Because of the nature of Moore’s law, anything that an extremely clever graphics programmer can do at one point can be replicated by a merely competent programmer some number of years later.
John Carmack – Software Engineer
A number of years ago, several of us at Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) wondered what are the people implications of what is commonly called Moore’s Law. The 2020 edition of this book (pre-COVID) focused on AI and technology disruption.
Story: Gordon Moore was one of the founders of Intel Corporation. Moore’s Law states the number of transistors that can fit into a computer chip doubles every 18 months to two years. Moore’s Law expanded to include any tech area where the rate of change doubles in two years or costs half as much.
The list of technologies that now follow Moore’s Law include self-driving cars, 3-D printing, robotics, Virtual Reality, gene editing, and the Internet of Things. Moore’s Law is synonymous with Disruption Rules. We wondered what would happen if Moore’s Law applied to engineers and IT professionals where the amount of knowledge in a domain may double in four years or less. No easy answer! Why? It’s complicated.
Story: A specific thought experiment may help. We wondered what would happen to an engineer graduating from Stanford with a degree in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering with a specialty in a bleeding edge domain such as cyber security, robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, nanotechnology, and other tech disciplines. Let’s see, the engineer is 22 at graduation. By the time she’s 26, knowledge in the field has doubled. Eight years after graduation, knowledge in the field has quadrupled. Anyway you get the idea.
What would happen to her marketability and employability because knowledge in the field had increased fourfold by the time she was 30 and she hadn’t upgraded her engineering skills? She could be functional toast.
Work Lesson Earned: We’re now are all techies of one form or another since we use tech at work. Our knowledge work, careers and jobs follow Moore’s law.
So now, you are the thought experiment. How will Moore’s law impact you? You may have to adopt new behaviors, be resilient, and learn new skills. For example, artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation will impact you – either in a minor way changing your work or a major way.
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