What Will Happen as Knowledge Becomes Code?

If you’ve ever been to London, you’ve probably been in a black cab. London’s iconic taxi is as famous around the world as Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. The “Knowledge” - the colloquialism that describes the process of knowing every street in London and becoming a licensed taxi driver - was, when I was growing up, a mystery to mere mortals; how could someone know every nook and cranny of one of the world’s biggest cities? Off the top of their head!

In 2005, there were 68,265 licensed taxi drivers, and in 2010, 2,484 people undertook the arduous process of becoming qualified with the Knowledge.

In 2021 however, only 221 people took the Knowledge. What happened? Why the cataclysmic decline?

Software eat the world. Software eat The Knowledge.

Now the Knowledge is Apple Maps, Google Maps, Waze, your car’s proprietary map. The Knowledge talks to you, tells you it’s recalculating, buzzes on your wrist phone that you should take a left, points out that you’re passing the spot where the Great Fire of London of 1666 started, tells you that West Ham are one-nil down and that the PM has just resigned - i.e., the things a cabbie used to tell you.

In 2024 there are only 17,832 licensed taxi drivers. But there are also 106,356 licensed private hire drivers, aka Uber/Lyft drivers.

In the heyday of the Knowledge (c. 1980 to 2010) a cabbie, typically an ordinary blue collar type could make a respectable bourgeois salary. If they worked evenings, weekends, holidays as well, they could make a very good salary indeed, comparable to a doctor or a suburban lawyer. Over a 30 or 40 year period that person could buy a house, raise a family, pay taxes - in short be an upstanding member of society. The average salary for an Uber driver in London is $30,667. It’s tough to buy a house, raise a family, pay taxes in London on $30,667.

Software increased the supply of drivers - because one doesn’t need to learn The Knowledge anymore - and drove prices down, which has obviously been great for customers. But terrible for drivers. Particularly, the original Cabbies.

As software learns industry knowledge, the economics of that industry change. As I write, Uber’s market capitalization is $149.2bn.

What knowledge is immune to the fate of the Knowledge? Search me Guv’nor.

I take it you’ve seen Udio, Sora, Kling? Apple’s new math app?

As software learns your knowledge, your personal economics are going to change.

I hope you’re immune. I really do. But I doubt it.

Software is eating the world. Eating ordinary human knowledge. Knowledge that funds buying houses, raising families, paying taxes. That, in short, and with a fair wind, produces upstanding members of society.

Software’s proponents argue for democratization and abundance and there is merit to that.

But I don’t think any of us have got any idea what the transition ahead of us is going to be like, as knowledge - probably all knowledge - becomes code.