Kurzweil’s distinction between the first and second halves of the chessboard inspired a quick calculation. Among many other things, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) tracks American companies’ expenditures. The BEA first noted “information technology” as a distinct corporate investment category in 1958. We took that year as the starting point for when Moore’s Law entered the business world, and used eighteen months as the doubling period. After thirty-two of these doublings, U.S. businesses entered the second half of the chessboard when it comes to the use of digital gear. That was in
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