Maybe a concrete example is that humans are capable of building jumbo jets.

But that requires the interface of many different technologies and many different disciplines. It probably requires so much knowledge that one single person doesn't really understand everything that goes into making a jumbo jet.

In a similar way, someone just replied to one of my HN comments, suggesting that the rise of LLMs will simply make us able to augment the ability of humans to do math research.

But I wonder if there's a limit to the complexity of inventions (or research) that we, as a society, can handle.

Maybe the limit is based on how our brains work, or maybe we're limited by the complexity of our institutions. etc. etc.

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I'm sure people have thought about this, but who studies the "limits to societal complexity"? And what exactly is that research called?

I'd ask an LLM, but I'd like to hear from some humans.

Thank you.