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The Nature Of Technology: What It Is And How It Evolves (2009)

by W. Brian Arthur(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1416544054 (ISBN13: 9781416544050)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Free Press

review 1: I’ve seen several descriptions of how technology evolves, and this one is a little more detailed and different from the others. It shows how Darwinian evolution doesn’t exactly apply to technology and the economy, but most of the same principles apply. All technologies are combinations of elements, which are themselves technologies, and they all use naturally occurring phenomenon to fulfill a purpose. Innovation in technology happens in a recursive, stepwise fashion as technologies ratchet up on building blocks of what came before, as well as newly harnessed phenomenon, and accelerates as more components emerge because more combinations are possible. This is also a reason why technology tends to become more complex over time—new components bypass performance lim... moreits or bottlenecks encountered with simpler systems.Likewise, he describes the economy as an expression of its technologies. Human needs and technological possibilities co-evolve. New needs emerge as new possibilities occur and new technologies get developed to fulfill known needs. Individual technologies, technical domains, and the economy tend to have explosive bursts of creativity when new phenomenon are harnessed or technologies that can apply broadly across many technologies. Also, similar to coral reefs, innovation tends to flourish in dense ecosystems where a critical mass of thinking on a domain can occur, and “deep craft” (aka tacit knowledge) can be fostered. This is why some expertise in some fields tend to get concentrated in a particular geographic area. It also talks about how technology grows beyond a singular thing and into a system of supporting technologies and organizations that continue to morph for decades. For example, textile machines led to mills and modern management systems, labor unions, urban life, changes to the political system, etc in the form of the Victorian industrial system, constantly evolving on all levels with changes at each level rippling across other levels and other systems.My only complaints are that his assertions were sometimes a little hand-wavy and unsupported. I also thought his assertion that innovation would never come to an end a little Pollyannaish. While the possible combinations of technologies are astronomically large, and growing with every new one developed, there are many ways technological progress could come grinding to a halt. To be fair, many of them are outside of his argument, such as draconian government regulation, luddite public fears, or other backlash against technological development. He also acknowledged that many of these potential combinations would have no practical or economic value. His discussion about public fear of technology and inherent trust in nature by the public was another thing I thought was a little under-substantiated, and out of place. Although it arguably fits in with his argument that technology and nature are more closely related than commonly believed, it seems to appeal to common knowledge that the public overall is freaked out by technology run amok. That seems to be a common theme with pundits, and does have an impact on society’s views on technology, I hardly think this is a universal view. I am sympathetic, however, to the concern that humanity and our technological system stop seeing nature as something beautiful in itself, but is idly standing by until we can put it to our use.
review 2: I felt W. Brian Arthur's book highlighted an underlying axiom that I find true: great things, material or incorporeal, are built from smaller things and are not spontaneously synthesized from nothing, but are sub-creations formed from observations of our existing environment. That is a wordy way of saying I fell in love with this book because the ideas it presented rang true to me. W. Brian Arthur presents his ideas intelligently and comprehensively. He used examples that clarified more complicated ideas and still allowed moments for the reader to apply their own examples. He explains why technology exist (to exploit a natural phenomenon in order to achieve a goal) and what technology is (a combination of components which are themselves smaller technologies). Then goes on the describe how it evolves. So long as your not expecting a text book on the subject, or a taxonomy of technology for dummies, then I think you will find this book an insightful and dare I say, fun read. less

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