Viva la revolución!.Perhaps the most outlandish opinion expressed about the potential of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence platforms was that it will be as transformative in the 21st century, as the printing press was in the 16th century. I think that is a big stretch..Rural, subsistence farmers around the world will wake up today with the sun, labour in their fields, return home as the sun begins to set, use a candle or two to light their homes and go to bed early to repeat the process the next day. Their children cannot do homework in the evening, entertainment is limited due to the smoky interior of their homes and the lack of light by which to read. The farmers have no information to choose which crops to grow nor can they forecast the prices they will receive. They freeze or swelter as the ambient temperature dictates. It is a long trek to the local town to buy supplies and they can’t easily organize to transport their products to market. When COVID restrictions shut down schools around the world, children in the developing world did not have access to a Zoom call. All modern economies are built on the availability of energy and communications.. Andes 2 .The most transformative technology of the 21st century will not be artificial intelligence for the developed world, but energy and communications for the developing world. To quote an old Moody Blues album, we may be on the threshold of a dream. On May 17, 2023, a group of students from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), working with Light Up the World, installed a small solar array to provide power to a school located at 4,300 meters above sea level in the altiplano of the Peruvian Andes. The solar array also provides power to a low earth orbit, Starlink high speed internet modem. One of the students and the accompanying instructor celebrated this installation from the top of the Andes Mountains by having a conversation with CBC radio in Edmonton. Have a listen and consider how this energy and clarity of communication might change the lives of people who now have access to the larger world..It will be interesting to hear from the folks at NAIT about the technical problems they had to overcome and the latency measurements they were able to make with the modem. The ability of the local population to pay the monthly rental of the modem will also be interesting information. Perhaps Elon Musk can be convinced the social cost of filling the night sky with his satellites can be met by dramatically reducing the rental costs of the modems for rural residents in the developing world..Niall Ferguson in his book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, ponders why there was such cultural and economic divergence between Europe and the rest of the world beginning in the early 1500s. I believe the technology of the printing press leading to the Protestant Reformation was one of the drivers of that divergence. Access to low-cost reading material in the vernacular languages led to a remarkable rise in literacy throughout Europe. The ability of Martin Luther to leverage the printing press to spread his ideas to a wide audience throughout Germany was a major factor in the success of his reform movement and his ability to die of old age instead of being burned at a stake like another printer, William Tyndale..Will we see another divergence in the culture and economy of another part of the world in the coming decades? Perhaps we might. It is an exciting thought to ponder..The next great social revolution could occur in the developing world and the start date of that revolution may well be May 17, 2023. Will all rural farmers in the developing world become wealthy with the availability of energy and communications? Will all their children earn scholarships to Harvard University? Clearly not. But enough of them will, and their economies and their lives will be transformed, making the world a better place for all..Congratulations to Kevin Jacobson and the students at NAIT for kicking off the revolution.
