Adapt or Die: Thriving in the Age of Exponential Change
What should we do?
I have a remedial understanding of technology. There's much about how it works that remains beyond my grasp: large language models (LLMs), nuclear energy, groundbreaking medical research, and the burgeoning world of autonomous vehicles. My opening sentences aren't intended to discredit my intelligence or understanding of the world. Instead, they're meant to highlight a recent shift in my perspective—away from the intricate nuances of individual technologies and toward broader, timeless principles: specifically, exponential growth or exponential decline.
In 2022, OpenAI released its marquee product, ChatGPT, to the world. After just three years of continuous product updates, it's poised to replace software engineers in many corporate settings—again, in merely three years. OpenAI is just one vivid illustration of exponential growth. Similarly, the chips powering ChatGPT are experiencing their own exponential advancements. Jensen Huang, NVIDIA's CEO, has publicly committed to rapid, iterative GPU updates, each becoming 3–4 times more efficient while consuming less power. While the direction of technology is often discussed, I believe a more critical conversation is where we—as a society—are heading.
This year, college graduates enter an intensely competitive job market, characterized by extreme productivity demands. It's no longer sufficient merely to possess knowledge; graduates must also be extraordinarily efficient. Traditionally, a college degree has been viewed as an asset providing marketable skills exchangeable for financial compensation. However, what happens when that very knowledge is democratized through an LLM that can effortlessly execute tasks based on a simple employer prompt? Even more concerning, that college degree typically carries debt, accruing interest that must eventually be repaid.
When considering core business tenets—cutting costs, increasing revenue, and maximizing shareholder value—the implications become clear: society must urgently decouple personal self-worth from professional productivity. Our brains have traditionally acted as warehouses of tribal knowledge accumulated over lifetimes. But what occurs when this knowledge is universally accessible? Can something else effectively make decisions and take actions on our behalf? The short answer is yes; the long answer is nuanced—it depends.
The call to action—"Needing to Lock In"—is a colloquialism signaling urgency. It’s akin to saying, "Drop everything and focus now." That's precisely what I urge you to do. Growth might seem insignificant initially, but like a wave, it becomes overwhelmingly powerful in later stages, uprooting and reshaping everything once held true.
As I mentioned earlier, I don't fully grasp all the intricacies of technological advances. However, my strength lies in recognizing and understanding exponential growth and the human psyche's tendency toward complacency. To put it plainly, echoing Darwin: "Adapt or die."