Andrew G Haldane: Growing, fast and slow
Speech by Mr Andrew G Haldane, Executive Director and Chief Economist of the Bank of
England, at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, 17 February 2015.
* * *
The views are not necessarily those of the Bank of England or the Monetary Policy Committee. I would like to
thank Sandra Batten, Rebecca Burnham, Edward Hall, Nicholas Fawcett, Jeremy Franklin, Lukasz Rachel, Scott
Simmons, Thomas Smith, Rhiannon Sowerbutts, Ryland Thomas, Greg Thwaites and Martin Weale for their
comments and contributions. I am also grateful to Gregory Clark for making available the historical data from his
book, A Farewell to Alms.
Tonight, I want to discuss economic growth. This may sound like standard fare. In the media,
economists spend much of their time discussing growth and its statistical counterpart, Gross
Domestic Product or GDP. At least for some, this focus is misplaced. For example, it is
increasingly well-recognised that GDP is a partial, and often imperfect, measure of societal
well-being.1 As Einstein said, not all that can be counted counts.
But even if it is not all that counts, sustained economic growth remains the single most
important determinant of rising societal living standards. To bring that point to life, consider
two economies - China and Italy. As recently as 1990, the aggregate annual income of these
two economies was roughly equal.2 Now let's run these economies forward, with China
growing at more than 10% per year, Italy by less than 1% per year.
By 2014, what do we find? Due to the magic of compound interest, China is now almost eight
times the size of Italy. Indeed, China creates a new economy the size of Italy every
18 months; an economy the size of Portugal every quarter; an economy the size of Greece
every month; and an economy the size of Cyprus every week. Those things that can be
counted sometimes really do count.
Today's policy debates bear testimony to that. Since the financial crisis, global growth has
under-performed. In the decade prior to it, advanced economy growth averaged 3% per year.
In the period since, it has averaged just 1%. The world has grown fast, then slow. That has
led some to fear "secular stagnation" - a lengthy period of sub-par growth.3 The self-same
concerns were voiced at the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s.4
The economic jury is still out on whether recent rates of growth are a temporary post-crisis
dip or a longer-lasting valley in our economic fortunes. Pessimists point to high levels of debt
and inequality, worsening demographics and stagnating levels of educational attainment.5
Optimists appeal to a new industrial revolution in digital technology.6 Given its importance to
living standards, this debate is one of the key issues of our time.
Some insight into that debate can be provided by looking at patterns of growth through a long
lens. Over long runs of history, it is possible to detect distinct phase shifts in growth. Some
growth epochs have seen secular stagnation, others secular innovation. Understanding the
determinants of these growth phases - sociological and technological - provides insight into
the forces of secular stagnation and innovation operating today.7
What follows is a cocktail of economics, history, sociology and psychology. For those
seeking a common denominator, it is sitting between your ears. Psychologist Daniel
Kahneman says the brain has two ways of thinking (fast and slow).8 The same may be true,
and for many of the same reasons, when understanding growth (fast and slow).
The short history of growth
Let me start with the short history of growth. This is shown in Chart 1 which plots (log) world
GDP per capita back to 1750, the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Save for wars, it
suggests a straight-line growth path over the past 250 years or so, averaging 1.5% per year.
That means each generation has been around a third better off than its predecessor. Growth
has driven secular rises in living standards, generation by generation.
While steady, growth has not been constant. Wars, depressions and financial crises have
pock-marked history, causing growth to stall or fall. And phases of innovation have lifted
economic fortunes, caused living standards to leap. But whereas the growth lapses have
been temporary, the leaps have been permanent. Over the past two and a half centuries,
secular innovation has dwarfed secular stagnation.
In explaining rising living standards since 1750, economists have typically identified three
distinct innovation phases. Each was associated with a great leap forward in society's
production possibility frontier.9 The first is the Industrial Revolution commencing in the middle
of the 18th century; the second, the era of mass industrialisation, starting in the second half
of the 19th century; and the third is the IT revolution, which began life in the second half of
the 20th century.
What distinguished these three innovation phases is that they gave birth to a sequence of
socalled General Purchase Technologies (GPTs).10 These technologies had applicability well
beyond the sector for which they were originally designed, thereby transforming the
efficiency of business practices generally. During the first industrial revolution, these GPTs
included the steam engine, cotton spinning and railways; during the second, electricity, the
internal combustion engine and internal water supply and sanitation; and in the third, the
personal computer and the internet.
Interest in innovation-led growth has re-intensified over recent years as growth prospects
have dimmed. One strand of the secular stagnation debate asks - wither innovation? Among
some there is a concern the well of innovation may be running dry.11 For others, the well of
innovation generated by the digital revolution is poised to gush.12 Will secular stagnation or
secular innovation dominate?
The long history of growth
To begin to address that question, let's start by taking a longer look at the past. One reason
for doing so is that the long history of growth looks rather different than the short. Secularly
rising living standards have become the social and economic norm. No-one can recall a time
when the growth escalator has moved anything other than upwards.
Yet viewed through a long lens telescope, 'twas not ever thus. Chart 2 plots estimates of
global GDP per capita back to 1000 BC. This suggests a very different growth story. For
three millennia prior to the Industrial Revolution, growth per head averaged only 0.01% per
year. Global living standards were essentially flat. Since 1750, it has taken around 50 years
for living standards to double. Prior to 1750, it would have taken 6000 years.
This suggests very different economic and social norms before the Industrial Revolution.
Generational improvements in well-being would have been imperceptible. The growth
escalator was permanently out-of-service. Steadily and secularly rising living standards have
not been the historical norm. Rather, they are a latter-day exception. Over the long sweep,
secular stagnation has been far more common than secular innovation.
It could be argued that GDP is too narrow to capture improvements in societal living
standards that far back in history. Non-material measures of well-being might provide a
better guide. Is it plausible to believe the welfare of the average citizen in 1800 was no
different than at the dawn of the second Millennium?
Sociological evidence suggests yes, as Gregory Clark's excellent book makes clear.13
Average years of life expectancy were essentially unchanged for several millennia prior to
1800. For an adult surviving to age 20, life expectancy hovered between 30-40 years.14 Over
the same period, birth and death rates were likewise constant. That meant the global
population scarcely budged prior to 1750, growing at an annual rate of less than 0.1%.
Measures of well-being during life (rather than death) tell a similar tale. Adult heights,
measured from skeletal records, averaged around 160-170 cm for many centuries prior to
1800 (Chart 3). Levels of calorific intake were also flat. Scholars have constructed "social
development indices", using these and other indicators.15 These follow a remarkably similar
path to GDP, with well-being unchanged (Chart 4).
These well-being measures suggest global living standards plateaued for the majority of the
past 3000 years, before rocketing over the past 300. Prior to the Industrial Revolution,
income was locked at close to subsistence levels. In line with Thomas Malthus's predictions,
they were sufficient to sustain the population, but no more.16 For that reason, some have
called this the Malthusian era.17
If you think that's sounds grim, the picture further back in history is, if anything, even less
optimistic. Rather remarkably, estimates of global GDP have been constructed back to
1 million BC, the dawn of man.18 Statistical agencies were thinly staffed back then, so these
statistics need to be treated with an even greater than usual pinch of salt.
Table 1 considers growth rates in per capita GDP and population over that longer sample.
For much of the history of mankind, there was effectively no rise in either living standards or
population. It is possible the most gradual of advances in living standards began tens of
thousands of years ago, around the time modern man (homo sapiens) emerged and
Neanderthal man (homo Neanderthalensis) disappeared.
So the short history (the Golden era) and the long history (the Malthusian era) of growth
could not be more different. Secular innovation followed a lengthy period of secular
stagnation. Discernible rises in living standards are a very recent phenomenon. If the history
of growth were a 24-hour clock, 99% would have come in the last 20 seconds.
Technological roots of industrial revolution
So what caused this phase shift in growth? Explaining even historical growth patterns is far
from easy. Even now, there remains an active debate among economic and social historians
about the deep sources of growth. Without doing it justice, let me offer some reflections
based on that literature. Linking them is a common theme: patience.
Neo-Classical economics explains why patience matters for growth. It supports saving which
in turn finances investment, the accumulation of capital. That capital accumulation, in
combination with great leaps forward the efficiency of its use, is what Neo-Classical growth
theory tells us drives growth. Today's investment is tomorrow's growth.19
Growth in the Neo-Classical model is "exogenous" - determined by external forces. The two
key such forces are, first, the patience of individuals which is assumed to be fixed over time
and across states of nature. And, second, by technological progress, which is assumed to
vary over time but in unpredictable ways. Innovation arrives as manna from heaven, a
surprise gift that keeps on giving.
On the face of it, this simple story does a decent job of explaining the phase shift in growth
after the Industrial Revolution. The second half of the 18th century saw a sequence of
closely-clustered innovations in England: Hargreaves' spinning jenny was invented in 1764,
Arkwright's water frame in 1769, Watt's steam engine in 1775. These arrived as manna from
heaven, shifting outwards society's production possibility frontier just as Neo-Classical
growth theory would predict.
It took time for these fledgling GPTs to broaden their application and influence, measured in
decades.20 Growth and productivity only began picking up well into the 19th century. As they
did, this generated a wave of physical investment - in factories, machines, locomotives. This
combination of rapid investment, and technological transformation, lit the fuse on a Golden
era of sustained rises in living standards, the first in human history.
This Neo-Classical account of growth dynamics is lent support by Table 2 which shows
estimates of growth in technological efficiency either side of the Industrial Revolution.21 Prior
to it, technological gains were fractions of a percent each year. Outward shifts in the
production possibility frontier, like rises in living standards, would have been imperceptible.
After 1750, a technological light switch was flicked. Growth in technological efficiency has
averaged around 1% per year in the period since.
Technological advance, in turn, fed physical capital accumulation. Chart 5 shows the path of
the physical capital stock per head in the UK after 1850. It has risen, on average, by 1.75%
per year. It has also shown a striking positive relationship with growth in GDP per head: for
every £1000 rise in the capital stock per head since 1850, GDP per head has risen by £400
per head. This, too, is just as Neo-Classical growth theory would predict.
That same pattern is replicated across countries. Chart 6 plots the relationship between the
capital stock and GDP per head since 1980 in a cross-section of countries. Clearly, countries
are on different steps on the growth escalator. But in each case this escalator has moved
relentlessly upward, with sustained rises in the capital stock associated with secular rises in
per capita incomes. Yesterday's investment has been today's growth.
Sociological roots of industrial revolution
If this were the whole story of three industrial revolutions, the growth recipe would be simple.
Growth, like surfing, would mean simply waiting for the next big innovation wave to break.
Rising living standards would be not so much natural as preternatural, "suspended between
the mundane and the miraculous".22 Because policymakers cannot part the waves or perform
other miracles, public policy would have a minimal role.
One problem with this story, if experience prior to the Industrial Revolution is anything to go
by, is that it could be a long wait for that next big wave. A second is that this story is far from
the only possible reading of the historical runes. There is an alternative set of economic
theories, and empirical facts, which paint a different picture of the genesis of growth either
side of the Industrial Revolution.
This alternative account might loosely be called "endogenous" growth theory.23 The factors
driving growth are multiple, not singular. They are as much sociological as technological -
skills and education, culture and cooperation, institutions and infrastructure. These factors
are mutually-supporting, not exogenous and idiosyncratic. And they build in a cumulative,
evolutionary fashion, rather than spontaneously combusting.
One way of accommodating these broader factors is to widen the definition of "capital":
physical capital (such as plant and machinery); human capital (such as skills and expertise);
social capital (such as cooperation and trust); intellectual capital (such as ideas and
technologies); and infrastructural capital (such as transport networks and legal systems).24
Growth results from the cumulative accretion of multiple sources of capital.
To take a simple example, the success of the railways relied not just on the invention of the
steam engine (intellectual capital), but on the materials (physical capital) and skills (human
capital) to build locomotives and track. And to become a GPT, railways needed in addition a
network (infrastructure capital) and the cooperation and trust of the general public (social
capital).
Looking at these multiple sources of capital, in turn, provides an account of the Industrial
Revolution whose genesis differs significantly from the Neo-Classical one.25 Take human
capital accumulation. One measure of that is literacy and numeracy in the population at
large. Chart 7 plots the level of adult literacy in a selection of Western Europe countries from
the late 15th century.
At that time, less than 10% of the population were literate. Measured levels of human capital
were miserably low, consistent with subsistence living standards. But in the following three
centuries, a transformation took place. Literacy rates in the adult population shot up to
around 50% in Western Europe, in some countries higher. In other words, human capital
accumulated at real pace prior to the Industrial Revolution.
This skills-deepening provided one foundation on which other sources of growth-enriching
capital were built - for example intellectual capital, the generation of ideas and innovation.
On this interpretation, sociological transformation supported, perhaps preceded,
technological transformation. Innovation was an earthly creation, not manna from heaven.
Since the Industrial Revolution, levels of educational attainment have continued to rise. Since
the Second World War, the number of years of schooling has risen rapidly (Chart 8), more
than trebling in emerging markets and almost doubling in advanced economies. Latterly, that
rise has been driven by increasing numbers of adults with degree-level (tertiary)
qualifications. Human capital has widened and deepened.
Empirical studies suggest higher educational standards may have accounted for as much as
a fifth of US growth since 1950.26 Given the much larger scale of improvement in educational
standards between the 16th and 18th centuries - the shift from an illiterate to a largely
literate workforce - human capital accumulation seems likely to have played an even larger
catalytic role in driving the Industrial Revolution.
The picture is similar if we move from human to social capital. This is a more difficult concept
to capture quantitatively. It embraces properties such as co-operation, reciprocity and trust
within society. Although more elusive, these sources of social capital have been crucial to the
success of nation states - for example, in supporting growth of trade.27
One measure of social capital used by sociologists is the incidence of violence or war in
society. This is the limiting case of a lack of cooperation or trust within or across societies; it
is the sociological equivalent of financial crisis.28 Chart 9 plots the incidence of murder
(homicide) in Western European countries since 1300. It, too, tells a striking story.
Violent crime fell dramatically between the 15th and 18th centuries, by a factor of around
five. By the time of the Industrial Revolution, it had levelled-off. Rapid social capital
accumulation provided a foundation for growth. Sociology nurtured technology.
With some interruptions, notably the two World Wars of the 20th century, those trends
towards lower levels of violence in society have continued to the present day. For example,
war deaths have been falling secularly since the 1940s (Chart 10). This is consistent with a
continuing accretion of social capital.29 Although hard to quantify, this too is likely to have
provided a tailwind to growth in the modern era.
Infrastructural and institutional capital are widely believed to have supported the growth
process.30 England was the birth place of the Industrial Revolution. Its parents, arguably,
were English institutions well into adolescence at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution: a
parliamentary system from the 11th and 12th centuries; a legal and judicial system from the
12th and 13th centuries; a central bank, the Bank of England, from the end of 17th century.
The government's role, as an institution in society, also rose rapidly prior to the Industrial
Revolution. Chart 11 plots government spending as a fraction of national income in the UK
since 1200. Until around 1600, government accounted for only 1-2% of national income. In
the subsequent two centuries government came of age: its share of spending rose 10 or
20-fold. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, institutions in general, and government in
particular, became an increasingly important growth-enabler.
Institutional and infrastructural capital has continued to accumulate in the period since. Since
1950, the number of countries operating with democratic institutions has risen from around
25 to almost 90.31 Legal systems globally have continued to improve in quality, and central
bank numbers have continued to swell. Cross-country studies have found that the quality of
these institutions and infrastructures is often key to driving growth.32
In what is perhaps the most comprehensive study of historical experience, Daron Acemoglu
and James Robinson have taken the institutional argument one step further. For them, the
lack of good institutions is the defining reason "Why Nations Fail".33 You do not need to go
that far to think they have really mattered historically for living standards.
The final ingredient in the growth recipe is intellectual capital, for some the source of the
Industrial Revolution, Hargreaves, Arkwright, Watt and all. Yet it would be wrong to think
innovation somehow began in the 18th century. From the windmill in the 12th century, the
mechanical clock in the 13th, the cannon in the 14th, the printing press in the 15th, the postal
service in the 16th and the telescope and microscope in the 17th, the innovation escalator
was in service well before the Industrial Revolution, albeit stepped and sticky.34
Moreover, empirical evidence suggests a high degree of history-dependence, or hysteresis,
in technology transfer. Patterns of technology adoption in 1500 AD are a remarkably good
predictor of growth in 1800 AD.35 This suggests the technological seeds of the Industrial
Revolution were sown well before Hargreaves, Arkwright and Watt arrived on the scene.
Innovation is more earthly endeavour than heavenly intervention.
Taken together, this suggests a much broader and richer set of foundations for growth. The
seeds of the Industrial Revolution were sown much earlier, and scattered more widely, than a
Neo-Classical account would suggest. And sociological transformation was at least as
important as technological transformation in catalysing the lift-off in growth.
Patience as a virtue
Even if you accept this multi-faceted explanation of growth - part sociological, part
technological - why did societies suddenly begin accumulating capital at particular points in
history? What prompted that initial investment in skills, co-operation, institutions,
infrastructure? One answer may lie inside our own heads. For those technological and
sociological trends may, in turn, have caused a re-wiring of our brains.
Underlying all investment decisions are what economists call "rates of time preference" - and
what non-economists call patience: the willingness to defer gratification today for the benefit
of tomorrow, to save rather than spend, stick rather than twist. One simple, economy-wide,
measure of societal patience is found in the pattern of interest rates.
Interest rates proxy society's willingness to save or stick. The less willing they are to do so -
the greater their impatience - the higher the compensation they require. That compensation
takes the form of a higher interest rate. So, for a given level of saving, an impatient society
will have higher interest rates than a patient one.
Chart 12 plots a measure of short and long-term interest rates back to 3000 BC. Though the
data are patchy, they suggest interest rates fell secularly in the run-up to the Industrial
Revolution, from double-digits to around 3%. Alternative interest rates, such as the rate of
return on physical assets such as land, show a similar pattern.36
One interpretation of these trends is that they reflect society's evolving time preferences. In
the run-up to the Industrial Revolution, society became more willing to wait than in the past.
That, in turn, enabled saving, investment and ultimately growth. Patience was a virtue. But if
society's time preferences were indeed shifting, that still begs the question why?
Here, we can enlist some outside help. Experimental research over the past 50 years, by
psychologists and neurologists, has taught us a great deal both about the determinants of
patience and how it affects behaviour. This can perhaps provide insights into some of the
historical drivers of a more patient, and hence higher growth, society.
One important driver of patience is income and wealth. The lower income, the more impatient
is human decision-making.37 Why? Because surviving on limited means absorbs huge
amounts of cognitive energy.38 It causes a neurological focus on the near-term. This myopic
thinking has been found in everything from under-saving for retirement to over-borrowing
from pay-day lenders. In developing countries, it may help explain poverty traps.39
During the Malthusian era, much of the population operated at close to subsistence income
levels. If experimental evidence is any guide, that is likely to have generated an acute sense
of societal short-termism. This may have manifested itself in, for example, a failure to invest
in physical and human capital, retarding growth. Poverty and impatience would have been
self-reinforcing, in a Malthusian poverty trap.
The raising of incomes above subsistence levels which occurred after 1800 will have
reversed that cycle. It will have boosted patience and laid the foundations for higher saving
and investment and, ultimately, growth. In other words, after the Industrial Revolution
patience may have created its own virtuous reward, endogenous growth style.
Technological innovation has also been found to influence patience.40 The invention of the
printing press by Guttenberg in around 1450 led to an explosion in book production. It is
estimated that there were more books produced in the 50 years after Guttenberg than in the
preceding 1000 years. What followed was much more than a technological transformation.
Books contributed to a great leap forward in literacy levels, boosting human capital. More
speculatively, they may also have re-wired our brains. Nicholas Carr argues that the changes
brought about by the printing press, and other information media, may have re-shaped our
minds.41 Books laid the foundations for "deep reading" and, through that, deeper and wider
thinking. Technology was, quite literally, mind-bending.
It has been argued that this re-wiring stimulated the slow-thinking, reflective, patient part of
the brain identified by psychologists such as Daniel Kahneman. If so, it will have supported
the accumulation of intellectual capital - creativity, ideas, innovation. Technology will have
first shaped neurology and then neurology technology, in a virtuous loop. Slow thought will
have made for fast growth.
It is possible to construct a quasi-neurological explanation of much-earlier shifts in growth.
The world's growth journey appears to have commenced, in earnest, around the time
modern homo sapiens replaced Neanderthal man. Maybe that was no accident. Behind the
physiological shift from the ridge brows of Neanderthal man to the flat foreheads of modern
man may have been a more important neurological one.
Flat foreheads allowed growth in the pre-frontal cortex region of the brain. Modern-day MRI
scans tell us this region is responsible, among other things, for patience. What we may have
seen, tens of thousands of years ago, was Darwinian natural selection of patient homo
sapiens over impatient Neanderthals.42 And with that came rising living standards.
The secular struggle - innovation or stagnation?
From the distant past, then, to the present and future. Today's great debate is where next for
growth. The sunny uplands of innovation-led growth, as after the Industrial Revolution? Or
the foggy lowlands of stagnant growth, as before it? Which of the secular forces - innovation
versus stagnation - will dominate? And if growth is going back to the future, on which side of
the Industrial Revolution will it land?
The balance of these arguments matters greatly for future well-being and public policy.
Indeed, it is hard to think of anything that matters much more. More parochially, for central
banks setting monetary policy one of the key judgements is the appropriate "neutral" level of
interest rates. You can think of this as the interest rate that would align desired saving and
investment over the medium term.
But what is the "neutral" level of interest rates today? Secular innovation might imply a level
at or above its historical average of 2-3%, in line with historical growth rates. But secular
stagnation may imply a level much lower than in the past, possibly even negative. In
monetary policy, this is the difference between chalk and cheese, success and failure.
In this respect, the behaviour of global real interest rates over the past 30 years is
remarkable. Chart 13 plots a measure of real interest rates since 1990, in advanced and
emerging economies. Both have exhibited the same secular downward trend, falling by
around two percentage points per decade. Today, they are around zero.
For some advanced countries, the pattern is even more striking. Chart 14 plots the real
interest rates expected over the next 30 years in the UK and euro-area. For both, real rates
are expected to remain negative for the next three decades. Investors are willing to pay
governments for the privilege of lending to them for the next 30 years - a negative rate of
time preference. This pattern has no historical precedent.
One interpretation is society having become significantly more patient, as in the lead up to
the Industrial Revolution: higher global saving relative to investment would lower global real
interest rates. If that is the cause, bring out the bunting. By lowering the cost, and raising the
return to innovation, investment and growth would be stimulated.43 Falls in real rates would
signal secular innovation. The optimists would have it.
But an alternative reading is possible. Low real rates may instead reflect a dearth of
profitable investment opportunities relative to desired savings. If that is the cause, bring out
the bodies. For this would imply low returns to innovation and low future growth. Falling real
rates would instead signal secular stagnation. The pessimists would have it.
I want to argue, in a typically two-handed economist way, that both sides of this argument
are right. There are good grounds for believing technological forces are driving innovation
and hence growth, in a classic Neo-Classical cycle. But there are equally-good grounds for
believing sociological forces are retarding growth, in an endogenous-growth pattern.
Let me start with the secular innovation side of the argument, the Neo-Classical account. It
contends that future growth will be forged in the white heat of a digital revolution. All GPTs
take time to reach their melting point.44 Even very rapid, or exponential, rates of technological
growth take time to become truly transformative at an economy-wide level.45
Given past trends, it could take 30-40 years or longer for GPTs to reach critical velocity. That
was the case with earlier GPTs, including the steam engine and electricity. Growth rates in
digital efficiency are higher than in earlier episodes, with Moore's Law - the doubling of
computer processing capacity every 18 months or so - typically taken as the yardstick for
this time being different.
Nonetheless, even with Moore's Law operating, it is only recently that the digital revolution
may have reached critical velocity. Perhaps consistent with that, a number of transformative
technologies have arrived on the scene recently, including in the fields of robotics, genetics,
3D printing, Big Data and the "internet of things".46 These are not new. What is new is their
widening application, as they have moved from inventions to GPTs.
Economist Brian Arthur has a beautiful metaphor for describing this transition - the transition
from a physical (or "first") economy to a digital (or "second") economy.47 He likens earlier
industrial revolutions to the body developing its physiological or muscular system. By
analogy, the economic system was defining and refining its motor skills, largely through
investment in physical capital.
The digital revolution is different. It is akin to the economic body developing its neurological
or sensory system, defining and refining its cognitive skills through investment in intellectual
capital. The success of the recent wave of transformative technologies is built on them
creating a neural - brain-like - network of connections. The "internet of things" uses multiple
sensors (like the brain's neurons) connected through the web (like the brain's synapses) to
create, in effect, a machine-brain.
It is that brain-like wiring which has given rise to thinking, as well as doing, machines - the
move from Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). In the words of
Brynjolfsson and McAfee, we are entering a second machine age.48 Moreover, Moore's Law
means that the processing power of the machine brain