From Incremental to Exponential

ONE

The Technological Basis of Breakthrough Disruption

CHAPTER SUMMARY: This chapter covers what happens as information becomes widely and cheaply available. Using how Uber benefited from Google Maps and soaring smartphone usage, we discuss how the next wave of disruption is coming from artificial intelligence (A.I.) making good predictions cheap or free. The chapter details how the rapidly falling costs of technologies such as computer chips, sensors, and network capacity, are increasingly enabling broader possibilities, such as the ubiquity of the smartphone.

To obtain a license to pilot a black cab in London, applicants must pass an incredibly difficult exam called the Knowledge. The exam requires them to show that they have memorized the ...