Converging Technologies Looking beyond the hype
Maurits Doorn (Netherlands) Seminario Internacional de Formación Prospectiva El futuro del futuro: convergencias tecnológicas y sociales. Videoconferencias 2012 Mexico City, March 30 2012
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Study Centre for Technology Trends
Converging Technologies foresight project (2004-2006)
Focus on innovation patterns and societal impacts
STT is independent centre for foresight studies
Focus on technology and embedding in society Networks of actors Knowledge production Anticipating future developments
Sponsored by industry, government and knowledge institutes
http://www.stt.nl/uploads/documents/70.pdf
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Converging Technologies
Tremendous progress in NBIC science and technology areas Nano Science and technology Biotechnology, medicine and life sciences Information and communication technology Cognitive science and technology
Starting points Convergence defines opportunities for innovation Wide range of application areas Expectations about revolutionary societal impacts Uncertainty about outcomes – hope, hype & hysteria Success requires novel approaches for innovation Intelligent, critical and creative approach required
CONVERGING TECHNOLOGIES
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Converging Technologies
The label ‘convergence’ became a fashionable label since 2001 with the publication of the NSF report
Converging technologies for Improving Human Performance Specifically used to denote NBIC convergence Nanotechnology in a central role as an enabler NSF report:
Roco, et.al.,2001 (NSF - NNI)
Study Centre for Technology Trends Maurits Doorn
NBIC convergence
NBIC convergence Nano science and technology Biotechnology, medicine and life sciences Information and communication technology Cognitive science and technology
Nano as an enabler Application examples
Chips technology Drug delivery Implants (incl. electroni brain stimulation)
Bio
Nano
Info
Cogno
The NBIC convergence view
Centred around nanotechnology as an enabling technology Underlying view of material unity at the nanoscale Hierarchical ‘control’ of higher levels of complexity from the
nanoscale Converging Technology for ... some (common) goal Promise of a transformative potential (of, in particular,
nanotechnology)
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Application level promises are made
Adaptivity Personalisation
Autonomy Smart Natural
Application level
Brain-Computer interfaces
Regenerative Medicine
Ambient Intelligence
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Ambient Intelligence – An application vision
Embedded Invisible devices throughout the environment
Context aware Knowing about their situational state
Personalized Tailored towards your needs and that can recognize you
Adaptive That can change in response to you and your environment
Anticipatory That anticipate your desires without conscious mediation
Digital environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Silicon meets Carbon
Insulin dispenser
Identification
SMS pacemaker
Implanted hearing aid Artificial vision
Source: Van Roosmalen, 2005
Regenerative Medicine
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Saints Cosmas and Damien replacing a gangrenous leg with the leg of a black man. (Between 200-300)
Long search for therapeutic approaches towards the treatment of tissue loss and organ failure
In the 20th century: Implants Organ transplantation
Can we make our dream come true? Regenerate damaged tissue
to a healthy state
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Gigascale Dreams, nanoscale realities
Physical Layer
Component
Device Structure
Material
System Level
Brain-Computer Interfaces
Regenerative Medicine
Ambient Intelligence
Application Level
Gigascale Dreams…
… Nanoscale Realities
Hugo de Man, IMEC, ISSCC 2005
(fromRathenauIns0tute’swebsiteonnanotechnology)
Contrast promises with actual developments!
Welcoming the nano tsunami
(counter)reactions, analysis and reflection
Report by Roco et.al invited a range of reactions all in the context of broader discussions about impacts of nanotechnology EU High Level Expert Group (2004)
CTEKS – Converging Technologies for the European Knowledge Society Greenpeace (2004)
Future Technologies, Today’s Choices – Nanotechnologies, Artificial Inteliigence & Robotics
ETC Group (2004) The Big Down – From Genomes to Atoms; Atomtech: Technologies converging at the Nano-scale
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Creation of hype
Overall, a lot of hype and counter-hype was – and is – involved in the discussions about converging technologies – and nanotechnology
Although promises are needed - without them new options and applications cannot be further articulated nor selected
Emphasis on broader ‘programmatic’ claims of converging technologies without checking what’s happening on the ground attracts contra-productive hype
Promises are made and after due time turn into constraints, with the risk of disappointments and the risk of missing out on other aspects
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Gartner’s hype cycle for Emerging Technology
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
How promises (potentially) stabilize trajectories
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Uptopian and dystopian rhetoric
Result was a polarized debate, focussing on differences in opinion as to whether the projected impacts of the NBIC technology would be ‘good’ or ‘bad’
Through the Utopian and Dystopian rhetoric it is easy to loose sight of actual developments Transhumanist views of technology enabled human enhancement ETC groups Big BANG theory
All these views accept the basic assumptions of the NBIC view without further discussion, at the same time loosing sight of what’s actually produced in the laboratory
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Dilemma for foresight
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Choose this? Or perhaps
this?
On which future to focus? (Slide courtesy Arie Rip)
Are we talking about The emperor’s new cloths?
The ‘converging technologies’ umbrella
Introduction of a label – like ‘converging technologies’ – by one actor attracts attention
Can be incentive for other actors to try and understand; e.g. mechatronics
If more than rhetoric, the label ‘converging technologies’ can have a similar effect
Understanding the patterns covered by the converging technologies umbrella can help actors understand the dynamics and prepare for the next step in ones own domain Maurits Doorn - Converging
Technologies; Innovation Patterns and Impacts on Society
Why look at CT’s, despite the counter-productive hype?
Label ‘converging technologies’ does denote shifts in interactions between fields resulting in qualitatively new technological possibilities
With – perhaps, but not necessarily – revolutionary impacts
Nanotechnology does play an important role as an enabling technology, but similar shifts (without nanotechnology) occurred before.
Use of the label involves the risk of hype, and of becoming associated with the hype. Maurits Doorn - Converging
Technologies; Innovation Patterns and Impacts on Society
Study Centre for Technology Trends Maurits Doorn
Similar shifts occurred before
Earlier examples of converging technologies: Materials Science & Engineering Mechatronics Computing, Communication & Media Technologies
Can we learn from patterns in historical and actual developments to better anticipate the future?
Insight in the dynamics of the ‘hype-cycle’ popularized by Gartner Group is one example of such a pattern
Twofold challenge and approach
Looking at converging technologies, there is a twofold challenge
1. Understanding the complex dynamics of converging technologies
2. Use this insight to shape the developments
Approach
Reflect on actual developments in their field.
In our book we used a case-study based approach for two examples
Regenerative Medicine
Nanoelectronics
Employ results from studies in technological change and innovation
to deepen understanding (such as, e.g., expectation dynamics)
Maurits Doorn - Converging Technologies; Innovation Patterns and
Impacts on Society
Evolutionary Perspective
Technological change and innovation processes often presented as linear and goal oriented (streamlining history), but this is – in general – only true retrospectively
How to explain that regularities, such as convergence, can be observed in processes of technological change and innovation – despite the contingencies inherent in these processes?
Evolutionary perspective explains combination of contingency – technological novelty as variation – and after some time stabilisation – through a selection environment Introduction of novelty in existing order (although not blind and with links
to variation in environment) Implies need for de-alignment and re-alignment in selection environment If succesful, the results are shifts in ‘technological regimes’, the rule sets
that determine the development of technology Reflected visibly in, e.g., dominant designs and, more generally, in
trajectories Maurits Doorn - Converging
Technologies; Innovation Patterns and Impacts on Society
Muchas Gracias!
Study Centre for Technology Trends Maurits Doorn
Maurits Doorn Senior Business Consultant Science & Technology Corporation
m +31(6)13062747 e [email protected]
