1.2 Cost per human genome
Source: NIH. National Genome Research Institute. Public Domain. https://www.genome.gov/about‐genomics/fact‐sheets/DNA‐Sequencing‐Costs‐Data
In telecommunications we find the following remarkable advancements:
Fixed broadband speeds will more than double by 2023.
Mobile (cellular) speeds will more than triple by 2023.23
In biotechnology, the costs to sequence a base pair of genes have decreased by half every 18 months for the last decade (Figure 1.2).
Note that there are approximately 1,000 nucleotide pairs of coding sequence per gene. The human genome contains approximately 3 billion of these base pairs. Thirty years ago, a scientist could expect to spend 20 years exploring the sequence of one gene pair. The first whole human genome sequencing cost roughly $2.7 billion in 2003. By 2006, the cost had decreased to $300,000. In 2016, the cost reached a remarkable and generally affordable $1,000 mark and now a Chinese company claims it can sequence the human genome for $100.24
Another remarkable area of exponential growth is the amount of knowledge humans have accumulated in less than a century. If you were born in the late 1940s to early 1960s (aka baby boomer), while you were growing up you wouldn't have seen the beginning of the exponential growth of data accumulation and the expansion of knowledge. But by the time you reached adulthood it was changing rapidly enough for you to notice the inflection point. If you are a young adult today, you are experiencing first‐hand the overwhelming growth and impact of knowledge expansion at an exponential rate. IBM predicts that knowledge will double every 11–12 hours in 2020.25
Moore's Law: The Observation that Changed the World
If the progression of the numbers 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1,024 looks familiar to you, it is because you have seen them on your camera memory discs, your computer, your smartphone, and your TV. The fact that specifications for such devices have been doubling is because of an exponential technology called semiconductors. If you have experience in the semiconductor market you will recognize the number progression as nodes along Moore's law.
Moore's law is a prediction made by Gordon Moore in 1965 that the number of transistors per silicon chip would double every 18–24 months. Stated another way, Moore predicted that the size and cost of the devices in our digital world would halve and their computing power would double about every two years.
The impact of Moore's law in the increase in the density of integrated circuit chips is illustrated in Figure 1.3. This increase drives computing power.
Today, the world's fastest supercomputers can perform 1 × 1018 calculations per second, otherwise known as exaFLOPS. They can handle an astonishing amount of data, with bandwidth 24 million times greater than the average home internet connection, and capable of processing 100,000 HD movies in a second.
Figure 1.3 Moore's law: transistors per microprocessor
Source: Our World in Data. “Moore's Law: Transistors per Microprocessors.” https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/transistors‐per‐microprocessor. Licensed under CC BY 4.0
Along with processing speed, as we point out above, the density of storage capacity is also increasing. In just 50 years we have experienced a 25,600 times reduction in size for the same amount of storage. It is the equivalent of taking seven football fields down to the size of a quarter.
Over the first 50 years of Moore's law, we have seen the convergences of technologies create the early stages of exponential change in multiple industries and applications. It is not just a single exponential curve that is creating disruption, but the confluence of interconnected technologies that grow at exponential rates. As digital technologies influence the advancement of other technologies, the exponential nature of Moore's law reaches broader and more impactful significance.
Consider, for example, how global connectivity and the miniaturization of computing devices have converged to revolutionize communications and enable commerce anytime, anywhere. The impact has been nothing short of astounding. We carry in our pockets computers that have a million times more memory than the computers that guided us to the moon.26 We can communicate instantaneously with more than half of the world's inhabitants who now have access to smartphones. Small farmers in Africa can now check market prices for their crops instantaneously, allowing them to better negotiate prices and offer their products to the highest bidders. Our cars can park themselves and soon will be driving on our highways without human intervention or supervision. The entire taxi industry has already been disrupted, and now leading logistics and transportation companies are transforming themselves to become digital behemoths.
What just a few years ago was only possible in the imagination of Hollywood producers is now within our grasp. Neuroscience converging with computer technology now gives us the ability to control objects with the power of our thoughts. The CEO of a Brazilian nonprofit organization has become the first person to drive a Formula 1 racing car using only the power of his mind. Rodrigo Hübner Mendes, a quadriplegic, and the Founder and CEO of the Rodrigo Mendes Institute, used Brain–Computer Interface (BCI) technology, which was developed by Tan Le, Founder of EMOTIV Inc., to pilot the vehicle by thought alone. “Last month I went to a speedway in Brazil and I had the opportunity to drive a racecar using my mind,” Mendes said. “The car, it doesn't have pedals, it doesn't have a steering wheel, it doesn't have anything – it's just him and his mind, driving it forward. It blew my mind,” Le explained.27
Each new ecosystem created by the convergence of technologies is producing entirely new ways of delivering rewarding experiences and changing behaviors like never before in human history. The exponential era is changing our lives, our businesses, our economy, how our societies function, and our worldviews on civilization.
The future of work is being redefined by the convergence of artificial intelligence and robotics. According to a 2018 McKinsey Global Institute report, it is estimated that as many as 357 million people around the world may need to change their occupations and acquire new skills.28 The socioeconomic implications are dumbfounding.
The adoption of new technologies at exponential rates is also creating new ethical challenges and the need to develop new ethics to deal with technology's restless and unstoppable search for “progress.” We simply have not proven capable of seeing the results of our actions over time. Our current ethics are based on what can be observed. However, the totality of the consequences of our technologies is no longer observable before launch and adoption.
We hope we have impressed upon you that exponential growth is not so obvious in the beginning, but that it has a dramatic finish. The result of exponential growth sometimes has positive consequences, and sometimes not. Therefore, we must reflect upon how we deal with ethics in this era of unprecedented technological, environmental, economic, and societal changes. We will cover this subject in detail in Chapter 10.
