Most discussions about artificial intelligence focus on immediate job displacement or the hype of a sudden boom. Kenny Easwaran takes a different, more grounded approach: he asks whether AI can actually alter the fundamental trajectory of human economic history, or if it is merely another chapter in a story that has been written for two centuries. By placing current fears against a backdrop of 800 years of data, Easwaran suggests that the real question isn't whether AI will change things, but whether it can replicate the specific energy-driven acceleration that defined the Industrial Revolution.
The Shape of Growth
Easwaran begins by dismantling the common confusion between financial markets and actual economic output. He writes, "when you think about GDP this is the gross domestic product you probably think about things like corporations and stock markets and Banks while those are often involved that is a misleading way to think about things." This distinction is crucial for busy readers who might conflate market volatility with real-world productivity. The author insists that the data represents the value of goods and services provided, not the movement of currency.
He then introduces a powerful visual: the history of global economic output per person. While total production has surged, Easwaran notes that population has also grown, yet the per-capita figure still shows a massive leap. "The total amount of goods and services produced went up by a factor of something like 150 uh and total population in this time went up by a factor of about 10 so this chart still increases it's only by a factor of 15 or so." This 15-fold increase in individual access to resources is the baseline for understanding modern prosperity.
The most striking insight comes when Easwaran shifts to a logarithmic chart, revealing that for the last 200 years, economic growth has been remarkably consistent. "On this chart we can see economic output per person doubles roughly every 50 60 years during this period." He points out that even massive disruptions like the Great Depression, World War II, and the recent pandemic only caused temporary blips in this straight line. This consistency suggests a "human default" of exponential growth driven by technological progress.
Even through all the many massive events in world history... there was only a small fraction of the population that lived in cities or that were Nobles the growth in the number of those people and the growth in their quality of life just was much slower than what happened starting in the 1800s.
Critics might argue that this focus on global averages masks the severe inequality within nations, where the benefits of this growth are not evenly distributed. However, Easwaran's point is structural: the rate of growth itself is the anomaly, not just the distribution of wealth.
The Energy Bottleneck
To understand why the growth rate accelerated 200 years ago, Easwaran looks beyond technology to the source of power. He argues that the Industrial Revolution was, at its core, a revolution in energy use. "The core aspect of the Industrial Revolution was the revolution in energy use." He traces how humanity moved from relying on solar energy captured by plants and wood to tapping into the stored energy of fossil fuels.
The data reveals a surprising lag: coal didn't overtake traditional biomass until nearly a century into the Industrial Revolution, and petroleum only became visible decades after it was already economically vital. This suggests that the transition is slow and cumulative, not instantaneous. Easwaran warns that this reliance on finite resources is the weak link in the exponential chain. "If energy use is the core of global economic growth then an energy transition where we lose these sources of most of the world's energy... perhaps a decrease in energy use might put just as sudden an end to the current exponential age as its sudden beginning."
He cites physicist Tom Murphy to illustrate the stark reality: the exponential curve of energy use is unsustainable without a new source to replace fossil fuels. "Over the next few centuries that will stop and either we will have some new energy source that makes up for that or maybe even continues the growth or we will be going back to the energy use of that path." This reframes the AI debate. If AI cannot solve the energy constraint, it may not be able to sustain the current growth trajectory.
The AI Question
With this historical context, Easwaran returns to the central question: Can AI be the next great accelerator? He notes that previous transitions, such as moving from coal to petroleum or from manufacturing to services, did not change the fundamental growth rate. "The transition from a coal based economy to an economy based on petroleum and electricity uh or the transition from an economy where most people were involved in manufacturing to one where most people are involved in the provision of services don't seem to have changed this trajectories substantially."
The Industrial Revolution was unique because it broke a millennia-long stagnation. Easwaran asks if AI can do the same. "If there's another major transition should we expect it to be another acceleration to an even faster growth rate or a sudden deceleration to the standard growth rate that existed for centuries before that or possibly a drop." He admits that answering this requires a deeper look at AI's specific capabilities, but the historical precedent suggests that without a parallel breakthrough in energy, the growth curve may flatten rather than shoot upward.
Is that plausible maybe we'd have to think a lot more closely about artificial intelligence to see whether or not that is plausible but one thing that's worth thinking about is let's think about why the Industrial Revolution actually led to this acceleration.
Bottom Line
Easwaran's strongest contribution is the reminder that economic growth is not a natural law but a fragile trajectory dependent on energy availability. His biggest vulnerability is the assumption that AI's impact is primarily economic; it may disrupt social structures and political stability in ways that a simple growth chart cannot capture. The reader should watch for how the energy transition plays out, as it may be the true gatekeeper of the future AI economy."