Modernity’s Self-Destruct Button

Whatever the cause, we can now confidently separate world history into two distinct periods: pre-industrialization and post-industrialization. If you look at any number of long-term trends—wealth, population size, carbon emissions, life expectancy—they all show exactly the same inflection point, around the year 1800. Futurists warn against the so-called “singularity,” the point at which artificial intelligence becomes so sophisticated that technological growth becomes uncontrollable, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for the human species. In his 2023 book, Invention and Innovation, the scientist Vaclav Smil casts doubt on these warnings. The singularity has already occurred, he says: We have already gone through the one, great technological breakthrough, which has altered the world more profoundly than its progenitors could ever have realized. We call it the Industrial Revolution.
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