Time at full speed
In 1830, the first railway between Liverpool and Manchester began operations, marking a turning point in human history. For travelers of the time, boarding a train moving at the dizzying speed of 30 kilometers per hour was an act of both daring and wonder: a miracle and a threat. Some feared that the human body would not withstand such speed; others worried that the landscape, seen from a window at that velocity, would irreparably disturb the senses. Wolfgang Schivelbusch, in his book The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century (1977, Geschichte der Eisenbahnreise), describes how this mode of transport not only shortened physical distances but also altered our perception of time. Clocks, now synchronized with train schedules, ceased to mark local and fragmented time, instead adhering to a unified rhythm: a global heartbeat that laid the foundation of modernity.
For 19th-century passengers, the railway represented a revolution. However, from our perspective, it is merely a shadow of the whirlwind we live in today. If that train compressed distances and reshaped industrial life, how can we describe the contemporary technologies that transform our reality in a matter of weeks? From the instant viralization on social networks to the disruption brought by tools like generative artificial intelligence, we find ourselves immersed in a constant flow of disruption—an ocean of change that threatens to overwhelm us before we can even comprehend it.
Just as those train travelers faced both fascination and fear, we live through a similar crossroads: adapt or be left behind. If the railway revolutionized a century, what does it mean to live in a world where each technological revolution erupts before we have even absorbed the last?
The history of acceleration: from the wheel to the chip
The perception of change before the Industrial Revolution
For millennia, progress moved at the pace of a plow. The wheel, invented around 3200 BCE, revolutionized transportation and mobility, but its impact took centuries to spread, rolling slowly across trade routes and civilizations. In those days, time was cyclical, marked by the return of seasons and ancestral rituals. Great innovations—writing, the first cities—transformed the world, but they did so with the cadence of a flame growing steadily, without haste.
Everything began to change in 1440, when Johannes Gutenberg introduced his movable-type printing press. What once took decades to propagate—an idea, a story, a discovery—could now cross continents in a matter of years. Suddenly, time became linear, cumulative. With every printed book, humanity advanced its cultural pulse. Though life was still governed by long pauses, the printing press planted the seed of a new unease: everything can change rapidly.
The steam engine and time as a resource
That slow but inexorable awakening took a dizzying leap in the 18th century with the arrival of the steam engine. More than a technical feat, it was a transformation in humanity’s relationship with time. In Technics and Civilization (1934), Lewis Mumford describes how the Industrial Revolution inaugurated a new era in the bond between humanity and technology. Previously, the rhythms of life followed the course of the sun, the cycles of nature, and the patience of seasons. The steam engine severed that connection. Time was now mechanical: constant, repetitive, relentless, and inexhaustible.
Mumford argues that the machine, beyond multiplying the productive capacity of factories, fundamentally altered social structures. Workers were no longer artisans bound to their tools. They became small cogs in a greater mechanism—a system that valued efficiency over individuality. Efficiency and standardization became the new ideals of the industrial age. An era that once again accelerated humanity's perception of progress but brought with it evident tensions: how do we reconcile the drive for endless production with human limitations?
The digital leap and exponential acceleration
The pace set by the steam engine would soon find new forms of acceleration. In the 20th century, the internal combustion engine, perfected in the late 19th century, revolutionized individual mobility. Automobiles and trucks compressed distances even further and democratized transportation, bringing goods and people to places once unreachable. At the same time, electricity extended productive hours beyond daylight, illuminating the path toward a fully industrialized time.
Parallel to these developments were communication technologies that transformed the flow of ideas. The telegraph, radio, and later television reduced the time needed to transmit messages from days to minutes, foreshadowing the global impact of digital connectivity. Each innovation introduced a new rhythm in a world where immediacy became the norm and time an increasingly scarce resource.
This process reached its pinnacle with the invention of the microchip in the 1950s. This tiny breakthrough not only marked the beginning of the digital age but also redefined the relationship between change and time. The microchip enabled information processing at unimaginable speeds, paving the way for a civilization interconnected by ever-shorter cycles of innovation. Marshall McLuhan, in his renowned work Understanding Media (1964), expressed this visionarily: "The medium is the message." With digitalization, the tools we use to process information not only expanded our capabilities but also reconfigured our perception of reality.
The microchip, more than an invention, represents a paradigm shift: the transition to a world where acceleration is no longer a gradual phenomenon but an exponential one. From early computers to smartphones, this leap has connected us in unprecedented ways but has also confronted us with the vertigo of a time increasingly blurred.
The science of speed: Can we measure acceleration?
We have seen that progress was once like an underground river: perceptible, yet difficult to measure. Koselleck, in his work Futures Past (1979), describes how societies experienced modernity as a transformation defined more by sensations than by figures. "Progress" and "crisis" were terms that captured the collective experience of change, particularly during disruptive moments like the Industrial Revolution.
Marshall Berman, in All That Is Solid Melts Into Air (1982), expressed it poignantly: "To be modernized is to find ourselves and our world in perpetual disintegration and renewal." This mix of anxiety and hope accompanied generations that lived through the rise of the railroad or urbanization.
However, with the rise of technology, we have moved from interpreting change as sensation to measuring it with data. Science and technology have given us tools to quantify acceleration. Metrics like technological adoption time illustrate how innovations move from exclusive inventions to indispensable elements of daily life.
Adoption time as a key indicator
Technological adoption measures the time required for an innovation to integrate into everyday life. And the numbers tell a clear story: as technology advances, this time decreases drastically.
During the Industrial Revolution, electricity took nearly 50 years to reach 50% of U.S. households. By comparison, the telephone achieved this milestone in just over 35 years, while the internet took less than a decade. In this context, contemporary tools like ChatGPT have set a new standard for how quickly innovations transition from extraordinary to commonplace, reaching 200 million weekly users in under two years—a record in the history of technological development (Statista, 2024).
This shift in timelines reflects both advancements in technical capabilities and profound changes in how societies incorporate new developments. As Everett Rogers, author of The Diffusion of Innovations (1962), noted, "The speed of adoption reflects both the intrinsic value of the innovation and the willingness of societies to change and adapt."
In the case of artificial intelligence, its widespread adoption indicates something even more significant: not only are we prepared to integrate it, but we perceive it as an essential tool for navigating an increasingly complex world.
The exponential curve and the Law of Accelerating Returns
Technological acceleration does not follow a linear pattern but an exponential one. This concept, proposed by Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity is Near (2005) as the Law of Accelerating Returns, suggests that each technological breakthrough amplifies the speed of the next, creating a multiplier effect in innovation. With each new stage, our technological capabilities increase, and the speed at which societies reorganize around these tools accelerates.
Take, for example, the development of COVID-19 vaccines. In the past, vaccines took decades to develop, from identifying a pathogen to mass production. However, in 2020, using advanced techniques like mRNA technology, scientists not only developed them within months but also leveraged digital infrastructure to share scientific knowledge globally in real-time, enabling distribution. This process would not have been possible without decades of cumulative advances in biotechnology, computational modeling systems, and global communication networks, which facilitated vaccine design and international coordination in record time.
Beyond solving existing problems, each innovation opens new paradigms that transform entire industries and redefine our expectations. Yet, this pace raises urgent questions: can our institutions, economies, and values adapt at the same speed as expanding technological possibilities?
The impact of acceleration on society
Acceleration transforms our tools and reconfigures how we think, live, and interact with the world around us. Hartmut Rosa, in Resonance (2016), describes how the dizzying pace of technological innovation has created a disconnection between people and their environment. We live trapped in what Rosa calls "frenetic time," where everything seems to move faster than we can process, creating a sense of alienation rather than progress.
Byung-Chul Han, in The Scent of Time (2009), offers a similar reflection: in a world where evolution is measured in ever-shorter cycles, we lose the ability to experience time as something continuous. Instead of a horizon toward the future, we inhabit a fragmented present, saturated with stimuli and demands. This phenomenon strains individuals and, consequently, our institutions, which were designed for more gradual change.
However, acceleration also brings new opportunities. Never before have societies had access to such powerful tools to solve complex problems in record time. From pandemic response to combating climate change, speed can be an ally. Yet, as Rosa notes, "the key is not to accelerate further, but to find resonance": a balance between the rapid pace of innovation and our ability to make sense of it.
In this context, acceleration emerges as a paradox. While it propels us forward with promises of progress, it also forces us to ask: how can we adapt without losing our sense of humanity?
Artificial intelligence: the leap into the unknown
If the microchip defined the digital age, artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of the game. AI is not just another step in technological evolution; it is a leap into uncharted territory. Unlike the tools of the past, which extended our physical or cognitive capabilities, AI creates something profoundly disruptive: a collaboration between the human and the non-human that redefines what we understand as creativity, ingenuity, or problem-solving.
Its adoption has been breathtaking, reaching unprecedented numbers at record speed. But behind this rapidity lies a paradox that permeates our entire technological era: how do we navigate a world where tools not only accelerate change but also alter the very foundations of our institutions, economies, and values?
AI offers us unprecedented possibilities: automation, creation, and analysis at unimaginable scales. At the same time, it forces us to reconsider fundamental questions: what does it mean to be human in a world where machines can write poems, design strategies, or solve complex problems?
Ultimately, let us take artificial intelligence as a mirror of our own acceleration. As with every previous revolution, it is not technological advancement that defines the future, but our ability to adapt, integrate, and find meaning amid the whirlwind.
Conclusion: between vertigo and resonance
From the roar of the first railway to the calculated stillness of algorithms, humanity has navigated a journey marked by an obsession with conquering time and space. Each new creation has compelled us to redraw the maps of our existence, shrinking distances and expanding possibilities. But this progress is not merely a straight line forward; it is a network of crossroads where direction matters as much as speed.
Today, with artificial intelligence as the new horizon, we have not only quickened our pace but also altered the nature of the path. We no longer traverse a route solely drawn by our hands but share the creation of pathways with tools that suggest, respond, and even anticipate. Confronted with this shifting landscape, we cannot help but wonder: will the journey take us beyond ourselves, or have we merely changed the terrain without redefining the destination?
The search for balance: resonance in times of vertigo
Constant motion is nothing new for humanity; we have always oscillated between stillness and change, between predictable cycles and unexpected disruptions. However, the moment we inhabit is defined not just by the speed of transformation but by the challenge of finding harmony amidst the noise of the new. Hartmut Rosa calls this resonance: the ability to tune into a world in motion without being blurred by its velocity.
Resonance does not mean stopping or longing for a slower past. It is, instead, like a musician who, in the midst of a chaotic orchestra, finds the precise note to transform noise into melody. It is the art of turning the scattered echoes of this time into meaningful connections, into bridges that restore our ability to make sense of what we create. In this act, technology should not be the protagonist but the finely tuned instrument that helps us reinterpret the present.
The challenge, then, is not to accelerate or slow down but to craft a rhythm that allows us to hear what is essential while we continue to move forward. Finding resonance in times of vertigo is as human as it is innovative: it means resisting the temptation to be swept away by the current and learning to inhabit it with intention.
The responsibility of choosing the future
We stand at a decisive moment, a crossroads where every choice is a stroke on the map of what is to come. We can be distracted passengers, absorbed by the speed, carried along by a train that moves without asking where it leads, or we can assume the role of engineers—those who lay the tracks with intention and purpose. At this moment, it is not about what technology can do for us but about what we decide to do with it. Every tool is not just a means but a promise: which one will we choose to fulfill?
We have seen how, in the most urgent circumstances, humanity can align its ingenuity with the common good. Vaccines developed in months, digital networks uniting minds separated by oceans, tools solving challenges in days where once it took decades. But we must not confuse the capacity to create with the clarity of knowing why. Innovation is not a blind river; it is a mirror that reflects our priorities, our contradictions. If everything we create reflects who we are, what do we want to show at the end of the journey?
The path we follow will not depend on the power of algorithms or the precision of machines. It will depend on something more subtle, more fragile: our willingness to ask the right questions. What does it mean to move forward when humanity is the point of reference? What stories do we want to tell with the tools we possess? And above all, how do we ensure that in this journey, we do not lose sight of what makes us worthy of moving forward? Speed does not define our future. It is the intention with which we draw the horizon.