. For a pundit who puts his reputation on the line on single falsifiable claims like this, he has a really bad prediction pattern. Like, the one high signal claim he made turned out to be 25x incorrect!

What annoys me is that this archetype of anti-hypers had ONE job. That is to get the ONE hype correct. But they still miss that. Anyone can keep correcting the hype and they would be right 90% of the time.

[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/gpt-4-calm-down

Re: Four Time Scales for Technology Development and Deployment

#8

Post by ghaff » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:14 AM UTC

simianwords wrote: post #7

I read Rodney's past predictions on LLM's. There's not a _single_ one that was high information. Not a single one that made me go "hey this was actually a good call, it was very hard to catch that in hindsight". Almost all his predictions were low signal, just correcting the hype and doom from extremes. If I'm wrong, please show me one thing he said (almost everyone has one thing tbh but lets see) that would make eve…

I think he's generally been right with autonomous driving skepticism even if, arguably, still too optimistic himself.

Re: Four Time Scales for Technology Development and Deployment

#9

Post by simianwords » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:35 AM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #8

simianwords wrote: post #7

I read Rodney's past predictions on LLM's. There's not a _single_ one that was high information. Not a single one that made me go "hey this was actually a good call, it was very hard to catch that in hindsight". Almost all his predictions were low signal, just correcting the hype and doom from extremes. If I'm wrong, please show me one thing he said (almost everyone has one thing tbh but lets see) that would make eve…

I think he's generally been right with autonomous driving skepticism even if, arguably, still too optimistic himself.

Sorry if I was not clear, I meant predictions within LLMs. I agree that he is directionally correct in self driving cars.

Re: Four Time Scales for Technology Development and Deployment

#10

Post by myk9001 » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 10:27 AM UTC

simianwords wrote: post #7

I read Rodney's past predictions on LLM's. There's not a _single_ one that was high information. Not a single one that made me go "hey this was actually a good call, it was very hard to catch that in hindsight". Almost all his predictions were low signal, just correcting the hype and doom from extremes. If I'm wrong, please show me one thing he said (almost everyone has one thing tbh but lets see) that would make eve…

> It is now worth ~$1 trillion...

Oh, so they went public after all. When?