Progressing Pendulums: Evolution through Oscillation
Reading Time: ~3 Minutes
Society’s development resembles a series of forward progressing pendulums: they oscillate between extremes (the X-Y axis), yet each swing advances them on their Z-axes.
These pendulums represent anything from nature to culture. But recently, the prime driver of overall z-axis progress has been one thing: technology.
But we’re at a chasm there too. The most notable technology pendulum swings between centralization and decentralization. Centralization provides speed and augmentation. Decentralization provides trust and ownership. These distinct benefits emerge from representative technologies: AI for centralization and Blockchain for decentralization. There’s undoubtedly a contradiction between these motions, but that’s precisely the engine propelling innovation forward.
An illustration of a Progressing Pendulum, by yours truly
Centralization and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is the epitome of centralization. Under centralized ownership (OpenAI, Google, Microsoft), heavy hardware, enormous datasets, and complex algorithms coalesce to mimic human intelligence. This makes it prohibitive for emerging players. While the tide is slowly changing, they still need a lot of money and highly skilled people to get started.
Inevitably, this barrier yields criticism on transparency and access - running AI models is expensive, models are enigmatic to understand, and their output easily sways us. While AI greatly augments us, its opacity pushed the pendulum to the opposite side: decentralization.
Decentralization and Blockchain
Decentralization is the basis of Blockchain technology. A blockchain is a distributed transaction ledger managed by global, unrelated individuals. Each individual is given direct ownership, incentivizing them to maintain the blockchain’s integrity.
It’s the polar opposite of AI - users directly own the underlying network, can read the code behind it (open source), and just need an internet connection to get involved. But just like AI’s benefits had a cost (opacity), so does Blockchain’s: speed.
To guarantee trust without a centralized authority, blockchains compromise on transaction speed. For example, while Visa runs 1700 transactions per second (tps), decentralized solutions like Ethereum only do 13. Therein lies the tension - technology usually makes things faster, not slower. Yet Blockchain’s tradeoff plays a crucial role in sparking progress: by returning ownership to individuals, it incentivizes them to accelerate z-axis progress. People want the pendulum to swing faster. People want progress.
Combining to accelerate progress
Progress is innovation. And innovation is just the number of iterations (swings of the pendulum) and the average progress between them (z-axis steps). That gives us two levers to accelerate the rate of progress: reduce the time between iterations or increase what we achieve in each one. Pressing on both rapidly accelerates progress. But together, that’s precisely what AI and Blockchain could accomplish.
AI lets people do more with less. Whether it’s through improving our connections (Lunchclub.ai), consumptions (GPT-3* powered summaries), or creations (GPT-3 powered writing), AI is an ever strengthening human augmentor. Our brains are terrible processors, and AI abstracts that problem away. It lets us achieve more with each swing of the pendulum (each iteration).
On the other hand, blockchain’s accessibility lets us own and see more. Whether it’s taking ownership of our work (Mirror.xyz), enabling direct audience monetization (audius), or owning our “internet homes” (ENS), blockchain empowers individuals. Novel crypto networks use this to scale too - they overcome cold-start problems by attracting users with financial utility in token ownership. This returns ownership and accelerates incentives. By baking in immediate monetary incentives, crypto drives us to swing the pendulum faster (reduce the time between iterations).
AI unlocks what people can do. Blockchain unlocks what people can own. Together, they accelerate innovation by shortening the time between iterations (crypto’s ownership incentive) and maximizing the progress per iteration (AIs unlock). That’s how they serve each other on the centralization-decentralization pendulum to move society forward. They’re the engines behind society’s continuous progress: the engines behind a progressive pendulum.
Zooming Back Out
This progressive pendulum doesn’t just apply to technology. We oscillate with decisions in life and business all the time. Whether it’s competition between companies and countries, career decisions, or even in nature (predator/prey dynamic), the pendulum is always progressing.
A personal pendulum is the one between consumption and creation. On one end, we feel the need to consume more (read more books, listen to more podcasts, etc.). But as we consume more and more, we start to feel the itch to create. The pendulum swings from consumption to creation. This can sometimes cause paralysis (it certainly did for me) but each swing moves the pendulum forward as we improve and evolve. While it can feel like we’re moving in circles, we’re actually progressing by unveiling better ways to create and consume.
It’s always worth remembering the z-axis. Although it may seem like we’re oscillating across the same point, we’re never actually at a standstill. We’re constantly progressing on that third dimension: always moving forward on the z-axis.