Brian Arthur on Technology Creating Technology

Wednesday, November 14, 2007
7:30 PM at the James A Little Theater

W. Brian Arthur SFI External Professor and Visiting Researcher, Intelligent Research Labs, PARC.

with Discussant J. Doyne Farmer, SFI Professor


Technology Creating Technology

Technology — the collection of devices and methods available to us as humans — grows over historical time by a self-reinforcing mechanism. Novel technologies are created out of building blocks that are themselves technologies, and they go on to become potential building blocks for the construction of further new technologies. I n this sense, technology creates itself out of itself. Arthur will explore these ideas by looking at the evolution of technology both in human history and in an artificial computer world. In both cases, technology builds by bootstrapping itself from few building-block elements to many, and from simple elements to complicated ones. Arthur will also discuss links with biological evolution.