The process of innovation is becoming increasingly challenging, with more resources required to generate new ideas. This trend is illustrated by the growth of research teams in various sectors, from agriculture to semiconductors. Despite the increase in research personnel, productivity growth rates have been slowing down. This suggests that the cost of ideas is rising, with each new idea requiring more input than the last.
Agriculture, for instance, has seen a hundredfold increase in research effort over the last century, yet crop yields have only quadrupled. Similarly, the number of researchers required to double chip density under Moore’s Law has risen by 18 times since the 1970s.
This trend has significant implications for the future of economic growth. If more resources are needed to generate new ideas, it could lead to a slowdown in productivity growth. This could be further exacerbated by the fact that the easiest ideas are likely to have been discovered first, leaving only the more difficult ones.
The potential solutions to this problem include improving education and increasing the pool of potential innovators. However, even with these measures, the increasing difficulty of finding new ideas could still pose a significant challenge for future economic growth.
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