Complex technology: Technology policy in the 21st century: how Will we adapt to complexity?

摘要

Technology is becoming ever more complex and this has important implications for national technology policies. A major US policy chal- lenge is how to formulate and implement poli- cies effectively when innovation cannot be understood. Using a review of the complexity- science and evolutionary-economics literature, and six case studies of evolving complex technologies, this paper concludes that there are five common patterns which policy must recognize: seamlessness, diversity continuous change, lack of understanding, and the predict- ability of incremental innovation steps.