The Power of Exponential Growth

In my previous article A Distant Future No More, I talked about how technology is hurtling at us at blinding speed. The developments are not just happening fast but they are happening at a continuously accelerating pace. This whole phenomenon is anchored on the important power of exponential growth.

Technology is not just accelerating, it is happening at an exponential speed. One interesting example of how technology accelerates is the lesson we learned from the Human Genome Project.

The Human Genome Project was a project coordinated by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Institutes of Health. It was formally launched in 1990 and the project was funded for only 15 years.

The goals of the project were to:

• identify all the approximately 20,500 genes in human DNA,
• determine the sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA,
• store this information in databases,
• improve tools for data analysis,
• transfer related technologies to the private sector, and
• address the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) that may arise from the project.

*Source: https://web.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/index.shtml

7 ? years into the project, the scientists involved in the project announced they had decoded only 1% of our genetic code. Skeptics said it wouldn’t work; based on that progress report, it would take 100 years to complete. But the skeptics were thinking in linear terms.

After the 7th year, the amount of data sequenced each year practically doubled. Eventually, the project was declared completed in 2003, 2 years ahead of schedule.

This is how exponential growth looks like. This is what I mean when I advocate for thinking BIG (Beyond Incremental Growth). Things might seem proceeding very slowly at the start but because even though the pace is doubling (or accelerating if not necessarily doubling), we will not be able to feel it during the early part. It is only during the latter part that the impact of exponential growth is felt.

Consider the case of artificial intelligence or AI. The term "artificial intelligence", which was coined by John McCarthy in 1955 while he was at Dartmouth College, started as researches and studies on how machines, especially computer systems, can simulate human intelligence. As in any scientific research and discovery, progress was slow at the start because of the dearth of knowledge on the subject matter and the huge number of questions being generated by the inquisitive minds of scientists. But as the understanding grew and knowledge about it fed unto each other and generated more and more answers to the questions of researchers, a tipping point was reached where the cumulative discoveries of the past led to better and greater understanding which consequently led to faster and accelerating improvements.

There is an interesting story about the legend of the chessboard that illustrates this power of exponential growth:

Think of it this way. Start with the number 1 and double it daily. So on the second day we have 2, on the third day we have 4, on the fourth day we have 8, and so on. By day 15, the number is only 16,384. But by the 30th day or one month after, the number is already at 536,870,912. By the 45th day, it is already 17,592,186,044,416 and by day 60 or just 2 months after is a staggering 576,460,752,303,423,000

Surely, if you have an investment that earns compound interest, you will definitely appreciate the power of exponential growth. But that's a topic for another discussion.

** Note: This newsletter comes out every Wednesday and Saturday (PhST).