• 10/21 Essay: After Dan’s lecture, I would like to reinstill a bit of empirical optimism regarding the progress of humanity. Despite the very real difficulties data scientists, humanitarians, developers, and other leaders face, progress is being made over large time scales.
• Go to this website (a supplement to Peter Diamandis’s 2012 book “Abundance”) which illustrates various forms of progress across multiple dimensions of human well-being.
• Pick a topic heading.
  • Increasing Global Connectivity
• Write a description of each of the trends you see, i.e., for each figure. Do you think each trend actually represents progress? If not, why do you think?
  • Annual additions to global computing power
    • Since around 2005, global computing power has been increasing and continues to increase faster over time. Global computing power is the total computing power of all of the computers in the world. This graph shows that the amount of computing devices and their power is increasing, which is evidence of technological progress
  • Internet users as percentage of population
    • The graph shows some of the world’s largest countries’ percentage of internet users and shows data from 1990 to 2008. The US, UK, Japan, and South Korea have the highest and fastest growth but begin to plateau at around 70-80%. Other countries like China and India are near the bottom and are starting to grow. This graph is evidence of progress because it shows how internet access is expanding across the world.
  • Global mobile data growth
    • Like computing power, monthly mobile data used per smartphone is increasing faster over time, showing how data is becoming cheaper.
  • Broadband mobile connections
    • This graph shows the percentage of mobile connections that are using the internet in different continents/areas. The highest include North America, Western Europe, and Oceania. The lowest include Africa, South Asia, and Central Asia. These percentages are all likely to increase, based on the growing amount of smartphone use and internet use shown in other graphs in this category.
  • Mobile connections compared to population
    • This graph pairs with the last, as they show different data using the same format. These percentages how many mobile connections there are compared to the population, and they are much larger than the previous graph’s percentages. This shows that mobile coverage has expanded faster than broadband mobile coverage.
  • Wifi for supporting hot spot coverage
    • This visual shows the evolution from 3G to 4G and internet specs have changed from 2003 to 2016. There is an overall increase in data speeds across the years.
  • IoT devices in use globally
    • This graph shows the number of devices with internet access used globally. A large group on this graph is labeled “Internet of Things.” IoT devices are things like smart doorbells, cameras, smart speakers, and other household devices that can be controlled with the internet. I did a quick search and found that a company called Statista estimates that there are 21.5M IoT devices in use today, meaning the projection shown here is not off by too much.
    • The growth of IoT devices shows technological progress. The amount of IoT devices in use today show that we can make add internet capability to every day devices and they can still be profitable for the ones creating them, meaning that chips and the hardware needed for these devices are getting smaller and cheaper.
  • Dating site usage & How couples met their spouses
    • These graphs show how the internet has changed modern dating. It is much easier to meet new people, especially for members of marginalized groups. This can be seen as progress, because it exemplifies how the internet has changed socialization and made it easier to meet people you have no connection to in the real world.
  • Moore’s Law
    • Moore’s Law says observes that approximately every two years, the size of transistors is halved. This has stayed true to today. This observation explains how computing devices have improved while staying the same size or even getting smaller, and also shows how the IoT graph from before grew so quickly. As transistors get smaller, it becomes easier to implement computing chips in everyday household items.
• Finally, with Dan and A. Sen in mind, what do you think could be barriers to progress in each topic? (another way to think about this is: why do you think progress hasn’t occurred even more rapidly?)
  • There are many barriers to global connectivity and internet growth. I think the key one is money. Technology research and spreading existing technology around the world are expensive. Many countries do not have the infrastructure to bring the internet to their citizens. It can also be expensive on the consumer level to access the internet.
  • Aside from money, there are those who choose not to use the internet. There are many people who grew up without it and are not as tech-savvy. A lack of digital skills is prominent in older generations and in rural or poor areas.