Digital Renaissance (Messianic Age)

In their theory of generational change, William Strauss and Neil Howe explain that history moves in “seasons”. Following cycles of birth, growth, decline, and renewal, history oscillates between seasons of awakening and unravelling. These seasons are punctuated by Crisis periods that ultimately lead to new social orders.

Crisis periods begin with a catalyst—a spark or crisis event. A crisis event threatens social collapse. It catalyzes a change in the general mood that propels a society towards maximum social order. As fear turns into unity, political gridlock gives way to new emergency institutions. Finally, a new generation arises to establish a new civic order.

In addition to the sheer number of deaths, the shock to the global economic system has been more sudden and severe than anyone alive has ever experienced. Like the economic crash of 1929, the world is facing a contraction on the scale of the Great Depression.

Governments are now scrambling to protect industries undergoing collapse. The list is long: energy, transportation, construction, real estate, airlines, hotels, restaurants, cruise lines, retail, customer service, entertainment. However, as labor and consumption are removed from the global supply chain, policymakers are finding themselves powerless to respond. In the United States, 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits with forecasts predicting a post-stimulus debt topping $30 trillion.

Beyond the pandemic itself, we are also confronting a structural unravelling. Together mushrooming debt (both public and private), yawning class stratification, economic stagnation, and the threat of ecological collapse represent features of a dying social order.

Crisis periods of this magnitude can end in triumph or they can end in tragedy. But they inevitably give rise to new social orders.

Since the close of World War II, the United States has overseen an expanding global order built on fossil fuels. That era has come to an end. Beyond a collapsing fossil fuel empire lies the green economy. Much as coal and steam powered the First Industrial Revolution, and oil and telephony powered the Second Industrial Revolution, so renewables and artificial intelligence (AI) are now driving a Third Industrial Revolution.

Alongside an innovative private sector, the rise of the Third Industrial Revolution will hinge on a new generation of leaders with the capacity to galvanize a massive green collar workforce. In Europe this transformation is already underway as the European Green Deal and in China as Internet Plus. The most ambitious clean energy project in history, Europe’s Green Deal marks the beginning of a new era in clean energy.

Each generation finds its footing within unique seasons of history. Even as the economic impact of COVID-19 accelerates the decline of an older industrial order, it is already beginning to drive counter-centrifugal forces that will stoke civic renewal. Strauss and Howe refer to this civic renewal as “regeneracy.”

In the post-pandemic world, government is back and “nationalism” will be the watchword. Like the New Deal before it, a Green New Deal will mean large-scale national works programs designed to mitigate a rising ecological crisis. This will include upgrading America’s energy grid, transforming its’ buildings and transportation infrastructure, developing new green technologies, and optimizing the country’s overall energy efficiency.

“Big government” may be back. But as Tim O’Reilly observes, it will not be like government of the past. In the post-crisis rebuilding, much of government will be automated through the use of software and regulatory technologies. Transformed by a revolution in the use of AI and machine learning (decision-management, forecasting, data classification), government will be reconceived.

In fact, data-driven technologies have begun permanently reshaping the nature of work in favor of machine automation— particularly decision-making. As AI and Big Data are deployed at scale, their capacity for “industrializing learning” will make it impossible for humans to compete.

According to a recent study by the Brookings Institution, automation is now expected to surge with the current economic downturn. And this makes sense. The costs of generating the software to replace skilled professionals is effectively zero after the first successful batch.

Even as the coming wave of green collar jobs propels a new clean energy civilization, the impact of “machine knowledge capital” on professional classes will be devastating. But as automation replaces labor it will also serve as the basis for a coming digital Renaissance.