Buying Back Time

Musk, Bezos, and the poorest child on Earth all have one thing in common...

They each have 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 365 days in a year.

No one gets more.

It’s how you use that time that differentiates your quality of life, your wealth, and ultimately your access to abundance.

Can you turn on the tap water in your kitchen, or do you need to spend an hour traversing a river with a bucket?

Can you take your private jet, or do you need to go through TSA and spend an hour at LAX?

Can you use Google, Bing, or ChatGPT to instantly find the information you desire, or do you need to spend hours searching in a library?

Technology allows us to buy back time.

That’s what today’s blog is about.

We’ll look at how embedded intelligence systems impact one of the best measures of abundance: time.

Let’s dive in…

NOTE: If you want to learn how to use AI and other exponential tech to go big, create wealth, and increase your impact on the world… then apply to my year-round leadership program and participate in my upcoming Abundance Summit in March.

What Embedded Intelligence Means for Abundance

Smart systems (embedded intelligence) level the playing field and give everyone more efficient use of their single most precious asset: time.

Time is perhaps one of the most meaningful measures of abundance, specifically, “How much work time (at average wages) does it take you to acquire a particular good or service?”  

Science writer Matthew Ridley explored this concept in his book The Rational Optimist, by looking at the price paid for an hour of light (here too expressed in work time at average wages). In England, artificial light was 20,000 times more expensive in 1300 AD than it is today.

But when Ridley extended the equation and examined the cost of light per hour of earned average wages across centuries, he found even bigger savings:

• 1750 BC (sesame oil lamp): One hour of light cost >50 hours of work!!

• 1800s (tallow candle): One hour of light cost >6 hours of work!

• 1800s (kerosene lamp): One hour of light cost ~0.25 hours of work.

• Today (light bulbs): One hour of light costs <0.000139 hours of work.

AI, embedded intelligence, and smart systems are creating massive efficiencies in the world and saving us time. This trend will only continue in the decade ahead, and it will happen across every facet of our personal and professional lives. 

Every home will soon resonate with the heartbeat of artificial intelligence. 

Gone are the days when cleaning was a tiresome chore. Modern homes are graced with smart robots navigating corners, ensuring every nook and cranny sparkles. The heart of our homes, the kitchen, is set to be revolutionized. Imagine a kitchen that understands your dietary needs, suggests recipes based on available ingredients, and then either guides you through the cooking process or does the cooking itself. And with energy consumption becoming a global concern, AI-driven thermostats like Nest are emerging as champions, adjusting temperatures to both our comfort and the planet's needs. 

At the same time, our office, our transport (car, eVTOL) and every third space we occupy will be fluid, smart, and efficient, continuously detecting and predicting our needs, enabling an “automagical” interaction that makes everyone feel privileged and special—and saving each of us time.

Why This Matters

A world in which everything is smart and embedded with intelligence will reinvent every sector and drive towards global abundance.

Farming, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, retail, entertainment, and transportation, just to name a few, will be built around hyper-personalization and increased efficiency.

Just as the shift over the century from 1923 to 2023 was mesmerizing, the journey during the decade ahead from 2023 to 2033 beckons with a world of infinite possibilities.

As these systems seamlessly integrate into our lives, the question isn’t how much more we can do, but what new dreams we can dare to dream.

As I’ve said before, for me, a world of abundance isn’t about creating a world of luxury for everyone—it’s about creating a world of possibility.

This is the future that technologies such as AI will enable.

In the upcoming blogs, we’ll move on to our next Metatrend: the notion that AI will soon achieve, and thereafter surpass, human-level intelligence.