The history of technology shows technological change is at least exponential.

The claim is a sweeping general statement: across the whole history of technology, the pace of technological change is at least exponential. True: strong scholarly or quantitative evidence shows at least exponential growth in the rate of technological change across technology in general and over long periods, and there is broad agreement on this. Mostly true: the evidence broadly supports exponential growth across most domains and periods, with only minor exceptions. Mixed: the evidence finds exponential trends in a substantial share of the domains or measures studied but not in others, and experts are roughly split. Mostly false: exponential trends are well documented in some domains (such as computing price-performance), but the evidence does not show this holds for technological change in general, or the question is still contested or unproven, while the claim states it as settled fact. False: the evidence shows clearly that technological change across history has been sub-exponential or has not accelerated.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Quantitative empirical trends in technical performance Technological Forecasting & Social Change (Elsevier); authors C.L. Magee, S. Basnet, J.L. Funk, C.L. Benson (MIT and NUS) · 2016

   “Overall, the results reported here give no support to S curves, quantitative discontinuities or life cycle hypotheses in regard to technical change but instead support a generalization of Moore's law as the foundation upon which change occurs.”

2. E2 Quantitative empirical trends in technical performance Technological Forecasting & Social Change (Elsevier); authors C.L. Magee, S. Basnet, J.L. Funk, C.L. Benson (MIT and NUS) · 2016

   “This work is enabled by knowledge that performance as an exponential function of time is the best framework for these efforts as established by the research reported here.”

3. E3 Quantitative empirical trends in technical performance Technological Forecasting & Social Change (Elsevier); authors C.L. Magee, S. Basnet, J.L. Funk, C.L. Benson (MIT and NUS) · 2016

   “The paper addresses this issue by analyzing performance trends and patent output over time for 28 technological domains.”

4. E4 Quantitative empirical trends in technical performance Technological Forecasting & Social Change (Elsevier); authors C.L. Magee, S. Basnet, J.L. Funk, C.L. Benson (MIT and NUS) · 2016

   “this is not likely to include overall societal change because of our current level of understanding of the complex interaction of technologies and the economy”

A peer-reviewed study of 28 technology domains found that performance grew exponentially over time and found no support for S-curves, which backs exponential trends within those domains (E1, E2, E3). The same study is limited to 28 domains and to performance curves, and its authors say the results are unlikely to extend to overall societal change (E3, E4). The evidence therefore documents exponential trends in many specific domains but does not show that technological change across the whole history of technology is at least exponential, as the claim states as fact. That matches the criteria's 'mostly false' category.