Some say technological innovation has stagnated, but has it really?
In his lecture “Where is My Flying Car?” about his book of the same title, Dr. J. Storrs Hall discusses why society does not yet have flying cars. Hall discusses how unaffordability, stagnation in industrialization and innovation, and government regulation have all been long-term patterns since the 1960s that have slowed the development of future products. I have included some reflective thoughts below.
Hall initially explains that before the ubiquity of automobiles, the actual product of automobiles was pretty well predicted. Those who would predict the future had a pretty good idea, even in the 1800s, about what cars could look like. This is in contrast to how futurists thought flying cars would look today because they don’t look the way they did in the Jetsons or how many others thought they would look at the time. Looking back at the predictions surrounding automobiles, the one thing that wasn’t predicted was that everyone would have cars. No one could have imagined how ingrained cars would become in our society, and this is simply because cars became more affordable through innovation and economies of scale. Conversely, flying cars—and airplanes and helicopters for that matter—have not enjoyed the same realities of that prediction. While the technology has increased at the same level as cars did at one point, the affordability has not. The Concorde was once able to get from JFK to LHR in just a few hours, but this technology was enabled because of the sheer amount of money invested, and it was impractical to continue, and eventually stopped running. Flying machines are not feasible for most people because they are still too expensive.
One of the central parts of Hall’s lecture was the Henry Adams curve. This curve shows that technological innovation from humans has increased exponentially over time. However, in the 1960s, this curve stagnated. I had never heard of this concept before, but it was interesting. Hall claims that this stagnation has occurred for several reasons, one of the main reasons being a lack of energy to continue to innovate technologically. Apparently, the Jetson car would require a megawatt of energy. Hall claims that innovation has stagnated because of government regulation, increased tolerance for bureaucracy, decreased self-reliance, and a shift from religion to environmentalism. Generally, Hall claims that technology has stopped innovating along the Henry Adam’s curve, and as a result, the best technology has remained incredibly expensive for most people to take advantage of it. Hall additionally points to the Machiavelli Effect, which talks about how people are not inclined to be the first to change a natural order of things, and that this prevents innovation.
Hall goes on to talk about nanotechnology and atomic energy and how these could be the foundation for more affordable technology, but I want to take a second to point to an example that seems to discredit most of what Hall is saying about technological stagnation: the iPhone. Forty years ago, computers were largely inaccessible to the public. Thirty years ago, they only started to enter homes. Twenty years ago, the internet emerged as essential. Ten years ago, smartphones were still evolving. Today, the iPhone is one of the most powerful technologies of all time, and it fits in the palm of your hand. Even more so, the iPhone perfectly illustrates the affordability principle, as they are ubiquitous, just as cars are. So does this example of the iPhone take away from Hall’s claim about stagnation along the Henry Adam’s curve? In some contexts, I think so. Technology is still advancing, and rapidly at that. I think about AI and the work of OpenAI, and how some think AGI will become readily available in the next couple of years. However, I do agree with Hall that stagnation certainly seems to be present in air travel, and I do not disagree that many of these reasons are the ones that he shared. I think it is important how you frame technological innovation. For computers, I don’t think much stagnation has occurred at all, but with airplanes, it is another story. Would technological innovation increase at a more rapid rate if the government did not regulate the country at all? Most certainly. Would people suffer from the lack of regulation? Absolutely, just look at child labor and poor working conditions of the Industrial Revolution. It is a trade-off, and while free enterprise that generates more public good is certainly preferable to government regulation that doesn’t produce value inherently, regulation still has its place, and technology can still innovate. So, the Machiavelli Effect, or the idea that it is hard to be the first to initiate a new order in society, seems to have been overcome by Steve Jobs a decade ago, and Sam Altman today. Who will be next?
While I have explored various perspectives in this essay, it is important to note that I do not necessarily ascribe to any argument made here 100%. This is a writing exercise, and I sought to explore various perspectives after watching the lecture, as per the assignment instructions.
