How to Measure the World's Technological Capacity to Communicate, Store, and Compute Information Part I: Results and Scope

Abstract

This is Part I of a two-part article that reviews methodological and statistical challenges involved in the estimation of humanity’s technological capacity to communicate, store, and compute information. It is written from the perspective of the results of our recent inventory of 60 technological categories between 1986 and 2007 (measured in bits and MIPS [million-instructions-per-second]). In Part I, we summarize the results of our inventory, and explore a series of basic choices that must be made in the course of measuring information and communication capacities. The most basic underlying assumptions behind our estimates include—among others—decisions about what is