passages-civilization-repeatedly-learned-around-new-capability

# Civilization has repeatedly learned the difference... > Civilization has repeatedly learned the difference between reducing the hazards of a transformative technology and preventing the transformation itself. Fire was not made safe by forbidding combustion; we learned architecture, metallurgy, cooking, ceramics, engines, firebreaks, extinguishers, building codes and emergency response while continuing to burn things. Electricity was not rendered safe by preserving the candle. Railways were not rendered safe by preserving the horse. Industrial machinery was not rendered safe by insisting that human labor remain the supreme source of mechanical work. {{Every general-purpose technology reaches deeply enough into civilization that, once deployed at scale, **the old arrangement cannot survive intact**, because the technology does not merely add another object to society; it changes the economics, geometry, tempo and possibility-space of society itself.}} Historical work on electrification makes this concrete: electrification reorganized American manufacturing, altered occupational structure and became a major driver of structural economic transformation rather than simply providing existing factories with a more convenient power source. Paul David showed that the productivity gains of the electric dynamo arrived decades after the generator itself, because factories first had to be rebuilt around distributed electric motors, and Erik Brynjolfsson, Daniel Rock and Chad Syverson have argued that artificial intelligence is passing through the same lag of reorganization. {{The delay between a general-purpose technology's arrival and its full effect is the time a civilization needs to rebuild itself around the new capability.}} **Source:** [[articles/We Cannot Un-Strike the Match|We Cannot Un-Strike the Match. There Is No Safety. There Is No Retreat.]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Civilization has repeatedly learned the difference between reducing the hazards of a transformative technology and preventing the transformation itself. Fire was not made safe by forbidding combustion; we learned architecture, metallurgy, cooking, ceramics, engines, firebreaks, extinguishers, building codes and emergency response while continuing to burn things. Electricity was not rendered safe by preserving the candle. Railways were not rendered safe by preserving the horse. Industrial machinery was not rendered safe by insisting that human labor remain the supreme source of mechanical work. Every general-purpose technology reaches deeply enough into civilization that, once deployed at scale, the old arrangement cannot survive intact, because the technology does not merely add another object to society; it changes the economics, geometry, tempo and possibility-space of society itself. Historical work on electrification makes this concrete: electrification reorganized American manufacturing, altered occupational structure and became a major driver of structural economic transformation rather than simply providing existing factories with a more convenient power source. Paul David showed that the productivity gains of the electric dynamo arrived decades after the generator itself, because factories first had to be rebuilt around distributed electric motors, and Erik Brynjolfsson, Daniel Rock and Chad Syverson have argued that artificial intelligence is passing through the same lag of reorganization. The delay between a general-purpose technology's arrival and its full effect is the time a civilization needs to rebuild itself around the new capability.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-civilization-repeatedly-learned-around-new-capability ```