Second Half of the Chessboard?

The Wheat and Chessboard legend tells of a king being so thrilled with the invention of chess, he allows the inventor to name his reward. The inventor makes what seems like a small request: Just give me one grain of wheat on the first chessboard square. Two on the next. And just double the number on each square. It seemed like a modest proposal. By the end of the first row it sums to just 255 grains.

By the time the board is half full, 32 squares are filled to a total of 4,294,967,295 grains. A lot, but manageable. But filling the entire board? That would take 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains. More than the world currently could produce in 2,000 years.

Three years ago I wrote “Exponentially Moore,” referring to Intel founder Gordon Moore’s exponential “law” of technology growth. Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil claims Moore’s Law is a fundamental law of nature.

Kurzweil also talks of the “Second Half of the Chessboard” to refer to our terrible intuitions about such growth. What starts out seeming normal and manageable turns into something very different.

For most of human history, the future would be similar to the present. Stone age tools were replicated without change for thousands of years. Elders were revered for maintaining this knowledge.

We evolved a “normalcy bias”: Whatever is normal today is what we can expect for the future. Closely related, we have a “linearity bias:” Even if things do change, they change at a modest, constant rate.

Scientist and futurist Roy Amara coined what is now called Amara’s Law: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” As in the chessboard example, exponential change seems very slow at first. Until it explodes beyond our comprehension.

The world is facing two notable crises that are a direct result of this principle: The Artificial Intelligence Crisis and the Climate Crisis. Our systems of governance were designed around a world that changes slowly and linearly. They are not designed for exponential change.

Artificial Intelligence has the potential for great good, if it can be used to improve our system of governance. But, we need to get there from our current inadequate system.

In contrast, the Climate Crisis has no upside. It is a direct result of assuming that what worked in the past will work in the future. We have burned carbon fuels for thousands of years. What could possibly go wrong with that in the future? Answer: We are now on the second half of the chessboard.

“Conservative” historically meant to move slowly to conserve our systems and ways of life. That does not work in the second half of the chessboard. Keeping policies that worked in the first half of the chessboard is a recipe for the most radical change of all.

In an exponentially changing world, we are in the position of the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass: “… it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

During times of crisis, we are comforted by familiar reference points. In Nazi Germany during WWII, the Berlin Philharmonic continued to perform until April 12, 1945. Just days before the effective defeat of Germany.

We are living this now with the Climate Crisis. Even with war in Iran and rising fuel prices, life goes on fairly normally. People fill up their cars with gasoline. Most airline flights continue on schedule. Insurance rates are rising due to unprecedented fire and flood events. But most people can adapt.

In fact, our ability to adapt allows us to create a “new normal” even as “normal” changes. This is sometimes called the “boiling frog” problem: A frog will adapt to sitting in a pot of water on a stove and not jump out, because the change is slow. In fact, frogs are smarter than that and will jump out.

It is we humans who are creating exponential change. We urgently need radical change to adapt and survive.