No Technology Thrives Alone: Progress Is All About Convergence

This piece showcased the immense power of exponential technology versus linear technology and became a pivotal concept for anyone trying to anticipate what the future held. The essay predicted advances in business and technology with eerie precision, including how exponential growth would ripple through any technology that became an information technology, such as computing, biotechnology, or energy. The past 15 years have shown that while some of Kurzweil's specific predictions may or may not pan out exactly as predicted, the underlying idea of the law of accelerating returns grows more relevant with each passing week. But as we start to look at the next fifteen years, I believe there is another concept just as significant as the law of accelerating returns that we need to understand. The strangest, most interesting and magical-seeming creations of the future will occur at the intersection of multiple exponential trend lines.