Social Evolution

Martin Hilbert (Dr., PhD)

How do technologies
transform societies?
 The Khmer empire (+/-800-1400 A.D.) “Civilization advances by extending the
number of important operations which we
The secret of “Barays” and the arising surplus
water management system stretching across over 1200 square km (460 square miles) can perform without thinking about them.”
Hayek (1945) The Use of Knowledge in Society. AER, 35(4).

around 1200 A.D.

 …for human development!
Embody knowledge to create surplus and
liberate resources for other aspects of well-being

Boosting agriculture/economy
Irrigation systems, storage bins, fertilizers, etc.
Improving basic health
Ceramic stoves, refrigeration, rainwater harvesting
systems, water pumps, antimalarial bed nets, etc.
Investing in education
Lab material, computers and software apps, etc.

GENERAL PURPOSE TECHNOLOGIES

Electricity, Motorization, ICT, etc.
 …creating surplus
through technology…
 Kondratiev long waves
“Kondratiev-Schumpeter-Freeman-Perez" classification:
1. Industrial Revolution--1780
2. Age of Steam and Railways--1848
3. Age of Steel, Electricity and Heavy Engineering--1895
4. Age of Oil, the Automobile and Mass Production--1940
5. Age of Information and Telecommunications--1973
6. the “6th Kondratieff”…?
 Loooooong waves! …didn’t start with the industrial revolution!
Stone-age: 2.000.000 – 3.300 bc = 1.996.700 years
Bronze-age: 3.300 – 1.200 bc = 2.100 years
Iron-age: 1.200 – 586 bc = 614 years
Babylon-Hellenistic age: 586 – 167 bc = 419 years
Roman age: 37bc – 324 = 316 years
Byzantine age: 324 – 638 = 314 years
Arab age: 638 – 1000 = 362 years
Medieval age : 1000 – 1800 = 800 years
(incl. Crusader&Ottoman)
Water-power age: 1780 – 1848 = 68 years
Steam-power age: 1848 – 1895 = 47 years
Electro age: 1895 – 1940 = 45 years
Motor age: 1940 – 1973 = 32 years
Digital age: 1973 – ????
today
2000 ==40+
27 years
years
“Molecular age”? 2000 – ????
“Green age”?
 Information and
How does society evolve? Communication
Technologies (ICT)

Automobile,
aircraft

Electrical
Progress

engineering

Steam-engines

Water wheels

Iron
Bronze tools
tools
Stone
tools
2,000,000bc 3,300bc 1,200bc 1780 1848 1895 1940 1973 20??
TIME
Source: Hilbert and Cairo, 2008; Cristopher Freeman et al. As time goes by, 2001. Schumpeter, (1939). Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Hist., & Stat. Analysis of the Capitalist Process.
 Information and
How does society evolve? Communication
Technologies (ICT)

Automobile,
Progress

aircraft

Electrical
Progress

engineering
Human

Steam-engines

Water wheels

Iron
Bronze tools
tools
Stone
tools
2,000,000bc 3,300bc 1,200bc 1780 1848 1895 1940 1973 20??
TIME
Source: Hilbert and Cairo, 2008; Cristopher Freeman et al. As time goes by, 2001. Schumpeter, (1939). Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Hist., & Stat. Analysis of the Capitalist Process.
 The Contours of Economic Evolution

J.A. Schumpeter
(1883-1950)
 ongoing?

7,000
GDP per
capita (USD, world)

100
Digitalization
Energy consumption

6,000
Btu (British thermal unit, US)

90
32 years ICT

80
5,000
45 years
J.A. Schumpeter Motorization

70
(1883-1950)
47 years
4,000
Automobile

60
aircraft
68 years

50
Electrification growth
3,000

of
Mechanization Electrical 80%

40
engineering
steam-powered
2,000

Mechanization

30
Steam-engines growth of
water-powered 80%

20
Water wheels growth of
1,000

80%

10
1780 1848 1895 1940 1973 2000
Source: based on Cristopher Freeman et al. As time goes by, 2001. TIME
“Creative Destruction”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaIek5MQ6Hs
 Joseph Alois Schumpeter
Business Cycles: The Contours of Economic Evolution (1939)

“…the history of capitalism is studded with violent bursts and catastrophes…. we […] come to the
conclusion that evolution is a disturbance of existing structures and more like a series of explosions
than a gentle, though incessant, transformation…”

“This process of economic change or evolution, moreover, goes on in units separated from each other by neighborhoods
of equilibrium. Each of those units, in turn, consists of two distinct phases, during the first of which the system, under the
impulse of entrepreneurial activity, draws away from an equilibrium position, and during the second of which it draws
toward another equilibrium position… we observe in the course of those fluctuations in economic life which have come
to be called business cycles and which, translated into the language of diagrams, present the picture of an undulating or
wavelike movement in absolute figures or rates of change”

=> Economic and social evolution is a process that is always “out of equilibrium”!
“…as the process gathers momentum, these effects steadily gain in importance, and disequilibrium, enforcing a process
of adaptation, begins to show. … this is the process by which the effects of the entrepreneurial activity spread over the
whole system, dislocating values, disrupting the equilibrium that existed before. The term Windfall correctly expresses the
character of both these gains and losses…” [“creative destruction”]

“Many simultaneous cycles:

an indefinite number of wavelike fluctuations which will roll on simultaneously and interfere with one another in the process
… many fluctuations, of different span and intensity, which seem to be superimposed on each other…”

Source: Schumpeter, J. (1939). Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical, And Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process. New York:
McGraw-Hill. Retrieved from http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/Schumpeter_joseph/business_cycles/schumpeter_business_cycles.pdf
 Long wave Dominating Underlying New or redefined New or redefined Social change
General scientific infrastructures sectors
Purpose paradigm
Technology

1st Classical mechanics

Canals and waterways. Working conditions for
1771+ Water-powered and hydraulics (e.g. Mechanical cotton
Turnpikes. Hydraulic agriculture. Amount and
technology Isaac Newton and industry.
“Industrial energy (greatly improved quality of food. Clothes
Blaise Pascal) Forged iron. Machinery.
Revolution.” waterwheels). and culture.

Steam engines and Transportation and

2nd Railroads (use of steam- machinery. Iron and coal changes in social
1829+ Steam- Thermodynamics based machinery). Coal mining. Railroad. networking over far
powered (e.g. Sadi Carnot transport, large ports, Production of rolling stock. distances for work and
Mechanization technology and James Joule) warehouses and sailing Steam energy for various private. Changes in reach
vessels worldwide. Natural industries (incl.textiles).
gas in cities. of democracy.

3rd Electromagnetism Electrical industry

Electricity- technology and electrical Change of daily schedule
1875+ (e.g. Michael Faraday,
powered household equipment. for work and private.
James Maxwell, Electrical networks (for
technology Copper and cables. Home comfort and
Electrification Heinrich Hertz, Nikola lighting and industry).
reduction of housework.
Tesla, Thomas Edison) Working conditions.
Mechanical Transportation and
4th Road networks, Automobiles. Oil and oil
Combustion Engineering (e.g. changes in social
1908+ highways, ports and fuels. Petrochemicals
and oil motor- Nikolaus Otto, Gottlieb networking over far
airports. Pipeline (synthetic). Buses,
powered Daimlet, Karl Benz, distances for work and
Motorization networks. tractors, airplanes,
technology Wright Brothers) private. Changes in
tanks.
corporate governance.
Information theory
5th Worldwide digital tele-
Digital and computer science Computers and software.
Early 1970s+ communications (cable,
technology (e.g. Claude Shannon, Telecom. Control
Alan Turing, Norbert fibre optic, radio, satellite). instruments. E-services.
Digitization Wiener, Vannevar Hardware. Worldwide Social networks and
Bush) service infrastructure. entertainment.

Source: based on Cristopher Freeman et al. As time goes by, 2001.

…and where’s medical progress? Information and
Communication
Technologies (ICT)

Automobile,
aircraft
Progress

Electrical
engineering

Steam-engines

Water wheels

GENERAL
PURPOSE
TECHNOLOGY
1780 1848 1895 1940 1973
TIME
 How do
societies evolve?
 Empirical evidence of creative destruction

The 2nd Kondratieff: Railroad firms founding

Source: Dobbin and Dowd (1997), Administrative Science Quarterly, 42 (1997): 515
 Empirical evidence of creative destruction

The 4th Kondratieff:

Car manufactures
 What is needed to trigger a great surge?
Carlota Perez (1983): 1- Technology
This quantum jump in productivity can be seen as a technological revolution… fulfilling the following conditions:

• Unlimited supply for all practical purposes;

• Clearly perceived low-and descending- relative cost;

• Potential all-pervasiveness;

• A capacity to reduce the costs of capital, labour and

products as well as to change them qualitatively.

Source: Perez, C. (1983). Structural change and assimilation of new technologies in the economic and social systems. Futures, 15(5), 357–375.
 What is needed to trigger a great surge?
“The deployment of each technology system involves
2a- Social Change several interconnected processes…:
1. The development of surrounding services (required
infrastructure, specialized suppliers,
distributors, maintenance services, etc.)
2. The "cultural" adaptation to the logic of the
interconnected technologies involved (among
engineers, managers, sales and service people,
consumers, etc.)
3. The setting up of the institutional facilitators (rules and
regulations, specialized training and education, etc.)”

Source: Perez, C. (2004). Technological

Revolutions, Paradigm Shifts and Socio-
Institutional Change. In E. Reinert (Ed.),
Globalization, Economic Development and
Inequality: An alternative Perspective (pp. 217–
242). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
 What is needed to trigger a great surge?
2b- Social Adjustment

Carlota Perez (2006), “Re-specialisation and the deployment of the ICT paradigm: An essay on the present challenges of globalisation”, http://www.carlotaperez.org p. 33 - 48.
 Infrastructure Is progress
progress:
as in “technological progress” =?≠
Generic services
“move forward development
or onward” Capabilities, skills,
culture

e-government

e-education
e-business
de-velop:

e-health
as in “human development”

“opposite of
en-velope”

Source: Hilbert, Martin, ECLAC, 2002;

Hilbert, M. (2012). Towards a Conceptual Framework for ICT for Development: Lessons Learned from the Latin American “Cube Framework.” ITID, 8(4), 243–259.
http://youtu.be/JtfxwC_ZVnU
What is the digital paradigm
of social evolution based on?
 Our […] age:
• “Post-industrial society” (Bell, 1973)

• “Fifth Kondratiev” (Perez, 1983)

• “Information Society” (Webster, 1995)

• “Digital age” (Negroponte, 1995)

• “Network Society” (Castells, 1996)

• “Age of Information and Communication

Technology (ICT)” (Freeman and Louça, 2001)
 Digital convergence on the bit

Communication
Electro Radio TV
Smoke & Trumpet, News Chappe magnetic Tele- broad- trans- Cellular
Fire Signals, horns paper Telegraph Telegraph phone casting mission 1973
Drums, etc. 100 B.C. 1502 1794 1837 1876 1918 1927
The world's technological capacity to store,
communicate and compute information

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIKPjOuwqHo
Source: Hilbert, M., & López, P.
(2011). The World’s
Technological Capacity to Store,
Communicate, and Compute
Information. Science,
332(6025), 60-65.
Storage in optimally compressed MB

2002:
the beginning
of the digital age

% digital: 1 % 3% 25 % 94 %
Source: Washington Post, based on Hilbert and Lopez, 2011
Computations worldwide [MIPS]
 For more see:

www.MartinHilbert.net/WorldInfoCapacity.html
 Digital convergence on the bit

Claude Shannon
(1916 - 2001)
Communication
Electro Radio TV
Smoke & Trumpet, News Chappe magnetic Tele- broad- trans- Cellular
Fire Signals, horns paper Telegraph Telegraph phone casting mission 1973
Drums, etc. 100 B.C. 1502 1794 1837 1876 1918 1927
 min 0:00 – 2:31

http://youtu.be/z7bVw7lMtUg
 Information Theory Primer: Shannon’s (1948) idea of the bit
Shannon’s game of twenty questions:
220 = 1,048,576 choices
=> …down to 5 miles2 !

Claude Shannon
(1916 – 2001)
Claude E. Shannon (1948)
A Mathematical Theory of
Communication, Bell System Technical
Journal, Vol. 27, pp. 379–423, 623–656.
 A
Information Theory Primer B
C
coding Yes D
E
No F
G
H
Yes I
J
No Yes
K
L
No M
Yes N
O
P
1 2 3 4 5 J
R bits
S
Yes
T
No No U
V
genius: Yes W
X
Transmit: No Y
Z
“g” Yes
Ñ
Á
No É
Í
Ó

=> “g” = yes-yes-no-no-yes = 11001 Ú

 Information Theory Primer: finding the right measure
 How many binary symbols (coin flips) are needed to describe 8 differences?
?
1st coin flip

2nd coin flip

[h,h] [h,t] [t,h] [t,t]

3rd coin flip

[111] [110] [101] [100] [011] [010] [001] [000]
4th coin flip…?
 Answer:
o 2 choices = 1 symbol (coin flip)
o 4 choices = 2 symbols 2 ∗ 2 ∗ 2 = 23 = 8
o 8 choices = 3 symbols 23 flips = 8 choices 𝑙𝑜𝑔2 2 ∗ 2 ∗ 2 = 𝑙𝑜𝑔2 8 = 3
o 16 choices = 4 symbols
Source: Hartley, R. V. L. (1928). Transmission of Information. Bell System Technical Journal, International Congress of Telegraphy and Telephony, Italy, 1927, 535–563
 A
Information Theory Primer B
+
C
coding Yes D P
E R
No F
O
G
H B
Yes I
J
A
B
No Yes
K
L
I
L
Yes No M
N I
O T
P Y
1 2 3 4 5 bits
J
R
–
D
No Yes
S
T I
No U S
V
T
genius: Yes W
R
X

Transmit: No Y
Z
I
B
Ñ
“i” Yes Á
É
U
T
No
Í I
Ó O
=> “i” = yes-no-yes-yes-yes = 10111 Ú N
=> consider REDUNDANCY
 A
Information Theory Primer B
+
C
Yes D P
E R
No F
O
G
H B
Yes I
J
A
B
No Yes
K
L
I
L
Yes No M
N I
Claude Shannon O T
(1948) P Y
A Mathematical 1 2 3 4 5 bits
J
R
–
Theory of
D
Communication,
Bell System Technical Journal,
No Yes
S
T I Source Coding
Vol. 27, pp. 379–423, 623–656. No U S
V
T Theorem:
genius: Yes W
R What’s the purest
X

Transmit: No Y
Z
I
B
form
Ñ of information?
“i” Yes Á
É
U
T ! ENTROPY !
No
Í I
Ó O
=> “i” = yes-no-yes-yes-yes = 10111 Ú N
=> consider REDUNDANCY
 COMPRESSION Transmit
less data,
so you can
transmit
more information
“I do not ne_d to comm_______ (…with the same amount of
ev_ry det_il, _u kn_w what I data symbols…)
mean, and _u rec_ive all the
info____ anywa_s, right?
Source Coding
Probability of letters Probability of words Theorem:
in English alphabet: in English language: What’s the purest
form
E: 13% “the”: 10%
T: 10% “ of”: 5.1% of information?
A: 8% “in”: 2.7% ! ENTROPY !
O: 7% …
… “with”: 0.66%
Q: 0.121% “from”: 0.64%
Z: 0.077% ...
 COMPRESSION
Transmit less, so you can transmit more!

SourceL Purandare, A. (2008). JPEG vs JPEG2000 Comparison

P.S. there is also “lossy compression”, but this is simply elimination of some
information (reducing quality / detail / information). Real “data compression”
into information is “loss-less”.
Source Coding
Theorem:
What’s the purest
form
of information?
! ENTROPY !

1993!
 What drives the global growth of information?

number of devices performance of sum up their

devices product

Infrastructure Hardware
8% per year 25%
5% per year
per year
X =
Software
11% per year

Number of
X X = stones/bits

Source: Hilbert, M. (2014). How much of the global information and communication explosion is driven by more, and how much by better technology?
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 65(4), 856–861.
Shannon, C. (1948). A Mathematical Theory of Communication. Bell System
Technical Journal, 27, 379–423, 623–656.

Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (1949). The Mathematical Theory of Communication.

University of Illinois Press.
 From the Source Coding Theorem to the Channel Coding Theorem
Information Communication

Claude Shannon
(1948)
U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment. (1995).
Global communications : opportunities for trade and aid.
(OTA-ITC-642nd ed.). U.S. Government Printing Office.
http://youtu.be/z7bVw7lMtUg 6:55

http://youtu.be/sBHGzRxfeJY
https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/
computer-science/informationtheory

Gleick (2011). The Information:

A History, a Theory, a Flood