ExperienceChronology
Change timeline
A single line with the milestones the book keeps coming back to — from the Sputnik moment to today.
Acceleration, measured
Verified milestones per year, from Sputnik to today. The curve redraws itself with every milestone that enters the timeline.
Milestones curated by the editors — editorial bias is part of the method: we count what passed the verification filter.
- 1947
scientific breakthrough
The transistor is invented
Bell Labs demonstrates the first transistor. The invisible brick on which every digital thing to come would be built.
- 1965
scientific breakthrough
Gordon Moore states his law
A note in a trade magazine becomes prophecy: power doubles again and again. The exponential curve now has a name.
- 1969
technology launch
First message over ARPANET
Two computers talk for the first time. The link crashes after two letters —but nothing would ever be truly disconnected again.
- 1989
technology launch
Tim Berners-Lee proposes the Web
A memo at CERN dismissed as “vague but exciting.” It takes years to take off; when it does, it links half of humanity.
- 1997
scientific breakthrough
Deep Blue defeats Kasparov
For the first time a machine beats the reigning world chess champion. Intelligence stops being exclusively human territory.
- 1998
business model shift
Google is founded
Organizing all the world’s information stops being a utopia and becomes a business. Access to knowledge accelerates.
- 2000
technology launch
Mass-market internet
Information connects and existing business models begin to creak. It takes years to seep into everyday life.
- 2007
technology launch
iPhone launch
The internet stops being a destination and starts living with you. A decade to redesign the social and economic fabric.
- 2008
business model shift
Apple opens the App Store
500 apps at launch, 10 million downloads in 72 hours. Software stops shipping in boxes and starts to flow.
- 2012
scientific breakthrough
AlexNet wins ImageNet
A deep neural network crushes the computer-vision benchmark. Almost without warning, the deep-learning decade begins.
- 2016
scientific breakthrough
AlphaGo beats Lee Sedol
The last game thought safe from machines falls. Intuition —not just calculation— now has an artificial rival.
- 2017
scientific breakthrough
“Attention Is All You Need”
A paper introduces the Transformer. Almost no one notices; it is the silent engine of every generative AI still to come.
- 2019
technology launch
OpenAI unveils GPT-2
So convincing at writing that its maker withholds release “over misuse risk.” The machine now drafts the way we do.
- 2020
technology launch
GPT-3 opens its API
175 billion parameters within reach of any developer. Building with AI stops being only for the giants.
- 2020
scientific breakthrough
AlphaFold2 cracks protein folding
A 50-year problem falls over a competition weekend. AI starts to accelerate science itself, not just software.
- 2021
technology launch
OpenAI unveils DALL·E
Describe an image in words and it appears. Visual creativity crosses the threshold of what only people used to do.
- 2022
market shift
Stable Diffusion goes open
The model weights, free for anyone. Within days it runs on home laptops: generative imagery becomes everyone’s.
- 2022
technology launch
ChatGPT launches
A free “research preview.” One million users in five days: conversational AI bursts into everyone’s life at once.
- 2023
data milestone
ChatGPT reaches 100M users
The fastest-growing consumer application on record — 2 months, not 7 years.
- 2023
technology launch
OpenAI releases GPT-4
Multimodal, and passes the bar exam in the top 10%. The leap between models is no longer measured in years, but in months.
- 2023
market shift
Nvidia joins the trillion-dollar club
The maker of AI’s chips touches a trillion in market cap. The market suddenly puts a price on the exponential fever.
- 2023
market shift
Meta releases Llama 2
A powerful model with open weights and commercial use. The frontier stops being closed: anyone can build on it.
- 2024
regulation
EU · AI Act takes effect
The first comprehensive regulatory framework for AI. It classifies uses by risk and requires documentation and human oversight.
- 2025
business model shift
Stargate is announced: $500B for AI
OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle commit half a trillion dollars to US AI infrastructure. The scale of the bet stops being a metaphor.
- 2025
technology launch
OpenAI launches Operator
AI stops advising and starts acting: it drives the browser for you. From copilot to agent that executes, without a pause.
- 2025
market shift
DeepSeek Monday
An open, cheap model shakes the valuation of closed players — the cost/quality frontier shifts in hours.
- 2025
market shift
DeepSeek-R1 and the January shock
An open reasoning model, trained for a fraction of the usual cost, wipes nearly $600B off Nvidia in a day. Efficiency becomes strategic.
- 2025
technology launch
Claude Opus 4: agents that carry the work
Anthropic ships models that run long, autonomous tasks, not just answer. Work stops being measured in replies and starts being measured in jobs done.
- 2025
market shift
The EU AI Act phases in
After banning certain uses in February, August brings the first obligations for general-purpose models. Governance tries to catch up with the curve.
- 2025
technology launch
OpenAI launches GPT-5
The fifth generation arrives with falling costs and rising scrutiny: frontier capability starts to look like a utility.
- 2025
technology launch
Google launches Gemini 3
Google answers with its most capable multimodal model, woven into search and productivity. Frontier competition tightens to months, not years.
- 2025
technology launch
Claude Opus 4.5 quickens the cadence
Six months after Opus 4, a new iteration pushes the coding-agent frontier. The cadence of improvement visibly shortens.
- 2026
technology launch
Humanoid robots reach the market
Between CES 2026 and the first commercial deployments (Optimus, Atlas), physical AI leaves the lab. What was a demo starts having a price and a date.
- 2026
scientific breakthrough
AI-authored research passes peer review
An autonomous system produces a paper accepted at a top conference; the methodology is published in Nature. Creating and knowing begin to be redefined.
- 2026
business model shift
Frontier models level off
Several labs tie at the top (GPT-5.4, Gemini 3.1) and frontier intelligence cheapens. The edge stops being the model and becomes how you use it.