Abstract
The objective of this conceptual paper is to spur new thinking about how technological change can be harnessed to address existential threats. We suggest current debates about a fourth industrial revolution (4IR) fail to properly consider an ongoing decline in global productivity growth. Robert Solow remarked ‘you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics’- the Solow Paradox. Recent work documents an ongoing decline in research productivity, the returns to investments in research. We suggest the definition of an industrial revolution should be one that substantially increases global productivity growth, which is yet to happen. Such a revolution would need to be differentiated from 4IR descriptions of the confluence of technologies and would need to reflect these substantial increases global productivity growth- a fifth industrial revolution (5IR). We describe this productivity revolution as being driven by idea production, following Romer. Whereas Nelson identifies limitations of technology in solving wicked problems- a defining characteristic of current existential threats- we suggest a true productivity revolution (that can solve wicked problems) can be enabled by a 5IR heuristic, if it helps refocus attention on the notion of increasing returns to scale in research, the engine of productivity and growth in Romer’s theory. Finally, we sketch some future dystopian and beneficial consequences of technological change.