Exponential Change is the New Normal, but We’ll Never Get Used to It

Ultimately we’re never going to get people used to the rate of exponential change.  Humans will always be somewhat resistant to it.  There will be those individuals who are far more open to it.  I am and it’s just the way I’m wired and built and there are many people who are part of Singularity University or X Prize in the same fashion. But the majority of humans are not.

What is going to happen is people will sometimes be kicking and screaming, brought into a new technology, and will begin to utilize it and then once they realize the benefits to them then you can’t pull them out. But it’s always been that way, going from the buggy to the train to the car to the telephone. 

Ultimately these technologies are resisted at first and then once they’re utilized because they’re so advantageous to us that we get used to them and we learn that by using this technology we have so much extra time, we have so much extra money, we have so much extra connections or safety or whatever it might be that we fully utilize it and are happily adjusting to that as the new norm.

In Their Own Words is recorded in Big Think’s studio.

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