techno-optimism and the flop
Since 2001, the MIT Technology Review hears experts from various fields and publishes a special issue with 10 breakthrough technologies. The criteria for how these experts decide whether a technology will be a breakthrough is left open to some interpretation, except for one consistent question: does this technology have the potential to “change our lives“?
This exercise is admirable. Predicting the future of technology is a notoriously difficult task. Predicting how technology will shape the future is even more challenging. While the Review has released this yearly list for 24 years, the recent acceleration of highly impactful technologies, like AI, has made it more relevant than ever to think rationally and comprehensively about the future. Predictions not only make a claim about the future; they also describe a vision that impacts how we behave, innovate, and invest within uncertainty.
In 2019, Bill Gates offered his thoughts on the Review’s breakthrough technologies. Holding up the plow as a quintessential breakthrough technology, he asked the reader and the Review to examine what it means for a technology to change our lives. Gates suggests that a breakthrough technology aims to either impact the quality of our lives or the length of our lives. This is a reasonable categorization that brings up the question: which of the past 240 technologies have significantly impacted the quality of life or the length of life, whether for humans or other species?
In the fast-paced realm of technological development, it was expected that some of these deemed breakthroughs would flop. A couple of years after the Gates editorial, the Review reassessed their first list of breakthrough technologies. This exercise was both useful and illuminating — acknowledging some failures and examining the criteria that went into picking those ten technologies. However, the editorial stops short of taking away lessons for future breakthrough technology lists.
Putting forward which upcoming technologies might change our lives is a challenging and exciting exercise; but it would be equally relevant to the readers if the Review would take on the less glamorous task of assessing which of these technologies flopped. The goal is not only to understand why some technologies have failed to meet their potential, but more to understand how the Review and its panel of experts came to make those mistaken predictions. This exercise of self-criticism would bring accountability back to the Review, potentially shedding light on various stakeholders involved in building and promoting certain technological futures. As important as it is to make predictions, it is equally important to admit and understand when these predictions fall flat.
And there have been many flops. Do we have phones with 3D interfaces yet ( Mobile 3D, 2010)? When are we going to see the significant reduction in mortality promised by the instant healing of open wounds at accident sites and in surgeries ( Nano Healing, 2007)? Any sort of success that self-driving cars have achieved have not been because cars have gotten any better at communicating with each other ( Car-to-Car Communication, 2015).
Understanding these flops might reveal systematic trends and biases within the Review itself. Is there a consistent overestimation of the scalability of drugs that have gone through successful initial trials? Is the Review prone to being influenced by media hype cycles? Is there a bias towards picking technologies that will impact the demographics of readers of the Review more than they will the rest of the global population?
Taking a closer look at the progression of these breakthrough technologies reveals that there is not always a clear line between being a successful breakthrough and a true flop. There are many technologies that may not have been significantly successful alone, but have since been reinterpreted or used as a foundation for other breakthrough technologies ( Natural Language Processing, 2001). There are also many that may not have reached their potential as expected, but may be lying dormant and still have an opportunity for enormous impact in the future ( Brain Machine Interfaces, 2001). Some technologies are indeed very impactful, but only for a relatively short lifespan ( Facebook’s Timeline, 2012). All these types of nuance are important to illuminate.
This self-correction is vital to a healthy editorial process. With a proper analysis of this kind, we may be able to reassess recently picked potential breakthrough technologies to determine if they really are primed to be a breakthrough, or if perhaps the possibility of their flop has been underestimated.
The Review may consider pairing each potential breakthrough technology with a functional goal that they believe the technology will significantly impact. All breakthrough technologies aim to change our lives, but they do so in service of a certain goal or function that we as a society find valuable. This function may be making our work life easier ( Slack, 2016), reducing disease in impoverished regions of the world ( Malaria Vaccine, 2022), or improving our social cohesiveness ( Social TV, 2010). Gates categorized these into quality and quantity of life, but the Review need not subscribe to a universal categorization to acknowledge that technologies serve a greater function.
All breakthrough technology predictions are a claim that a certain form (technology) will impact a certain function that we believe is valuable. This, in turn, means that there may be multiple forms that could impact a given function. Understanding the tradeoffs between different technologies that may do work in service of an important functional goal may help eliminate bias towards certain technologies.
This also would reveal a clear failure mode for a potential breakthrough technology: there may be a different technology that overtakes the impact on that functional goal. A good example of this is Project Loon, a technology selected by the Review in 2015 because of its promise to bring internet access to formerly unreachable areas around the world. While this specific project did not become a breakthrough and was shut down by Google in 2021, the overall functional goal of making the internet more accessible has been carried forward by other companies, most notably Starlink. The form that was used to achieve that functional goal was different from what the Review predicted in 2015, but the functional goal has been important and had a significant impact.
Framing the breakthrough technologies alongside functional goals would allow the Review to consider the opportunity cost of developing a technology more concretely. We have, and should, spend billions attempting to discover and distribute an effective cure for malaria — a critically important functional goal. But we must consider that alongside the cost of distributing mosquito nets, and understand that there are lives lost today for the hope of more lives saved in the future. While the Review focuses on cutting-edge technologies, it is important to acknowledge and highlight when there are other ways to effectively impact a functional goal.
Of course, not all functional goals are equally valuable. It would likely be a useful exercise to consider whether technologies that make our first-world work lives easier should be considered breakthroughs alongside technologies that could save millions of lives. Acknowledging this may lead to a more resilient breakthrough technology selection, helping us see into the future of what will truly change our lives.