Transcripts For CSPAN2 Tim Harford Fifty Inventions That Sha

Writers festival. This is 45 minutes. Please welcome tim harford. [applause]. Thank you very much everyone. Host i dont believe in long preambles but i thought i should say a few words. I am well aware the many of you have no idea who i am printed as a thank you for showing up on the spirits of pure curiosity. It speaks very well of you. Even though its a really big name for the festival. I feel very honored to be amongst them. So who am i, few things. Already called the undercover columnist for the Financial Times. It is really good. I recommend it printed thank you sir. [laughter]. The second thing is im with radio. I chauffeur the media world service, fifty inventions that shaped the modern economy. And how we think about numbers and how numbers sometimes lead us astray. They help us understand the world. And i also have a podcast with a gentleman called Michael Lewis and malcolm. Read Cautionary Tales force all about things going wrong and sometimes in amusing ways. And what we can learn from them. So in between all of that, i publish books. And it is all about what i learned. That is one thing. The second thing i wanted to say is thank you to Rancho Mirage in the festival to jamie and the rest of the festival workers printed and handed to jamie please print. [applause]. Tim jamie emailed me probably 18 months ago and suggested that a flight across the world from england to come to Rancho Mirage. And it kind of heard of palm springs. Is that like all major different. And so it is been a huge journey for me. And it was impossible for me to fly end, someone like me from a very long ways away with this devoted readers and the angels. All of the people who come to this festival. So thank you very much to all of you. I feel very fortunate to be here. [applause]. So is that it was not a fan of long preambles so clearly i am a total hypocrite. Let me talk about this book of mine, fifty inventions that shaped the modern economy. Can you see the slide. Feel free by the way to put the camera back on me. It is just a pack shot. You can put that camera back on me. I want to talk about the book as such. About what i learned when i was working on it. This is a project originally for the bbc. Fifty different inventions that i found it interesting. But the most important inventions, not the most obvious inventions in the inventions that i felt had something to teach us rated stories behind these inventions. If people asked me, why did you choose them. I chose him because i thought they were interesting. That is the only criteria. What did i learn while i was doing this. I think that it feels like an important question. Because of this moment, we are asking Big Questions about what technology does and how it shapes our society. We coming up with a very wide of answers. And for all of our an understandable focus on politics and political debate, very often is technology really shapes how we live, how our economy grows and how our society works. These questions, they mentor. So when you talk to a columnist, there really into camps. There is one group that says, look at the progress of confucius. Then the process of Artificial Intelligence. Its possible that after about two centuries of people falsely worrying that the robots are going to take jobs, its actually possible they might do it this time. And people who have fought really hard for him and really looked at the data and really look to history, very compelling case that this could happen. At the same time, there are equally expert people, equally compelling that who will look at the data and say the unemployment rates is at record lows. Productivity growth is extremely disappointing. We seem to be in the middle of the technological slowdown. If the robots are going to take the jobs, will they place. Do it. Twentyeight if few more robots around here. So is it possible between these two views, that ive been studying this debate for years and i still know the answer. But this is the question that really eliminates a lot of debate. So trying to understand how Technology Works and shapes our lives. I think it is not just a matter of curiosity though curiosity is the most important thing. The answer to these questions, even if we dont know what the answers are, the answers to the questions really matter read so othello would you tell you what i learned with this book. I learned that we make two big mistakes when we are thinking about how Technology Works and the impact that the technology has. I want to talk about the mistakes. Theyre always fun. Let me just show you an image one of my favorite readers. This is image. Blade runner. Some of you make seen the film when it came out in the early 1980s. It is a pretty graphic hardhitting punchy film. It still stands up pretty still in good company but if you look at the image i showed you what appears to be a beautiful woman smoking a cigarette which by the way hopefully youre old enough to know better pretty do not do this it looks cool in the movies is a very bad idea. This is not a beautiful woman smoking a cigarette. This is a machine, the robot and her name is rachel. Rachel is a replicant and that is a kind of Roman Catholic robot this indistinguishable from a woman. And rachel believes herself to be human spoiler alert. She think shes human and shes not. Takes a specialist, played by harrison ford, takes specialist with special equipment to tell the difference between this artificial creature, this piece of technology and human being. And it is so sublime, so seductive, is rachel, the man whose job it is to retire rogue replicants, when he meets rachel, he falls in love with her harleys he has certain urges towards her. What is so entirely clear hes got some things and is here, this is deck art out pretty because what do you do, when you want to date a robot. The answer is you do what you do when you want to date anybody. This being the future, of Incredible Technology where we have our devote show intelligence, indistinguishable from the real thing. He phones her up on a payphone on the wall of the bar. [laughter]. And something wrong with this. If you look at the image again. Because this film was made in the 1980s and sentence los angeles, you can see graffiti on it. Heres a video phone for an audio phone. But this is the phone attached to the wall of our and of course she says no and hangs up. And you can see the phones of the future. But this was filled in 2017. Yes. This is weird divergence here printed it is unbelievably sophisticated technology. Rachel, the organic robots. And the lack of progress and anything else. Flying cars, but apart from that, everything is the same grade this is an amazing lack of imagination about a slight change printed the criticized blade runner, its a great movie. It is the storytelling, cant change anything because then the audience has no frame of reference of what is going on but i think it is revealing that you can deceive society when you human level Artificial Intelligence. We have perfect flawless genetic engineering and yet if you want to make a phone call, you put coins into a box on the wall of the bar. So what is going on what is the basic mistake here. Were partly trying to see into the future. It is hard to see into the future. It is complicated. But that fundamental mistake is very common. As the obsession with the most complex technology we can visit. If the technology would not have made our parents cast and say, this is magic this in sorcery and hundreds of work. If technology does not do that, we dont think it is technology. There is a big mistake. If you View Technology as incredibly complex, we will profoundly misconceived how it works. And you want an example let me give you an example. This is of course, a book. I talked to economists, historians scientist, and i said was solid in the book. Everybody said, the Printing Press. You must put it in the book. Did not put it in the book. So when not. Lets have a look at the Printing Press again. So this is this remarkable object. You look at these dense black columns of text, written in latin, illustrations are organic illustrations. But the lesson text, made by machine. This is remarkable technology. When i looked at it, but noisy icy paper. No one ever gets excited about the paper. But the thing is, you cannot have this without paper read while you can have parts of it. Parts of it is made of animal skin, sheepskin or calfskin, you can be parts of it. And you can print apartment. In fact some of the bibles were printed on parchment surely before he went bankrupt. And he lost the Printing Press printed because economic still work on parchment. I did the math because im a geek. I am a proud geek. I did the math. If you want to print on a bible, maybe 2000 bibles. You need a quarter of a million sheets to make it 2000 bibles. It does not work. So you say, lets just print 50. But if you just going to print 50, what is the point of having a Printing Press. It is easier to just handwrite things. So the economics of printing demands paper. In the history of paper, i am quite fascinated with it. My absolute image in the book. As invented in china. A lot of things are. About 2000 years ago, initially used for wrapping things up. But then sibley realized it was kind of cool is lighter than one cheaper than silk and you can write on it. And it arrived in the islamic world about 1300 years ago. In Islamic Culture and really striving literate culture with no printing. It was all handwritten. Then sat on the fringes of europe. It is partly a weather thing credit how do we make paper that does not go molding european weather. It was a solvable problem. Europeans were just not very interested. Because most of us cannot rewrite. In the main demand for writing is to make bibles printed and i wont go into too much detail of the manufacturing process of paper. It does not involve urine in a sticky rag. But the third industrial is making paper. You will make a bible out of stinky stinky cheap paper. It is always offensive. Its almost like saying that i saw a cheaper way to make a crown for the king. We can make it on the blood of future instead of making it out of gold. While yet that would be cheaper, but what is the point of cutting corners of making the crown for the king. Same thing with the bible. The holy object. Theyre very few of them. Every single one sent to britain. Who wants a cheap flight of bible. It is pointless. Paper only came into europe because there was a commercial culture arriving around it. The italian merchants. They were going for accounts, and water driven paper mills initially. On beautiful paper, driving these constant rags and urine yes. And it ascended beautiful for a second. In the making paper. And paper slowly spreads to europe as an everyday commercial. Paper is everywhere its not just in the books, we print on it, we decorate our walls with that, receipts, toweling, you go to the restrooms here wash her hands dryer hands, thats on paper. Throat away. It is completely ubiquitous and it is ubiquitous because it is cheap. Not because it is complicated, its 2000 years old. It is you pick with this because its cheap and is still important. My argument is that one of the things i miss about technological changes we miss the cheap stuff. Cheap simple stuff changes the world im excited about computers im a nerd computers are interesting give me the cheap stuff and alice show the things that are going to make a contribution with being widely overlooked. , heres the first time youve seen this picture and you think those are not very nice gentleman. Its not a picture what you think it is. This is not the clan, these guys are cutting barbed wire. They mask their faces because they do not want to be seen cutting barbed wire. Barbed wire, thats an intriguing invention, where did that come from . In the 1860s, i dont to come here lecture you on American History and i apologize in advance for doing so. Abraham lincoln signed into force the homesteading acts. Trying to shift the center of gravity away from the south and towards the midwest and the west. To move the center of population move the center of economy shifted away. So he says you just show up in the midwest, put some fence around some land, yeah yeah, theres some people who were there first, but dont worry about them. Put some fence around the land and farm that land for five years and then it is yours. Thats the homesteading acts. So when sellers show up in the midwest theres a problem. Theres not enough wood, you need the wood for firewood for building unique cant be venting fences out of what its far too expensive you can put up regular wire but the longhorn cattle are going to barge right through that destroyer crops. This is an interesting lesson we talk a lot about Property Rights and the importance of Property Rights and economics. Its super important. There are Property Rights you have legally, and this Property Rights he had practically. Because you actually have the ability to enforce those Property Rights. Cell longhorn cattle are not paying attention to president lincoln, okay . The going to come and destroy your crops. This invention of barbed wire is necessary did know how to do it some of them mention laser, famously they created it and they said we must be able to deal with this that fencing was coming out of the midwest of america all of the Patent Applications or fencing were coming out of the midwest and then a few years and then jf glidden from dekalb illinois, or is also where Cindy Crawford is from. [laughter] heat doesnt get the patent for what is modern barb are you still recognize it today you have a string of wire, give the sharp bits wrapped around it, and then you have another string of wire and you twist to one end and they twist around each other not start the engine stops the barber moving backwards and forward its that simple. Ten years after he got that patents, the u. S. Made 240,000 miles of barbed wire. Enough to go around the earth ten times. Because this was solving a problem for people. Its just fencing. Its just fencing. We had fencing beforehand, with the great wall of china we knew how to build a wall, very, very long time ago. This was the way to do it cheaply. Again the cheapness of it is change the world. Heres another example, this graph is from the Financial Times best this is the price of solar power. This graph is 34 years old you live in the desert, you have son, we still struggle to imagine that solar power can work. It comes from nowhere, solar powers come from nowhere really, really fast to the extension now that nevada casinos are willing to pay millions of dollars purely to not have to purchase power on the agreements they signed with the local utilities. Its not just that solar powers cheap, it is i will pay millions of dollars not to have to buy the fossil fuel power because i can plug into the electric grid. What has driven this . You might think oh there must be some super cool technological breakthrough. No. Its learning by doing. On this graph that ive shown you just learning by doing bigger factors, more practice nor more specialized tools nor tension to how to pack this stuff how do we install it used to take a crew of four people a couple of days to install solar on your roof and its two or three people and it takes a couple of hours. This is the technology they gave us ikea furniture, it applies to solar panels. It is a very old idea learning by doing was originally identified in the aerospace industry, and gentleman called tp rights in the 30s. The second plane is 20 cheaper than the third plane the next two planes are 20 cheaper than the second plane. The next, four planes they are 20 cheaper than the third and fourth plane. Every time you double output the price falls by about 20 . Some oxford academics down the road for me a study by learning effects they felt absolutely a piquant test any thing youd care to name. The percentage varies but everything from batteries to beer exhibits learning by doing. The thing about solar power, when i looked at this in 2016, 199 of all solar power cells ever made had been made between 2010 and 2016. There was no Solar Industry in the senate ramping up it was continued and continued the same thing is true of batteries so this is completely Transformative Technology and there is nothing especially complicated its a very predictable thing people at mortgage cheaper again people want more its cheaper again it gets more get cheaper again. My favorite examples for the real economic nerds, my example is a shipping container. The shipping container has done more to lower trade cost, more to fuel globalization then wto, the general agreements on trade, enough, any trade agreements. Im an economist and we like trade agreements, we like dealing with foreigners and getting to sell them stuff and buy stuff from them. We economist are in favor of that. I think we exaggerate the importance of the trade deal very often this is driven by changes in technology, the cell phone the internet, the barcode, dont get me started on the barcode, come and find me after words and also talks about the barcode the shipping container. The shipping container when you think about it, this technology was really introduced the late 1950s by an entrepreneur malcolm maclean. 1850s technology not 1950s technology. It is a steel box, it is corrugated to make it stronger. How complicated is that . We are spending a lot of time taking stuff and putting it on a truck and then the truck tribes of the port and the retake it up the truck in the lower on the ship on the ship goes to another port we take it up the ship we put on a train, the train drives me pickup the train report on the truck why didnt we just put it all in a box and move the box . Its a radical, its amazing. But of course he was not the first person to think of this. The idea of putting the seven a box to moving the box the to the earliest 20 century but when mclean realized is you need to get the whole system going you need to the trains to adapting the trucks to adapting the ships to adapt, you need the ports to adapt you need the rules to adapt you need the Financial Times<\/a>. It is really good. I recommend it printed thank you sir. [laughter]. The second thing is im with radio. I chauffeur the media world service, fifty inventions that shaped the modern economy. And how we think about numbers and how numbers sometimes lead us astray. They help us understand the world. And i also have a podcast with a gentleman called Michael Lewis<\/a> and malcolm. Read Cautionary Tales<\/a> force all about things going wrong and sometimes in amusing ways. And what we can learn from them. So in between all of that, i publish books. And it is all about what i learned. That is one thing. The second thing i wanted to say is thank you to Rancho Mirage<\/a> in the festival to jamie and the rest of the festival workers printed and handed to jamie please print. [applause]. Tim jamie emailed me probably 18 months ago and suggested that a flight across the world from england to come to Rancho Mirage<\/a>. And it kind of heard of palm springs. Is that like all major different. And so it is been a huge journey for me. And it was impossible for me to fly end, someone like me from a very long ways away with this devoted readers and the angels. All of the people who come to this festival. So thank you very much to all of you. I feel very fortunate to be here. [applause]. So is that it was not a fan of long preambles so clearly i am a total hypocrite. Let me talk about this book of mine, fifty inventions that shaped the modern economy. Can you see the slide. Feel free by the way to put the camera back on me. It is just a pack shot. You can put that camera back on me. I want to talk about the book as such. About what i learned when i was working on it. This is a project originally for the bbc. Fifty different inventions that i found it interesting. But the most important inventions, not the most obvious inventions in the inventions that i felt had something to teach us rated stories behind these inventions. If people asked me, why did you choose them. I chose him because i thought they were interesting. That is the only criteria. What did i learn while i was doing this. I think that it feels like an important question. Because of this moment, we are asking Big Questions<\/a> about what technology does and how it shapes our society. We coming up with a very wide of answers. And for all of our an understandable focus on politics and political debate, very often is technology really shapes how we live, how our economy grows and how our society works. These questions, they mentor. So when you talk to a columnist, there really into camps. There is one group that says, look at the progress of confucius. Then the process of Artificial Intelligence<\/a>. Its possible that after about two centuries of people falsely worrying that the robots are going to take jobs, its actually possible they might do it this time. And people who have fought really hard for him and really looked at the data and really look to history, very compelling case that this could happen. At the same time, there are equally expert people, equally compelling that who will look at the data and say the unemployment rates is at record lows. Productivity growth is extremely disappointing. We seem to be in the middle of the technological slowdown. If the robots are going to take the jobs, will they place. Do it. Twentyeight if few more robots around here. So is it possible between these two views, that ive been studying this debate for years and i still know the answer. But this is the question that really eliminates a lot of debate. So trying to understand how Technology Works<\/a> and shapes our lives. I think it is not just a matter of curiosity though curiosity is the most important thing. The answer to these questions, even if we dont know what the answers are, the answers to the questions really matter read so othello would you tell you what i learned with this book. I learned that we make two big mistakes when we are thinking about how Technology Works<\/a> and the impact that the technology has. I want to talk about the mistakes. Theyre always fun. Let me just show you an image one of my favorite readers. This is image. Blade runner. Some of you make seen the film when it came out in the early 1980s. It is a pretty graphic hardhitting punchy film. It still stands up pretty still in good company but if you look at the image i showed you what appears to be a beautiful woman smoking a cigarette which by the way hopefully youre old enough to know better pretty do not do this it looks cool in the movies is a very bad idea. This is not a beautiful woman smoking a cigarette. This is a machine, the robot and her name is rachel. Rachel is a replicant and that is a kind of Roman Catholic<\/a> robot this indistinguishable from a woman. And rachel believes herself to be human spoiler alert. She think shes human and shes not. Takes a specialist, played by harrison ford, takes specialist with special equipment to tell the difference between this artificial creature, this piece of technology and human being. And it is so sublime, so seductive, is rachel, the man whose job it is to retire rogue replicants, when he meets rachel, he falls in love with her harleys he has certain urges towards her. What is so entirely clear hes got some things and is here, this is deck art out pretty because what do you do, when you want to date a robot. The answer is you do what you do when you want to date anybody. This being the future, of Incredible Technology<\/a> where we have our devote show intelligence, indistinguishable from the real thing. He phones her up on a payphone on the wall of the bar. [laughter]. And something wrong with this. If you look at the image again. Because this film was made in the 1980s and sentence los angeles, you can see graffiti on it. Heres a video phone for an audio phone. But this is the phone attached to the wall of our and of course she says no and hangs up. And you can see the phones of the future. But this was filled in 2017. Yes. This is weird divergence here printed it is unbelievably sophisticated technology. Rachel, the organic robots. And the lack of progress and anything else. Flying cars, but apart from that, everything is the same grade this is an amazing lack of imagination about a slight change printed the criticized blade runner, its a great movie. It is the storytelling, cant change anything because then the audience has no frame of reference of what is going on but i think it is revealing that you can deceive society when you human level Artificial Intelligence<\/a>. We have perfect flawless genetic engineering and yet if you want to make a phone call, you put coins into a box on the wall of the bar. So what is going on what is the basic mistake here. Were partly trying to see into the future. It is hard to see into the future. It is complicated. But that fundamental mistake is very common. As the obsession with the most complex technology we can visit. If the technology would not have made our parents cast and say, this is magic this in sorcery and hundreds of work. If technology does not do that, we dont think it is technology. There is a big mistake. If you View Technology<\/a> as incredibly complex, we will profoundly misconceived how it works. And you want an example let me give you an example. This is of course, a book. I talked to economists, historians scientist, and i said was solid in the book. Everybody said, the Printing Press<\/a>. You must put it in the book. Did not put it in the book. So when not. Lets have a look at the Printing Press<\/a> again. So this is this remarkable object. You look at these dense black columns of text, written in latin, illustrations are organic illustrations. But the lesson text, made by machine. This is remarkable technology. When i looked at it, but noisy icy paper. No one ever gets excited about the paper. But the thing is, you cannot have this without paper read while you can have parts of it. Parts of it is made of animal skin, sheepskin or calfskin, you can be parts of it. And you can print apartment. In fact some of the bibles were printed on parchment surely before he went bankrupt. And he lost the Printing Press<\/a> printed because economic still work on parchment. I did the math because im a geek. I am a proud geek. I did the math. If you want to print on a bible, maybe 2000 bibles. You need a quarter of a million sheets to make it 2000 bibles. It does not work. So you say, lets just print 50. But if you just going to print 50, what is the point of having a Printing Press<\/a>. It is easier to just handwrite things. So the economics of printing demands paper. In the history of paper, i am quite fascinated with it. My absolute image in the book. As invented in china. A lot of things are. About 2000 years ago, initially used for wrapping things up. But then sibley realized it was kind of cool is lighter than one cheaper than silk and you can write on it. And it arrived in the islamic world about 1300 years ago. In Islamic Culture<\/a> and really striving literate culture with no printing. It was all handwritten. Then sat on the fringes of europe. It is partly a weather thing credit how do we make paper that does not go molding european weather. It was a solvable problem. Europeans were just not very interested. Because most of us cannot rewrite. In the main demand for writing is to make bibles printed and i wont go into too much detail of the manufacturing process of paper. It does not involve urine in a sticky rag. But the third industrial is making paper. You will make a bible out of stinky stinky cheap paper. It is always offensive. Its almost like saying that i saw a cheaper way to make a crown for the king. We can make it on the blood of future instead of making it out of gold. While yet that would be cheaper, but what is the point of cutting corners of making the crown for the king. Same thing with the bible. The holy object. Theyre very few of them. Every single one sent to britain. Who wants a cheap flight of bible. It is pointless. Paper only came into europe because there was a commercial culture arriving around it. The italian merchants. They were going for accounts, and water driven paper mills initially. On beautiful paper, driving these constant rags and urine yes. And it ascended beautiful for a second. In the making paper. And paper slowly spreads to europe as an everyday commercial. Paper is everywhere its not just in the books, we print on it, we decorate our walls with that, receipts, toweling, you go to the restrooms here wash her hands dryer hands, thats on paper. Throat away. It is completely ubiquitous and it is ubiquitous because it is cheap. Not because it is complicated, its 2000 years old. It is you pick with this because its cheap and is still important. My argument is that one of the things i miss about technological changes we miss the cheap stuff. Cheap simple stuff changes the world im excited about computers im a nerd computers are interesting give me the cheap stuff and alice show the things that are going to make a contribution with being widely overlooked. , heres the first time youve seen this picture and you think those are not very nice gentleman. Its not a picture what you think it is. This is not the clan, these guys are cutting barbed wire. They mask their faces because they do not want to be seen cutting barbed wire. Barbed wire, thats an intriguing invention, where did that come from . In the 1860s, i dont to come here lecture you on American History<\/a> and i apologize in advance for doing so. Abraham lincoln signed into force the homesteading acts. Trying to shift the center of gravity away from the south and towards the midwest and the west. To move the center of population move the center of economy shifted away. So he says you just show up in the midwest, put some fence around some land, yeah yeah, theres some people who were there first, but dont worry about them. Put some fence around the land and farm that land for five years and then it is yours. Thats the homesteading acts. So when sellers show up in the midwest theres a problem. Theres not enough wood, you need the wood for firewood for building unique cant be venting fences out of what its far too expensive you can put up regular wire but the longhorn cattle are going to barge right through that destroyer crops. This is an interesting lesson we talk a lot about Property Rights<\/a> and the importance of Property Rights<\/a> and economics. Its super important. There are Property Rights<\/a> you have legally, and this Property Rights<\/a> he had practically. Because you actually have the ability to enforce those Property Rights<\/a>. Cell longhorn cattle are not paying attention to president lincoln, okay . The going to come and destroy your crops. This invention of barbed wire is necessary did know how to do it some of them mention laser, famously they created it and they said we must be able to deal with this that fencing was coming out of the midwest of america all of the Patent Applications<\/a> or fencing were coming out of the midwest and then a few years and then jf glidden from dekalb illinois, or is also where Cindy Crawford<\/a> is from. [laughter] heat doesnt get the patent for what is modern barb are you still recognize it today you have a string of wire, give the sharp bits wrapped around it, and then you have another string of wire and you twist to one end and they twist around each other not start the engine stops the barber moving backwards and forward its that simple. Ten years after he got that patents, the u. S. Made 240,000 miles of barbed wire. Enough to go around the earth ten times. Because this was solving a problem for people. Its just fencing. Its just fencing. We had fencing beforehand, with the great wall of china we knew how to build a wall, very, very long time ago. This was the way to do it cheaply. Again the cheapness of it is change the world. Heres another example, this graph is from the Financial Times<\/a> best this is the price of solar power. This graph is 34 years old you live in the desert, you have son, we still struggle to imagine that solar power can work. It comes from nowhere, solar powers come from nowhere really, really fast to the extension now that nevada casinos are willing to pay millions of dollars purely to not have to purchase power on the agreements they signed with the local utilities. Its not just that solar powers cheap, it is i will pay millions of dollars not to have to buy the fossil fuel power because i can plug into the electric grid. What has driven this . You might think oh there must be some super cool technological breakthrough. No. Its learning by doing. On this graph that ive shown you just learning by doing bigger factors, more practice nor more specialized tools nor tension to how to pack this stuff how do we install it used to take a crew of four people a couple of days to install solar on your roof and its two or three people and it takes a couple of hours. This is the technology they gave us ikea furniture, it applies to solar panels. It is a very old idea learning by doing was originally identified in the aerospace industry, and gentleman called tp rights in the 30s. The second plane is 20 cheaper than the third plane the next two planes are 20 cheaper than the second plane. The next, four planes they are 20 cheaper than the third and fourth plane. Every time you double output the price falls by about 20 . Some oxford academics down the road for me a study by learning effects they felt absolutely a piquant test any thing youd care to name. The percentage varies but everything from batteries to beer exhibits learning by doing. The thing about solar power, when i looked at this in 2016, 199 of all solar power cells ever made had been made between 2010 and 2016. There was no Solar Industry<\/a> in the senate ramping up it was continued and continued the same thing is true of batteries so this is completely Transformative Technology<\/a> and there is nothing especially complicated its a very predictable thing people at mortgage cheaper again people want more its cheaper again it gets more get cheaper again. My favorite examples for the real economic nerds, my example is a shipping container. The shipping container has done more to lower trade cost, more to fuel globalization then wto, the general agreements on trade, enough, any trade agreements. Im an economist and we like trade agreements, we like dealing with foreigners and getting to sell them stuff and buy stuff from them. We economist are in favor of that. I think we exaggerate the importance of the trade deal very often this is driven by changes in technology, the cell phone the internet, the barcode, dont get me started on the barcode, come and find me after words and also talks about the barcode the shipping container. The shipping container when you think about it, this technology was really introduced the late 1950s by an entrepreneur malcolm maclean. 1850s technology not 1950s technology. It is a steel box, it is corrugated to make it stronger. How complicated is that . We are spending a lot of time taking stuff and putting it on a truck and then the truck tribes of the port and the retake it up the truck in the lower on the ship on the ship goes to another port we take it up the ship we put on a train, the train drives me pickup the train report on the truck why didnt we just put it all in a box and move the box . Its a radical, its amazing. But of course he was not the first person to think of this. The idea of putting the seven a box to moving the box the to the earliest 20 century but when mclean realized is you need to get the whole system going you need to the trains to adapting the trucks to adapting the ships to adapt, you need the ports to adapt you need the rules to adapt you need the Logistics Systems<\/a> without any the unions to adapt, and he managed to get all of those things working often by breaking the rules. We forget now that American Logistics<\/a> was so regulated back then it just wasnt legal to start up a trucking line and serve a particular route. You had to prove there was a need for the root. You would not spoil a business for the people who already serve the root. You could not own a railroad on a Trucking Company<\/a> you could not own a railroad and the shipping line. Because maybe its competitive. Thats an important consideration but i have to change the shipping line and a Trucking Company<\/a> so we produced all of these clever legal maneuvers to make this happen. He also barred a lot of money, took a lot of risk, eventually much later went bankrupt. But he gave us this systemic change which is what was necessary to make the shipping container work. So the shipping container, another example of the paper principle, it changes the world not because its complicated, but because it is cheap. That leads me into the second thing at night since beginning of my remarks we make two mistakes we think about technology. The first mistake is we are focusing on whatever super new whatever super sophisticated, which can be important if we dont Pay Attention<\/a> to the stuff that simple and cheap which is just as important. The second mistake we make as we think about the invention and we dont think about the system. So the shipping container only works if it is part of systemic change. So let me give you another example of that. I wanted to show you this is not going to make a lot of sense to some of you it will make sense in a moment. Tomorrows world, this is a classic bbc tv program, like i used to watch when i was a child it was on for decades it was a show about how technology what was coming down the track and some of the technology. I want to show you, could we maybe get a slide on the screen for Second Period<\/a> im going to show you a short film, its 90 seconds. About what is the office of the futures going to be like from the perspective of 1967. What nice people, my office the first agenda perfect office. No inbox outbox no phone, quiet, cool, very efficient i need never get out of this chair that would be nice. No distractions, just me and the work. Alone and efficient. Alone nobody to ask. After all it works for me. I did not even have to go to it. Much better than a human being. Tireless and efficient. Anything i want it brings. So so this at the office of the future it looks like 53 years ago. I was going to say that they got every single thing wrong, everything. But actually think theres one thing they got right which is the moment you sit down at your desk any face astral work the first to your dues yourself by pressing a button. Apart from that, they got everything wrong. Why fundamentally did they get it wrong . Because what you saw was an office of the future that had no social change. No organizational change. It was exactly like the office of 1967 except the desk is made of plastic and there is a sort of computer thing on a desk that moves. So this is technology, that doesnt matter. Its place in the context of a 1967 office of the typing pool of young, unmarried women differential to the bosses in a suit and tie this epic Corner Office<\/a> that than typing pool. Theres no sense in the future. We just take whatever fever dream of Technology People<\/a> have a 1960s were to put that in our current office. Sever how technological change works. Its very often its how we think about it. We see our lives, the way we behave, the way we interact with people or organizations, the office, we imagine what technology was replaces one little bit and nothing else changes. This is similar to the blade runner problem we have the of artificial humans yet people are still making calls from payphones. We must always adapt to take advantage the adaptation process is not always pleasant. Its usually necessary and we proved to be very adaptable and contorting ourselves to make Technology Work<\/a> for us. For them being contorted. He worked for an organization, you have to do with the boss of the organization says. Let me give you an example of this is a famous example in nerd lands, but you beautiful and sophisticated people may not spend time in nerd land. I do so ill bring you news of this example. So this is a photograph of a factory in about 1880. The thing to see about this is all the workers in the factory are drawing power from a driveshaft in the ceiling. I told her this was nerd land there pulling a driveshaft of the ceiling coming down by belts. So everything they do is defined by their relationship with the driveshaft. The driveshaft is going right along the ceiling it goes out of the building and then theres another building next door which has a toll powered steam engine its driving the driveshaft and thats how effexor was. A few asked experts in technology and manufacturing and design around about 1870, what is going to change this picture . What is going to change America Manufacturing<\/a> . They would have said electricity. It is Steam Powered<\/a> drive belt. This is a Steam Powered<\/a> factory, what is going to change . It is electricity. But what actually happened was that factory owners would remove the coal powered steam engine and they would replace it with a big old electric motor. Edisons selling electricity down the are you can buy electricity for mr. Edison, westinghouse is designing superefficient turbines and electric motors you replace the old steam engine you put in the big electric motor and nothing else changes. To know what happens to productivity . Nothing. People went wire we bothering with the stuff . I thought electricity was was be awesome . A little bit less colder which is good if youre making fabrics but basically did not make a huge difference. Then, around about the end of the first world war, the change in the immigration regime became harder to recruit workers. So factory owners started going we need to rethink how we do this. Were going to have to hire fewer staff, pay them more, train them more, they started to realize you could ask the staff to take more responsibility. Actually, you know what these electric motors, the thing about an electric motor is you can have 100 small electric motors instead of one big one. You cant have 100 small steam engines except the big one. Its a very inefficient you can have a hundred small electric motors they power to the wires, that means that driveshaft we can get rid of the driveshaft. Everyone can come their own electric motor other desk, get rid of the driveshaft, hang on that means you can build a factory with skylights or you can have cranes in the roof to help people move stuff around or maybe both. Also, we dont have to organize the factory around proximity to the driveshaft. We can spread out, have two or three story factories but all these machines turning at the same time in his huge driveshafts and everything is being lubricated by these drip boilers, you get your sleep cut it and you get nasty. Everything is crammed in around the driveshaft. With the electric motors you can spread out. You could organize the factory around the flow of product. This is the first process this is the second process this is the third process doesnt meet matter for needs a lot of power a little power you arrange them in a logical way. You can start having a production line if you have the product moving between people. None of this is possible with a centralized power source with the driveshaft. It turns out that electricity did revolutionize manufacturing but it didnt do it in the 1880s it did in the 1920s. And in order to unlock the technology, you needed to change who you hired, how you paid them, how you train them, where they sat, the building they sat in, the technology they were using, and the workflow process. After youve done all of that, technology is brilliant. So organizational change that unlocks the power of this technology. Now this is a very old example its a hundred years old. What could it possibly tedious about today . Much more recently in economist who is famous for writing books about Artificial Intelligence<\/a> these days about 20 years ago he and his colleague studied American Business<\/a> in the 1990s. What they were interested in was the process of Technology Change<\/a> if an American Business<\/a> got a load of computers and, i apologies for the complexity of the graph and explain what this graph is. If you move this way, that is more computers if you move back, thats a reorganization is for decentralization. If you move up, its more money. Okay . Now i have your attention. This is what they found, what this graph is basically showing if you get the computers and you dont reorganize, you dont make any money. If you reorganize and you dont the computers and you dont make any money. If you dont reorganize and you dont get the computers in, thats not the worst thing you could do. But the real money comes from reorganizing and getting the computers in an order to make the Technology Work<\/a> you have to reorganize. I am very mindful of the fact that with manufacturing in electrification it took 40 years. I dont know when we should be measuring from should we be measuring from the invention of the computer the 1940s or the World Wide Web<\/a> in the early 1990s . Invented by an englishman called tim just saying. [laughter] or should it be the smart phone 2007 . Or what is that we are looking at . The point is whatever technology you are looking at it can take a long time to figure out how to use it. Arguably the impacts of the web, the impact of the smart phone, the impact of the incidence of things, rfid sensors, machine learning, we are just beginning to get to grips with how these things might reshape our economy. What we do know, is that when they do it will be because we change, we adapt, machines are not adaptable, we are. We are always the ones who find ourselves bending to fit. They dont like it, we may like it, thats the way it always seems to work. So at the beginning of my remarks, i talked about this big debate of what its going to take the jobs and i said i dont know the answer and i havent figured out in the last 30 minutes i assure you but i think the lessons i have learned and i hope the lessons i been able to share with you to sharpen the question a little bit. When we think about the machines taking the jobs, we tend to think about the super scary vision of the terminator or how 9000 and disconcerting image super intelligent intake of our lives and take over everything and destroy us or the very least forces into life of complete luxury. That seems to me to it be making these two basic mistakes we are focusing too much on the incredibly sophisticated stuff and we are all thinking about how we are going to change to adapt to them. So, let me think about a really interesting technology. Its the robot accountants. Now, when i say robot accountants you are now thinking either Arnold Swarts<\/a> and egger walks in your working in an Accounting Firm<\/a> in their areas in a Little Leather<\/a> jacket with a newsy on the desk and you can back and get your things later or you think maybe cp three oh who might make a good accountants. Thats the image of arrival accountants that is not what a rebel accountant looks like to know what it looks like . You go to your windows computer, you fire up Microsoft Office<\/a> and theres this green x for microsoft excel come you click on the button. Comes a spreadsheet. And that is the robot accountants. It was invented in 1979 visicalc the First Digital<\/a> spreadsheet, by a lazy guy who wondered why he had to spend all this time adding up rows and columns on pieces of paper. These pieces of paper were called spreadsheets, big pieces of paper. Every time something changes i have to reconnect late everything this is crazy and get a computer to do this. He programmed microsoft excel. Microsoft excel dramatically make its not sexy is not very complicated. But it is a robot accountant at lowers the task of arithmetic. And it lowers the task of arithmetic of a particular kind accountant did the Accounting Club<\/a> you call them clerks so i will translate. [laughter] the accounting clerks says there were 400,000 accounting clerks in the u. S. At the time, and basically all of them were out of work in five years. We now have more accountants than ever before because those people did different jobs its obvious its rows and columns with the point of that . But the accountants still expanded in the job of being an accountant became much more interesting. Theres a situation where it wasnt complicated, it wasnt sexy, just microsoft excel, it completely reshaped and industry. It did not destroy any jobs. We have more jobs in accounting that we did before. But change the way we did those jobs. Change the kind of things accountants did they get started in financial forecasting the sgt scenarios started doing Strategic Advisory<\/a> work. They made being an accountant a lot more interesting. The machine was during the most boring part of accounting. Let me give you another example of really exactly the same dynamic. Only with the slightly slipped ending. So all showed a photograph of jennifer. This is not jennifer okay . Jennifer is what she is wearing. Jennifer is the headset so this woman is working in a warehouse could be for any large company, loads and loads of warehouses around the world. A few years ago your job in a warehouse would be have a list of people aborted stuff online you go around and find out where all the stuff is, pick up the stuff put in the car, take it to be packed. And then the jennifer unit was invented in the jennifer unit knows where all the stuff is, knows what you have to pick, knows how you have to pick it, so if for example you ordered 13 copies of 50 inventions it shapes the modern economy from a warehouse, which i would not advise i would advise you to buy them here. Say ordered 13 copies the jennifer in you would instruct the picker to go to the shell and say not take 13 copies take five copies. Five . Take five more copies, take another five, take three more copies, take another three. The jennifer unit doesnt trust the humans account. But you know what the humans can do . Theyve got eyes, supercool vision, really, really good at spotting things very subtle hands, robots find it hard to pick stuff up is that a glass . Is it a book . They crush things they drop things, humans are much better at this. This is a case, its just like the spreadsheets except spreadsheet took away the most boring parts of accountancy. The jennifer unit is taking away the most interesting part of a job its not very interesting remembering where stuff is in getting around the warehouse and efficient way. We dont need brains, thank you very much we have the jennifer for that we just need your hands in your eyes. So when i think about technology i think about the spreadsheet i think about the jennifer unit, i think about paper, and barbed wire, and the shipping container in the solar panels, i think about all of the cheap stuff and i think about the way we adapt ourselves, sometimes in inspiring ways some ways we contort ourselves in order to fit around that technology. And i am not so worried about the robots taking our jobs, im not so worried about the terminator, im not so worried about rachel the super intelligent organic robot im a little bit worried about jennifer. Ill be selling books out there, thank you very much for listening, thanks a lot. [applause] [background noises] weeknights this week we feature book tv programs showcasing what is available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight books and reading first, pamela paul editor of the New York Times<\/a> book review offers her thoughts on how to get children interested in reading books. Then Maryanne Wolf<\/a> explores how our brain process reading print versus digital mediums. After that, bookseller and publishing executive jains must check on the 1000 books he says a person should read in their lifetime. Watch book tv this week and on every weekend on cspan2. Cspan has roundtheclock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. And, it is all available on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Watch white house briefings, updates from governors and state officials, check the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps read watch ondemand, any time at cspan. Org coronavirus. Television has changed and cspan began 41 years ago. 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