---
title: "Thoughts on the Rapidly Changing Pace of Technology"
date: 2007-07-24
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canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/2007/07/24/the-rapidly-changing-pace-of-technology-some-thoughts-on-our-response-to-it/
---
# Thoughts on the Rapidly Changing Pace of Technology
I like change, even when it's not always for the better. Change is evidence of a creative, active mind experimenting and engaging in life. Because the IT industry thrives on rapidly changing technologies, those who work in IT should embrace change rather than fight it.

### The Appeal of Change

For some, change holds the promise of a more intriguing life. In a report titled ["2007 Ten-Year Forecast"](http://www.iftf.org/docs/TYF07_Exec_Sum.pdf) from the Institute for the Future, the authors begin:

> We suspect that, like migrants, we humans are all beginning a long trek through strange territories we have only rumors of. The rumors come in many forms from many sources, some more reliable than others.

We hold the hand of technology as it leads us through new, strange lands. Intriguing rumors of what we'll find (cyborg cultures, apocalopyses) compel us forward.

In an article on how technology is changing IT, CNN writer [Nora Isaacs](http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9907/19/advance.ent.idg/) says,

> According to the experts, the next century looks like an airplane runway that never ends, with the technology careening faster and faster toward an unknown terrain.

Unlike other fields that are more predictable, technology moves so so quickly, its developmental pace is exponential. Whereas some fields may have changed little in hundreds of years, you can barely predict how technology will transform society in 20 years. The future is an unknown.

[Raymond Kurzweil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change), a popular futurist author who believes an event of profound human change, known as the Singularity, will transform the fabric of humanity, begins his essay on the law of accelerating returns with the following:

> An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense 'intuitive linear' view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century—it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate). The 'returns,' such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to [the Singularity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity)—technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.

Change is not linear. Those who experience stress at today's changes will hardly survive when the pace is tripled or magnified twenty-fold.

[Paul Saffo](http://www.hopetillman.com/nelinet03/tillman.ppt#4), a well-known figure on future studies, explains that every 30 years or so, a new technology transforms society. In the earlier part of the 20th century, the transforming technology was chemistry (medicines, plastics). Then developments in physics followed (atomic energy, circuits). Now information technology is transforming society. In the 21st century, the change will be biological.