Web Content

Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive economic growth today? | mattsclancy

One line of evidence that AI might lead to explosive economic growth is the precedent set by the Industrial Revolution. For hundreds of years — 1252 to 1652, to be precise — the compound annual growth rate of per capita real GDP in the UK was around 0.07%. It then began to accelerate, settling into a new compound rate of around 1.02% per year by 1850, which it held until 1913. In other words, growth accelerated by roughly 15 times before; the argument goes that this should make us humble about p