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Technology and Innovation Explained

Jun 13, 202412 min read

- [[Technology and Innovation]], chapter 11 of [[2014-07]]-17, which explains

image Technology and Innovation 2014-07-17 Yasukazu Nishio

image Chapter 11.

  • This final chapter discusses the relationship between technology, economy, and organisms.
  • This presentation will introduce the contents of this document, present specific examples and related research, and conclude with a summary discussion.

image introduction

image consideration

  • Why ignore the human will?
  • What about the ends?
  • Order versus vitality” and methodological evolution.
  • Schematic of the evolution of technology

image Introduction 1

  • Three principles
  • p.257
    • 1: All technology is a combination of elements
    • 2: The element itself is technology
    • 3: Technology exploits phenomena for some purpose.

image Questioning three principles

  • 1: All technology is a combination of elements
  • 2: The element itself is technology
  • Doesn’t this definition imply that technology is an endless series of layers?
  • →Consideration 1: “What’s going on at the ends?”

image Questioning three principles

  • 3: Technology exploits phenomena for some purpose.
  • For example, what is the “position by zero”?
    • Not technology?
  • →Introduction 2 “Mechanisms of Technology Creation”

image Introduction 2

  • Mechanisms by which technology is created. p.258
  • Combination of needs and seeds (effects that satisfy needs)
  • Confronting Limitations / Creating New Problems
  • This creates a new need = niche.
  • Needs are drawn from human desires rather than technology itself

image Role of the Economy

  • Inform your needs
  • Test for commercial availability
  • →Commercially available” means “profitable, with people willing to pay for it,” i.e., “satisfying human needs at low cost.”

image Economy is also technology

  • There are “arrangements” for business, means of production, institutions, organization, etc.
  • This creates an opportunity for the next generation to “make an arrangement”
  • Author: “So it’s the same structure as technology!”
  • Nishio: “Are you ignoring “3: Technology is using the phenomenon for some purpose?
  • → Consider the “Arrangement” 10

image Arrangement (1/3)

  • Creating “agreement” creates value.
  • Example: Barter (fish and wild vegetables)
    • The value of an object is subjective and can be increased by exchange
    • →Value can be created even if nothing is produced.
  • e.g.: the right to obtain (→currency)

image Arrangement (2/3)

  • Example: alphabet.
    • By agreeing on symbols to represent words, information can now be conveyed without being in the same place at the same time.
    • → Value from Standardization
      • Clay tablet and cuneiform
  • e.g.:0-based system ⇔ Roman/Kanji numerals
    • Computing with ranks using 0 is easy = value of human cognitive cost saved (thought economy)
    • ↑upThis value can be obtained by using it alone.
    • Standardization after the fact as good arrangements are disseminated

image Arrangement (3/3)

  • Arrangements” that do not take advantage of natural phenomena can also create value and meet human needs
  • If the economy is technology, then all arrangements of this kind are technology.
  • It does not have to be an arrangement with another person. Even one person can save that person cognitive costs.
  • Isn’t this the driving force behind the creation of new concepts? (concept = arrangement)

image Introduction 3 - Technology becomes a living organism. - p.260

  • Technology becomes more complex and top down design more difficult
  • Inability to design rules in advance, especially when the environment changes quickly
  • So make it so that it can be changed to interactive (interactive).
  • What does “design for adaptability to changing environments” mean? →Example 14

image Adaptation to changing environment

image Adaptation to changing environment

  • Example: Smartphone
    • Users can add applications according to their own needs, rather than designing and preparing the functions they want in advance.
    • From the smartphone perspective, “a mechanism that adapts after the fact to environments (user needs) that are difficult to know about in advance.”

image Adaptation to changing environment

  • Example: Behavioral information collection + software updates
    • Excel, etc. We do not know in advance what kind of operations users will perform or where they will stumble. Therefore, we collect information on user operations. Based on this information, we make improvements and update the software.

image Adaptation to changing environment

  • Example: Web service load balancing (e.g. Amazon EC2)
    • Since they do not know in advance how much access they will receive, they cannot invest in appropriate equipment. Therefore, a mechanism was introduced to observe access and increase facilities after the fact.
    • Unpredictability, speed of decision making is important → Automation
    • Automation has eliminated human judgment intervention!

image Becoming an Organism p. 261-262

  • Isn’t this what we call “learning”?
  • Hasn’t technology acquired intelligence?
  • Could technology become biology?
  • Nishio: “The gap from ‘acquisition of intelligence’ to ‘biology’…” and not ‘biology’?”
    • →Discuss organisms in detail in Discussion 2.

image Introduction 4

  • Sources of Competitive Advantage
    • p.265
  • Not “the ability to store resources, combine them, and produce output.”
  • Competitive edge” comes from “the ability to accumulate knowledge and combine it to create new Combination Strategies.
    • It’s mostly the same thing Drucker is talking about.nishio.icon

image Sources of Competitive Advantage

  • Competitive advantage at the time of the Industrial Revolution
    • We have a lot of resources.
    • Has processing facilities
    • Competitive advantage in [knowledge-based economy
    • I have a lot of knowledge.
    • We have the ability to combine them.

image

image Introduction 5

  • How to deal with technology
    • p.269
  • It is important to distinguish between technology that enslaves nature and technology that is an extension of nature.
  • (Nishio) I don’t think it’s very important.

image Consideration 1

  • What about the human will?
    • Why do the authors ignore the “human will”?

image

  • selfish gene theory
  • 1970s
  • Why do some individuals engage in “altruistic behavior” that does not contribute to their own genetic survival?
  • From that individual perspective, it is not rational, but from the genetic perspective, some altruistic behavior is rational.
    • Disadvantageous to that individual but advantageous to another individual with the same genes.
  • The subject is not the individual, but the gene
  • →The individual is merely a genetic “vehicle.”

image

  • meme
  • 1976 “Selfish genes” R. Dawkins
  • Information is replicated by the human brain.
  • Some are more efficient at replication than others, the good ones spread and the bad ones are weeded out.
  • In other words, information is like genes, and like genes, it evolves through natural selection.
  • →The human brain is merely a “vehicle” for memes.

image

  • technium (Tc)
  • K. Kelly 2011
  • Original title “What Technology Want”
    • The subject is Technology
  • Technium = a collection of technologies
  • Comparing the Evolution of Life with the Evolution of Technium

image

  • Structural necessity and historical contingency are common among the forces at work in evolution
  • The third force at work in the evolution of life is blind natural selection
  • The third power of the Technium is the social collective free will.

image

  • Q: Why do the authors ignore the “human will”?
  • The idea that, like genes and memes humans are merely vehicles of technology, technology evolves independently of human will.
  • K. Kelly argues that “human will causes technology to evolve faster than genetic evolution.” The distinction between this?

image Consideration 2

  • What about the ends?
  • If we define “X is all combinations of elements + element X”, X would be an infinite hierarchy. What about the ends?
  • First technology, first life, first economy

image First technology

  • Woodpecker finches using branches to catch insects
  • Bearded vulture dropping bones and turtles on stones to break them and eat them.
  • Using the phenomenon to satisfy the need of appetite
  • Not a combination.

image first life

  • The Yulee-Miller Experiment
    • Repeated discharges into the primordial atmosphere happen to produce organic compounds such as amino acids
  • GADV hypothesis
    • Peptides formed by the polymerization of amino acids created in the above experiment have catalytic activity → promote the reaction.

image first life

  • Coacervate
    • A spherical object whose shape is maintained by the hydrophobic interaction of water and oil. Alexandre Oparin claimed that it may be the origin of life.
      • (Cell membrane: lipid bilayer)
    • …In a random combination of these various factors, something with the ability to self-replicate may have proliferated by chance (Nishio).

image First Economy

  • Mycorrhizal fungi (and other symbiotic relationships) 400 million years ago
    • Absorb phosphate and nitrogen from the soil and supply them to the host plant, and obtain carbon compounds produced by the host plant through photosynthesis
  • For humans: barter
    • Offer fish and get wild plants instead

image by chance

  • If you happen to drop a turtle on a stone, it will crack.
  • I happen to be able to self-replicate.
  • Two parties who happen to benefit from the exchange met.
  • The first X is born by chance.

image Consideration 3

  • Darwinian evolution
    • The Darwinian principle of evolution is “random → more successful by chance.”
    • Random variation Gene Random combination Individual Natural selection Surviving individual
    • Random change Knowledge Random combination Application Success Survived Application

image Beyond Random

image Beyond Random

image Consideration 4 - scientific method - Descartes 「 introduction to the method 」 - [The rule of clarity: Only what is clearly recognized as truth should be the criterion of judgment. - Elemental Decomposition: Consider breaking down the problem into elements that can be resolved. - [From the concrete to the abstract: The recognition of the simple to the complex in turn. - Synthesis:The whole is reconstructed by complete enumeration and reconstruction, making sure that nothing has been overlooked. - Early works on [scientific methodology

image Descartes

  • 「 I think, therefore I am 」
    • Only God-given “reason” is correct.
    • Human cognition and experience cannot be trusted.
    • Of course, experimental and observational data are also unreliable.
  • Using that reason, I questioned everything, and the only thing that remained was “my existence.
    • → methodic doubt
    • → Believed in God and doubted the correctness of science

image historical background - Kopernikus 「 Rotation of celestial bodies 」 - Published with his death in 1543

  • 1616 Galileo First Inquisition
  • 1637 Descartes, “Introduction to Method.”
  • 1669 Newton (Sir Isaac), Study of Alchemy
  • A time when Christianity was stronger than science41

image How the world came to be

image p.267

image Consideration 5

  • Evolution of Technology
  • Why go beyond Darwinian evolution?
    • →What is the methodology derived from?
    • →How is the direction of selection determined?

image What is it made of?

image Methodology is also hierarchical.

  • Methodology is a value-generating decision to “create good applications.
  • → Technology as well as the economy
  • Edges are “random”.

image What decides?

image Role of the Economy

  • Test for commercial availability
  • (Kelly) Collective free will of society
  • Acceleration by Market
    • Unexpected success: meeting a different need than intended
    • Improvement bias of widely used
    • Diverse use bias (openness)

image summary

  • Arrangements = concepts as well as objects create value
  • Methodology allows for more efficient search for “combinations” than Darwinian evolution
  • Methodology is also a hierarchical technology
  • Market bias toward greater openness
    • → Openness makes the combination of elements more complex
    • → top-down design becomes impossible (bio-)

image bonus

  • programming
    • Function Definition: Gives a name to a complex series of processes so that they can be performed under that name in the future.
    • = “Designed like words in a language” (Chapter 4)
    • = “Arrangements” that reduce cognitive costs.
    • = hierarchical components (functions can be used as components to create other functions)

image History of Programming Languages

  • Before birth: A computer that can change its calculations by wiring it with wires.
  • Wiring is troublesome → Computers that can change the calculation by writing data
  • Data is difficult to understand in 01001010 → Program to convert human-understandable alphabet to 01001010
    • It is “up to you” what notation to use.

image History of Programming Languages

  • Writing similar processes over and over is tedious.
    • →Decisions for reusing program fragments
  • I have trouble keeping up with the rules.
    • → Add instructions for program reuse to the computer (ret)
  • Cumbersome to remember the numerical location of programs to be reused
    • →Notation for naming and calling program fragments, a decision to be made.
    • →Birth of the concept of “function

This page is auto-translated from /nishio/テクノロジーとイノベーション解説 using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.

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