The growing gap between physical and social technologies
August 1, 2018 by Jenna Marshall, Santa Fe Institute
The word "technology," from the Greek techne, usually evokes physical technologies like artificial intelligence, swarm robots, and the like. But there's an older meaning. By Jacob Bigelow's 1829 definition, technology can describe a process that benefits society. In that sense, social institutions, like governments and healthcare systems, can be seen, and studied, as technologies.
This summer at the Santa Fe Institute, a small cadre of scientists and entrepreneurs will convene a two-week long working group to address "the growing gap between our physical and social technologies." By bringing together an eclectic forum of engineers, writers, scientists, historians, lawyers, futurists, economists, philosophers, founders, philanthropists, and policymakers, the organizers aim to confront the apparent lag between our collective social technologies (e.g., political, economic, and cultural systems) and the nascent realities being synthesized by our physical technologies.
Read more at:
https://phys.org/news/2018-08-gap-physical-social-technologies.html#jCp
