I think the way technology works is that within any technology class, ideas get harder to find. The steam engine runs out of steam. And so that if all you had was the steam engine and you didn't discover electricity, growth would have slowed.
Yeah. And I think the answer is that within any general purpose technology, within any paradigm Ideas get harder to find. So the steam engine runs out of steam, right? It's so if we'd only had electricity and we didn't have the internal combustion engine and transistors and information technology, growth would've slowed
The usual narrative that I was fed in university, for instance, was that rich countries became rich because they had good technology and good governance. They had the steam engine and the flying shuttle and good markets and so on. And voila, the Industrial Revolution emerges spontaneously from Western brilliance, and they become rich.
Innovation, you know, something, creating new, it should be like a breakthrough. How a steam engine is happen? How electricity is happen?
They're going to go through the same transition we did. It happened with the steam engine in the first Industrial Revolution.
And soon lots of them would thanks to Industrial Revolution. Back when the steam engine had just been invented, and nothing was electric except the spirit of the times-- progress. And driven by the scientific method, Joseph Fourier was a Frenchman, a physicist, and a mathematician.
James Watt didn't actually invent the steam engine . He invented a better steam engine . And that reminded me of Silicon Valley as well.
And The Wall Street Journal might look at the same day and say, profits rise as worker productivity soars. possibly to the steam engine .
So, you have a big steam engine rotating uh rods and pulleys and belts and drove the factory, very efficient. And then electricity came in and they replaced the steam engine with an electric engine um thinking that it was going to help a lot and productivity didn't increase at all and they were puzzled.
You know, they began with building a better plow. They went on to the steam engine . James Watt didn't actually invent the steam engine .
They went on to the steam engine . James Watt didn't actually invent the steam engine . He invented a better steam engine .
What you were supposed to do is go to the coffeehouse and read all the stuff that they had, which would be news books and pamphlets or the decline of the steam engine .
representation a realistic painting I would say of the folds of a red satin dress a detailed model of a steam engine or the tiny plates silverware goblets and Lattis crust cherry pie on the dinner table of a doll's house they
And I tried to sort of draw just to close out the Industrial Age analogy, I said, look if we're really talking about what happened in the Industrial Revolution driven by a steam engine . Essentially, there was a new law created. And I mean this case I mentioned is a big piece of it. There was lots of other things but if you
Speaking of AI, the other big motivation was that in comparison to prior general-purpose technologies-- you can go all the way back to the steam engine , or the printing press, or even a computer or electricity. Those are all tangible, right?
The steam engine runs out of steam. And so that if all you had was the steam engine and you didn't discover electricity, growth would have slowed. Or if all you had is electricity and you didn't discover internal combustion engines and semiconductors, growth would have slowed.
One of them was the steamship pictured here. Someone finally figured out how to take a steam engine and put it on a boat, which meant now boats could travel upstream just as easily as they could travel downstream. It sounds kind of simple, but that absolutely revolutionized transportation and the economy in the country, and the world.
And it's not just mechanisms you need to be able to reinvent and reboot. The poster boy of the Industrial Revolution was the steam engine and these big bits of machinery and the fire and the power behind it all. But just as importantly, there's been the application of chemistry, of creating the substances needed to support civilization, things like soda
And this had coincided with James Watts' invention of the steam engine .
variations it tends to be very timec consuming so the steam engine for
You know, in the 18th century, most factories uh were steam engine driven. So, you have a big steam engine rotating uh rods and pulleys and belts and drove the factory, very efficient. And then electricity came in and they replaced the steam engine with an electric engine um thinking that it was going to help a
You cannot have communism without electricity, without the steam engine , without telegraph, radio,
Like Maxwell's governor-- it was discovered that if you overstabilize a steam engine , it blows up.
We were--. The invention of the steam engine was supposed to usher in the age of mechanized comfort and leisure.
And there was a naive way to think about that-- which was take out the big steam engine in the basement of the factory, and replace it with a big electric motor
And those technologies primarily automated physical tasks-- automated our muscles, like the steam engine ,
Rome was the first civilization to develop all the necessary components for the world's first steam engine , but it never built one for practical use.
giving to edtech. What are your thoughts? What What's the tradeoff there? What Why do you continue to to potentially believe there? You know, in the 18th century, most factories uh were steam engine driven. So, you have a big steam engine rotating uh rods and pulleys and belts and drove the factory, very efficient. And then
It was developed during the Victorian era to describe the work performed by the cutting-edge technology of the day, the steam engine .
I think the two things that we've done-- one, we've replicated human muscle with the steam engine , which basically we got ourselves
Underneath the machine are cams continually turning, driven, presumably, by the steam engine that's puffing away in the corner.
So he got the car and he brought it to California. This photograph is in Jay Leno's garage. And that's also what he calls the facility where he has 105 cars, 95 motorcycles, a steam engine ,
life as an author most in my lifetime is probably the search engine. It is truly as revolutionary, I think, in my life--what I do as--as the steam engine was in my great--my ancestors'
They're kind of a machine that makes other machines. Very similarly, in the Industrial Revolution, you had a key technology, the steam engine , on its own it didn't do anything. But it became the basis for manufacturing technology, transportation technology, communications technology. It was sort of the -- the chip of its day.
And in particular, I think it's useful to look at the Industrial Revolution with the standpoint of how railroads developed. So that was one of the key technologies, or key applications I should say, of the steam engine . What can we learn from how that affected legal systems in particular that might suggest how the semiconductor is going to design a new legal system for us in our digital lives.