Book review - The Nature of Technology by W. Brian Arthur
The Nature of Technology: What It is and How It Evolves is an insightful and thought-provoking yet accessible book that explores the essence of technology as a system rather than the development of individual technologies. Arthur’s background in economics and complexity theory led him to explore how different technologies are related and how they evolve.
Arthur defines the challenge in the first three chapters: identify the "principles behind technology, some common logic that would structure technology and determine its ways and progress" (p9). He lays the foundations of a comprehensive technology theory based on the principle of “combinatorial evolution.” Although Darwinian evolution shares similarities in that variants and selection exist in technology, technological design is a human process not restricted to the slow accumulation of small changes.
Arthur characterises technology as the programming or orchestrating natural phenomena to achieve a particular purpose. Since prehistory, we have observed and harnessed natural phenomena, a process more recently accelerated by scientific discovery. However, our ability to combine technologies in novel ways is increasingly driving technological advances, supported by the trend towards encapsulating function in components and subassemblies (modularity), each of which is a technology (recursiveness). We are experiencing an explosion of computing capabilities as previously complex algorithms are now available as components with well-defined interfaces. Technology constantly evolves, creating new opportunity niches, shedding technologies that no longer provide value, and advancing our ability to discover novel natural phenomena. “Technology, once a means of production, is becoming a chemistry” (p27).
Chapters four and five describe combination-based “standard engineering” as creative problem-solving at multiple levels, from the desired outcome up to a high-level concept and down through the integration of components/subassemblies, with many cycles in between. Often the first step is selecting the right “technology domain,” a cluster of technologies that share common processes, components, and purposes. Innovation occurs within domains, but larger leaps are possible when new domains displace existing domains, such as the switch from mechanical/hydraulic control in aeroplanes to digital “fly-by-wire” systems that increase reliability, reduce weight, and expand aeronautical capabilities. A new domain expands what is possible by providing new components and a new language for integrating those components to achieve existing as well as new purposes.
Chapters six through eight explore the development of revolutionary technologies based on new principles derived from novel phenomena. These principles often achieve a certain level of development yet are not adopted until progress within a technology domain hits fundamental barriers or becomes too complex. Even then, adoption may be slowed by the cost of redesigning supporting systems, evaluating the risks of the new, and understanding the longer-term economic, financial, and policy implications. Arthur describes stretching the capabilities of reciprocating engine aeroplanes to fly higher and faster, even though jet engines were available until fundamental limits in the existing approaches were reached. Only then did jet power principles and paradigms gain traction and become commercially viable.
Chapters nine and ten explore in greater depth the concept that technology is “self-producing,” an ever-expanding web of technology components that are constantly combined to enrich individual and collective technologies further. Arthur argues that the economy is more than a “system of production and distribution and consumption.” Technology and the economy are tightly coupled: “Technology creates the structure of the economy, and the economy mediates the creation of novel technology (and therefore its own creation)” (p165) by identifying needs, assessing commercial viability, and creating opportunity niches. Economies and technologies are constantly evolving in concert at an accelerating pace.
In the last chapter, Arthur summarises the book and explores the relationship between technology and the natural world. Arthur claims, “Our deepest hope as humans lies in technology; but our deepest trust lies in nature" (p15). He suggests we are experiencing a degree of convergence: the tools of science and technology are helping us understand biology at a deeper level, while technology is becoming more bottom-up and adaptive through “networks of parts that sense, configure, and execute appropriately” (p176). Combinatorial evolution increasingly drives the economy, shifting from producing material objects to developing relationships that help make sense of complex challenges. “Order, closedness, and equilibrium as ways of organizing explanations are giving way to open-endedness, indeterminacy, and the emergence of perpetual novelty” (p180). As technology evolves, we can create technologies that enhance our individuality and humanity.
Implications for bio-inspired design
The Nature of Technology does not discuss bio-inspired design (BID) but helps illuminate some of the challenges faced by BID. In a sense, BID is at the pre-history stage of technology but is competing with current technologies building on a foundation of components and subassemblies. BID will eventually build a similar base, but currently, its components remain few and fragmented.
BID could benefit by focusing on the following:
Novel ways of combining existing technological components (Encycle, Interface Entropy, George’s Wood, Sharklet, PowerCone).
New ways of programming/orchestrating effects at the systems level (Encycle).
Identifying and actualising novel principles from nature (Encycle, Interface Entropy, George’s Wood, Sharklet, PowerCone).
Improving existing technology components that have reached their performance limits (PowerCone).
These initiatives are not independent. The Encycle power controllers are built using standard technological components that interact with each other using distributed control based on principles of emergence. The Interface Entropy carpet tile uses traditional manufacturing but leverages diversity to hide variations in colour and shading, rather than striving for increased colour uniformity. George’s Wood is a composite material in which the fibres are aligned in a specific arrangement. Sharklet was able to leverage FLEXcon’s manufacturing capabilities to develop micro-structured films that inhibited bacterial growth. Church’s PowerCone uses wind turbine blade construction techniques but in a shape that leverages “time-dependant energy transfer” to solve the rotor root suction problem better than the GE eco-ROTR. These examples show the importance of understanding biology and the technology enablers that can help make BID successful.
Arthur describes how technology is becoming increasingly complex, often involving additional control mechanisms that drive costs and can lead to brittleness. What can we learn from nature to deal with complex challenges that do not lend themselves to ‘best’ or even ‘good practice’?7 Designers and engineers need help dealing with complexity without over-simplifying the situation or becoming overwhelmed. A BID example is Ecological Network Analysis8, a platform where organisations can map complex flow networks, identify health metrics, apply heuristics from ecological research, and model proposed interventions. Research by the Bio-inspired Systems Lab suggests ecological systems favour redundancy/adaptability over efficiency based on a wide range of examples demonstrating long-term benefits. As organisations become more aware of their environmental impacts, ENA can open up opportunities for ecological engineering.
Consistent with Arthur’s description of how technology is evolving, those working in BID should embrace the generative economy where we shift from units of production to the ability to translate our stock of deep expertise into ever-new strategic combinations, similar to how nature rearranges the building blocks of life to create functional materials with different properties. We have an opportunity to shift "technology as faceless and will-deadening [to being] organic and life-enhancing" (p184) by helping integrate nature and technology through initiatives such as Dunn’s “laws of biology”, nature-based solutions, ecological engineering, and digital twins (including Ecological Network Analysis) that help us better understand natural systems in real-time and as well as our place in them. As Prof. Julian Vincent points out, "The sooner people stop thinking about biology and start thinking about the nature of the problem, the sooner people will understand biomimetics. It’s a matter of thinking more at the systems level."
Reviewed by Norbert Hoeller and Richard James MacCowan (founder of Biomimicry Innovation Lab)
Originally published in Zygote Quarterly Issue #33.
