The Acceleration: A Brief History of Humanity’s Technological Leaps
Published:
The Acceleration: A Brief History of Humanity’s Technological Leaps
The Acceleration is a reverse-chronological history of humanity’s major technological leaps that explores why each innovation spreads faster than the last. The book traces a clear pattern: agricultural revolution took 3,000 years to spread globally, the printing press took 400 years to reach every continent, electricity took 46 years to reach 25% of American homes, the Internet took 7 years to reach the same adoption—and ChatGPT reached 100 million users in just two months. This exponential acceleration occurs because each new technology builds on the infrastructure of its predecessors, reduces friction (especially for digital technologies that require no manufacturing or shipping), creates network effects, and enables faster communication that spawns the next innovation.
The book’s central thesis is that we’re living through the fastest and potentially most consequential technological transition in human history with AI, and unlike previous general-purpose technologies that restructured civilization over decades or centuries, AI is doing it in years. The author examines perspectives from thinkers like Marc Andreessen (who sees an age of abundance), Michael Saylor (who warns about capital dominance through “digital energy”), Yuval Noah Harari (who fears humans becoming economically irrelevant), and Elon Musk (who oscillates between excitement and existential terror) to frame the central question: what happens when the intelligence that built civilization is no longer the smartest intelligence on the planet. The book argues that understanding this acceleration pattern—and recognizing that we probably have less time to adapt than we think—is essential for positioning yourself advantageously in a world where ownership of productive capital (AI systems, data, infrastructure) will matter more than labor as cognitive tasks become automated.