Has Productivity Peaked?

Putney Barnes writes "A columnist on silicon.com is arguing that computing can no longer offer the kind of tenfold per decade productivity increases that have been the norm up to now as the limits of human capacity have been reached. From the article: 'Any amount of basic machine upgrading, and it continues apace, won't make a jot of difference, as I am now the fundamental slowdown agent. I just can't work any faster'. Peter Cochrane, the ex-CTO of BT, argues that "machine intelligence" is the answer to this unwelcome stasis. "What we need is a cognitive approach with search material retreated and presented in some context relative to our current end-objectives at the time." Perhaps he should consider a nice cup of tea and a biccie instead?"

Comments

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Re:Centuries-old saw

[FooAtWFU]

Economists, since productivity determines how much stuff will get produced, which determines how much stuff per person there is, and that's pretty much a measure of the standard of living that will result ("real GDP per capita").

When you're talking about productivity in the entire economy, you can draw a graph - on the Y axis is "real GDP per capita" while on the X axis is "capital / labor" (K/L for short). If you add more capital (machines, computers, tools) people get more productive, but less so as you add more and more and more. This means the line you graph will start somewhat steep, but then level off as you get higher (not entirely unlike the graph of sqrt(x)). The rough guideline for the economy at present is the "rule of one third" - if you increase your capital stock by 100%, you'll get about 33% more output. This sort of rule determines how much capital we end up having - we will increase our capital stock with investment until we have reached the "target rate of return", which is actually a slope of this productivity curve. This is the point at which investment pays for itself.

Then there are wonderful things like increases in technology. These end up shifting the productivity curve upward: people can do more with their technology than they could before. This increases real GDP per capita directly, but it also means that for the same level of capital, we're below the target rate of return, and can invest in all sorts of new capital, which will pay for itself - so we increase our capital stock as well.

The good news is that technology keeps coming, and while it may not be quite the same Spectacular Breakthrough as the introduction of computers, there is plenty happening in a variety of industries. Take, for example, Wal*Mart (the company everyone loves to hate, yes...) They have achieved a substantial portion of their success by becoming more productive with managing their warehouses and inventories, and are actively looking to increase their productivity in this area. (In fact, I've seen studies that claim they were responsible for the bulk of retail productivity growth in the late 90's, directly or indirectly). "Supply chain management" is trendy. And perhaps some day we will see RFID tags at the check-out line (to replace the last great checkout productivity enhancer, bar codes).

Re:Obviously...

[name*censored*]

Any amount of basic machine upgrading, and it continues apace, won't make a jot of difference, as I am now the fundamental slowdown agent.

So HE'S the one slowing us down? Well that's easy, we just get rid of him. Problem solved.

In all seriousness, the computers have only reached a point where the interfaces are now outdated in comparison to how much data it can simultaneously accept and act on (eg, i can click on an icon and it will be told both "click", and "open program" fast enough that I don't have to wait for it). Seems to me that it's just calling for the UIs to be upgraded - we could start using other body parts (cue jokes) such as eye focus for mouse pointer position (not my idea, another slashdot pundit). Or, as has been suggested in this topic, better voice commands, and audiable hotkeys (like that light-clapper thing, except it opens your web browser instead of turning the light on/off). Or we could have interfaces that have more complex meanings than only one ascii value - such as the internet keyboards with buttons for various programs, or with hotkeys speeding up productivity.

OR.. we could have interfaces that don't rely on physical movement, since even the fastest typist (keyboard) or gamer (mouse) are still much slower than their own brains. All the real life influences - the actual physics of arm momentum (don't go for the numpad too fast or you'll overshoot), appendage-anatomy limitations (RSI anyone?) and taking into account other obstacles (don't knock that coffee over!) slow them down. Perhaps we could have more intuitive machines, as the post suggests. Perhaps we could just have MORE task-queueing technology, which performs background tasks while waiting for user input (indexing the hard disk for searching, defragmenting, virus scanning, etc) so that the machine is ALWAYS waiting for user input, and we cut out that last little bit of having the user wait on the machine. Maybe we could enlarge UI areas, like the control centres in the matrix or minority report - it might be especially useful for coding (grab a variable/etc name or three from one place and a chunk of code from another window of related code) or graphics/design type work (grab colours, picture segments, morph shapes, you could assign a different line thickness to each finger! Perhaps body alterations - installing extra "memory" for multitasking, a telly in your tubby, a USB in your knee, bluetooth in your tooth or WIFI in your thigh..