Force Multipliers Versus Form Factors
Whenever people talk about GenAI as the 'next big thing', the lineage of previous 'big things' seems very variable on the speaker. Usually it's something like the personal computer, the web, smartphones, and now GenAI.
Here's a similar version of this in a (excellent!) deck from Benedict Evans:
I always find these somewhat debatable, and instinctively want to push back against it. I realised today that's because when we show a progression like this, we're mixing two concepts: human capability force multipliers, and technology form factors.
If I think about major force multipliers for what we as humans are capable of doing on this planet, the main items that come to mind for me are:
- Electromechanics
- Integrated circuits and processors
- The technology powering the internet
- Generative AI
These are wholly separate from the form factors those things have taken over the decades:
- Mainframes
- Personal computers
- Smartphones
- Wearables?
This is still not a very clean separation, but to me makes the argument about LLMs being the next big thing a lot more convincing.