I’ve been thinking a lot lately about broad, long-term forces at play in our 21st Century technological world. If you zoom all the way out, and look at things over the course of decades, or even years, what stands out?

The first thing we need is electricity. That came in the 19th century and enabled the start of the industrial revolution. It enabled us to travel farther, stay awake longer, build things, move things across great distances, and live more comfortable and healthier lives.

Next up was communication and entertainment using electricity. That came in the 20th century. Radio, television, etc. The basics of the computer were invented and the revolution began with huge machines down to personal machines.

Hardware came first, built using electrical circuits and metals that came in the century before. Software was invented to help us “program” or tell this machine what we wanted it to do for us.

So electricity, hardware, software = work, communication, shopping, entertainment (core human drivers).

IBM, Apple, and Microsoft were all major players in this world. A bunch of machines all over the world running software. But each one was independent and not connected. We just couldn’t have that. And so we invented the internet to connect them.

We are social creatures and therefore we want our machines to be social as well.

New companies came to life as a result of that, but ultimately to enable the same human drivers, just more efficiently.

So Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix = work, communication, shopping, entertainment using the electricity, hardware, software developed by IBM, Apple and Microsoft.

And then, something new happened. Instead of going out into the world without our computers, we decided to shrink them down and bring them with us everywhere so we could work, communicate, shop and be entertained on the go.

Mobile happened. But instead of new companies being created, it stayed with the same two: Apple and Google.

So, Apple has actually made it through 3 levels of shifts

1. Personal Computers (access device)
2. Internet (communication medium)
3. Mobile Computers (more efficient access device)

Here we sit in 2016. About 1 billion people are active on the internet, accessing it through 1 billion devices. We work, communicate, shop, and get entertained.

So what is the next shift?

Let’s rewind a bit and use the same framework:

1. Paper & Pen (access device)
2. Printing Press (communication medium)
3. Personal Computers (access device)
4. Internet (communication medium)
5. Mobile computers (access device)
6. ? (communication medium)

Isn’t it weird how the pendulum just keeps rocking back and forth, from an access device to a communication medium, and that at each step it keeps getting more efficient?

That’s because it has to.

We use the more efficient device to discover and invent the more efficient medium. And then we use the more efficient medium to create the more efficient access device.

It begins to make sense now doesn’t it?

So then what is #6? Most people think virtual reality and augmented reality and wearables will be the next access device, but I’m not so sure looking at the framework we’ve seen play out above over hundreds of years. Of course, the rate of creation is accelerating. The line is exponential and the rate of change is speeding up.

So what’s the new communication medium that will then allow us (or it) to create the new access device? Easy. Artificial Intelligence.

From basic supervised machine learning to unsupervised classification to deep learning uncovery to emergent never-ending learning machine, we will invent the next communication medium.

The AI will connect all the data, all the facts, all the knowledge and present a conversational way to work, communicate, shop, and get entertained.

Facebook Messenger with M is a great example.

Said differently, Jarvis from Iron Man. The most important part then, will be the face, the tone of voice, and the emotional empathy that comes with it. You don’t need to wear glasses when you can just have your little friend get it for you. It’s entirely digital. It’s a wave, not a particle. It’s a communication medium.

After that, you can probably guess the next access device. It’s a particle, not a wave, and it’s hardware, not software. It’s a physical object that uses the new communication medium (AI).

It’s a machine indistinguishable from a human being.

— Sean