Even if the most recent, tentative indications that productivity growth may be speeding up were to turn out to be less than we had hoped, it is possible that the big increases in efficiency growing out of the introduction of computers and communications systems may still lie ahead.
Past innovations, such as the advent of electricity or the invention of the gasoline-powered motor, required the development of considerable infrastructure before their full potential could be realized. Electricity, when it substituted for steam power late last century, was applied to production processes that had been developed for steam.