On the grandest scale, looking over the past 2 million years, there have been three major revolutions that have affected humanity. First was the agricultural revolution that began 9,500 years ago, second the Industrial Revolution which began 250 years ago and third the robotics revolution which is just getting underway.

Seen from this perspective, outlined by Robin Hanson in his talk "When Robots Rule . . . ."to the Brooklyn Future is to Meet up at Brooklyn Law School in January 2016, blockchain technology, while revolutionary, is an enabling technology for robotics and the Internet of Things.

World's Leading Companies Are the Most Productive

Industry watchers and economists are a bit stumped at the low pace of productivity growth both in the US and abroad. Productivity growth has been weak in the US with an increase in productivity of 0.7% over the past year and 0.4% in Germany according to Yardeni.com.

But companies like Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla and Uber to name a few, the companies that today are known as the Great Disruptors, are out in front in terms of using productivity enhancing technologies to create and deliver better products and services. These innovative companies are throwing down the gauntlet to competitors. The message is innovate to improve efficiency or be left behind.

Will Blockchain Technology Lead to Productivity Improvements

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At this point, none of these disruptors are using blockchain technology, though they are beginning to experiment with it. And they all have deep pockets and will snap up promising blockchain startups when the time is ripe. But the huge number of smart people creating companies based on blockchain suggests that the technology could be a game changer for productivity.

According to blockchain experts the technology will improve productivity because it will increase the amount of trust in economic transactions thereby greasing the wheels of the economy and making the productivity of workers and machines significantly better.

Image Courtesy Mark Smith on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/marc_smith/16296276481