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On January the 25th, 1966, Sir Charles Snow stood before Congress and spoke about the

Cybernetic Revolution.

He was talking about the computer revolution, which was then just beginning.

Lord Snow declared,

This is going to be the biggest technological revolution men have ever known.

And within a few years, that prediction came true.

Information technology brought sweeping changes to every aspect of life.

Beginning in the 1970s, American business made huge investments in IT.

Just as the Industrial Revolution had supercharged manufacturing,

now the digital revolution would transform commerce.

Computers would do the work of humans in a fraction of the time.

Productivity would skyrocket along with profits.

There was just one problem. The gains in productivity failed to materialize. In fact,

productivity growth fell in the 1970s and 80s from about 3% to just 1%.

That dramatic decline led economist Robert Sallow

to observe we see computers everywhere

except in the productivity statistics.

This disconnect between investment in technology and productivity is sometimes called the solo computer paradox.

If computers make everything faster, is sometimes called the solo computer paradox.

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