At our first Emerging Technology Governance Brainstorm on December 13th, the natural starting point for all of us was “What is an emerging technology anyway?”
Fortunately, at the new World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies, a draft definition had been drafted at their meeting in November. We didn’t get chance to discuss it in depth, but would interested in knowing stakeholder views on the definition and a proposed listing of technologies which may be covered by the term.
Please feel free to leave comments on your views below. These will be used for a paper/article to be drafted by MATTER early next year and will contribute to our Emerging Technology Governance Initiative. Here is their definition:
What are emerging technologies?
- They are technologies which arise from new knowledge, or the innovative application of existing knowledge;
- leading to the rapid development of new capabilities;
- are projected to have significant systemic and long-lasting economic, social and political impacts;
- create new opportunities for and challenges to addressing global issues;
- have the potential to disrupt or create entire industries.
List of Emerging Technologies
We would also like to compile an up to date list of those technologies which are considered ‘Emerging’ and make as clear as possible a distinction as to what is in and what is out and why!
The areas below were mentioned in passing at the meeting, but no listing was devised. Please feel free to add or comment on those included here, some may have emerged in some ways but not in others, while others may just be incremental though disruptive improvements on old technologies – do they deserve a place? I have also added a list of those which, by virtue of not being included on this first list, are considered to have ‘emerged’. They may have similar challenges to those still emerging.
Do you agree with this rather arbitrary distinction? Is the distinction really viable? Please feel free to suggest synonymous terms also.
Emerging technologies:
- nanotechnologies
- synthetic biology
- geoengingeering
- swarm robotics
- converging technologies (nano/bio/info/cogno?)
- cloud computing
- smart grids
Emerged but still ‘new’ technologies
- biotechnologies/genetic modification
- robotics
- genomics
- food irradiation
Please leave your comments below. I appreciate this is not an idea Forum site for discussion, but it is all we can afford at the moment!
Happy holidays!
Thanks for opening this discussion Hilary – especially as it is so difficult to pin down what anyone means when they use the term “emerging technologies”.
In the WEF definition – which is still a work in progress – we started by focusing on characteristics of emerging technologies, rather than technology-labels. This was in part because the technologies themselves are so slippery, and prone to evolving into something else as soon as you think you have them contained. The characteristics we highlighted were innovation and invention, rapid change, significant impact, new capabilities to do stuff, and potential for disruption (my synthesis, not that of my colleagues!).
In trying to pin down specific emerging technologies, I constantly wrestle with the difference between convenient labels – which often end up constraining conversations – and technology innovation – which tends to resist being pidgeon-holed. In a forthcoming WEF report (which might one day see the light of day) we try and look at things in terms of technology platforms, technology innovations, and solutions to pressing issues (which might also include economic growth). The platforms are the big technology ideas – nanotechnology, synthetic biology etc – which represent loose collections of areas of advancement. The technology innovations themselves arise both from within these platforms, and at the intersections between them, and represent the products and processes that hit the street – the stuff that people can make practical use of, but also need to understand how to use safely and effectively. These “products” are almost always a combination of multiple technologies.
Within this framework, where are the emerging technologies? I’m not so sure. I think it is probably a combination of the technology platforms – which encompass your emerging technologies above – and the ways in which they come together to spawn technology innovation – which would include a multitude of converging technologies.
When you then start to think about emerging or emerged, things get even more complex – especially as technology is evolutionary in the main, and the issues thrown up by technology don’t necessarily follow the same timeline as the technologies themselves (if we cannot govern an “emerged” technology well, is it fully emerged, or still emerging?)
The list of technology platforms we came up with for the WEF report by the way included the following, but it wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination inclusive:
Nanotechnology
Geoengineering
Cognitive Technology
Synthetic Biology
Robotics (still emerging I think)
Computational Chemistry
Information Technology
Biotechnology (again, still emerging)
Artificial Intelligence
Bio-interfaces
Web 2.0 (maybe that should be 3.0)
Data interfaces
Swarm robotics wasn’t on the list, but should have been either here or in the Tech Innovations list I think. We had smart grids in the tech innovation list.
From Professor Peter Dobson, academic director Begbroke Science Park, University of Oxford.
The starting point for this should be to clearly define what we mean by “technology” and it is the appliance of science to change commerce, industry or society. Therefore of your lists, I would argue that synthetic biology is still in the realms of science and is some way from being truly capable of making stuff or changing society. However it could be “emerging”! I think that some “timeline” is needed and hence the reference to the fact that robotics is still emerging…yes it is, but it is a lot more “emerged” than most of the others on the list! Similarly some of these such as Information Technology will expand and further evolve. In the light of this, I believe that we should put “time” into the discussion. I think that others such as food irradiation is really only a “subset” of food technology; swarm robotics is also a subset of the larger “robotics” field. I am curious to know why some topics such as “image analysis”, regenerative medicine, personalized healthcare have not been mentioned. Many of these are examples of “converged themes) and personally I would not put “convergent technology” on your list, but rather try to identify what is “converging”.
Great topic for discussion Hilary – and one that is long overdue and often neglected.
I think it is also important to first think about what we mean by ‘technology’ and then what might be different about a class of these labelled as ‘emerging’…
For me though, the ‘emerging’ label is somehow related to the idea that while the particular class of technologies is still being developed, still being researched for their potential social and environmental impacts etc, there exists extensive social commentary on, and political investment in, the promise of its imagined future – The idea that the technology’s imagined future has a powerful public presence that is driving its development (facilitating its emergence), while the technology itself is yet to fulfill its claimed potential. In this sense, ‘new’ technologies may be a term for those that have not yet fulfilled all their promises, but which do have a commercial presence/reality in the world that has gone someway towards delivering at least a part of their imagined potential – perhaps biotechnology may be an example here. Of course the transition between these phases remains rather fluid…
Like most people, I use my term of choice (‘new and emerging (life) technosciences’) typically without a clear articulation of its specific meaning and finer points of distinction, so I very much welcome this discussion and the reflection it encourages!
Just to clarify, our definition of ‘emerging’ means that the technologies also have some degree of acceleration that sets them apart from other technologies. This could be as a result of massive funding programs as we saw with nanotechnologies, a sudden unleashing of a range of applications as we are seeing with regenerative medicine, or simply an increased public awareness leading to an increased level of debate (e.g. geoengineering).
As Andrew mentioned, it’s very much a work in progress and I’m sure that every committee charged with writing a report or strategy will spend several man years on their own definition and disregard ours.
Our motivation for even attempting a definition was to distinguish areas we considered as emerging technologies such as synthetic biology and geoengineering from emerging ‘internet’ technologies such as Facebook and the rest of Web2.x in order to prevent confusion.
At least we now have a starting point for anyone to embellish or disagree with, which is, after all, the way that science and technology develops best.
Hilary and MATTER;
Thank you for providing somewhere for the conversation to continue. With regard to a better on line environment I would suggest HYVE Ideanet software as a trial would be quick to set up and the costs are fairly low.
With regard to the list I think it is sensible to have the two classifications emerging and new/not yet accepted as they both present opportunities and challenges.
I think that the inclusion of soft technologies e.g. cloud computing may afford the group some ‘safe’ knowledge sharing which may help us gain credibility without having to deal with ‘massive concerns’ all the time.
See you at the january meeting.
Simon
can u plz tell me wts the difference between emerging technology and innovation
thnkz soo much
Hmmm, cleverer people than me more equipped to answer this, but emerging tech is a strand of innovation, in which cutting edge science is applied to develop new, often dramatically different products, techniques, applications, often which have the potential to be disruptive to the status quo. Innovation can be in lots of things, eg innovation in advertising, children’s toys, washing powders, computer software, but may not use a new high tech use of science.
Good question though, I will try and ask some smart people to answer!