The information catastrophe
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Currently we produce ~1021 digital bits of information annually on Earth. Assuming 20% annual growth rate, we estimate that after ~350 years from now, the number of bits produced will exceed the number of all atoms on Earth, ~1050. After ~250 years, the power required to sustain this digital production will exceed 18.5 × 1012 Watts, i.e. the total planetary power consumption today, and after ~500 years from now the digital content will account for more than half of the Earth’s mass, according to the mass-energy-information equivalence principle. Besides the existing global challenges such as climate, environment, population, food, health, energy and security, our estimates here point to another singularity event for our planet, called the Information Catastrophe.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 085014 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | AIP Advances |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 11 Aug 2020 |
Documents
- The information catastrophe
Final published version, 1.79 MB, PDF document
Licence: CC BY
Links
Related information
Outputs
The world’s data explained: how much we’re producing and where it’s all stored
Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article
The mass-energy-information equivalence principle
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Projects
Applications of Information Theory to fundamental Physics
Project: Research
Media
Datasets
ID: 22000993
