Human history can be roughly divided into three revolutions of how we work:

> Agricultural Age (10k BC ~ 1760) or Malthusian Age

• Humanity stuck in a low growth (g pop ~ .1%, g prod ~ 0) trough through much of its existence.
• Production highly correlated with population. Income largely stagnant as technological advances only result in more people.

> The Industrial Age (1760 ~ 1990) or Age of Capital

• Production now a factor of capital multiplying labor (population and productivity). Growth skyrockets to (g pop ~ .8% [6x], g prod ~ .8% [24x]).
• We produced more in the first 10 years of the 21st century than in 2,000 years in the Agricultural Age.

> The Information Age (1990 ~ Present) or Digital Age

• Production now a factor of analog (GDP) and digital / information production.
• Amount of information storage increased by 100x in 20 years (g info ~ 23%). This explosion of data is driving the adoption of machine learning in every aspect of how we live and work.

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In “How AI can bring on a Second Industrial Revolution”, Kevin Kelly posits three major aspects that will help us understand and successfully navigate the Information Age:

1. We think of intelligence as a single dimension, but actually it is more like a symphony of different types of thinking. Calculators are already smarter than you in arithmetic; your GPS is already smarter than you in spatial navigation. We’re in the process of populating the space of all the different types of thinking.
2. AI will drive the next major revolution. Just like everything electrified, we’re now going to cognify. The formula for the next 10,000 startups is simple: take X and add AI.
3. As we build AI and automation that narrowly does some tasks better, it will open up a frontier of new tasks we didn’t need before. When Deep Blue beat the world’s best chess champion, people thought it would be the end of chess. But actually, it turns out the best chess champion isn’t an AI — it’s a team of human + AI. The best diagnostician is not a doctor — it’s a human and AI. AI is utility and it’s something we’re going to work with rather than against.

We are at the beginning of the beginning. The most popular AI product in 20 years from now has not been invented yet.

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We’ve believed these statements at Terminal 1 for a long time and still do.

We believe the highest quality recruitment matches in the future are going to be delivered by a team of human + AI, not either operating in a silo.

We believe AI won’t be developed as a single monolith, but as a growing collection of tools that do specific tasks better and operators who can effectively use those tools.

We believe we’re still at Day 1 of the Information Age. The startups that will shape the future of work across every industry are still being born. When we look back in 20 years at how we used to put together teams, we’ll be shocked at how archaic and unscientific it all was.

We believe putting together successful teams is the single most important problem that humanity can now solve in this Age of Information. It is the bedrock that, if solved, will accelerate innovation in every other industry.

We’d be thrilled if you joined us in helping create the future.

T1 & Three Revolutions was originally published in Terminal 1 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.