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\title{Ideas    to    Feed    Your    Business:    Re-Engineering    the
  Future\\\vspace{\baselineskip} 
  \normalsize{A response to Bill Joy and the doom-and-gloom technofuturists}
  } 

\author{John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid\footnote{
    John Seely  Brown is  chief scientist at  Xerox and the  director of
    Xerox  PARC.  Paul Duguid  is  a  researcher  at the  University  of
    California at Berkeley. They are coauthors of \textsf{The Social Life of
    Information}, published in March by \textsf{Harvard Business School Press} 
    }
  }

\date{Apr,13 2000\footnote{
    The Standard Magazine, 8.04 (\texttt{http://thestandard.com});
    }
  }

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                If  you  lived through  the  1950s,  you might  remember
                president  Eisenhower, orderly suburban  housing tracts,
                backyard bomb  shelters ---  and dreams of  a nuclear
                power plant in every  home. Plans for industrial nuclear
                generators  had  barely left  the  drawing board  before
                futurists  predicted  that  every  house  would  have  a
                miniature   version.   From   there,   technoenthusiasts
                predicted the end of  power monopolies, the emergence of
                the "electronic cottage," the  death of the city and the
                decline   of    the   corporation.

Pessimists   and
                luddites, of course, envisioned nuclear apocalypse. Each
                side  waited for  nirvana,  or Armageddon,  so it  could
                triumphantly tell the  other, "I told you so."

With
                "Why the Future  Doesn't Need Us" in the  April issue of
                \textsf{Wired},
                Bill   Joy
                invokes  those years  gone  by. No  luddite,  Joy is  an
                awe-inspiring technologist --- as cofounder and chief
                scientist of  \textsf{Sun Microsystems}), he coauthored,
                among other things, the \textsf{Java}
                programming  language. So when  his article  describes a
                technological   juggernaut  thundering   toward  society
                ---  bringing with  it mutant  genes, molecular-level
                nanotechnology  machines   and  superintelligent  robots
                ---   all   need   to   listen.  Like   the   nuclear
                prognosticators,    Joy   can    see    the   juggernaut
                clearly.  What he  can't see  --- which  is precisely
                what  makes   his  vision   so  scary  ---   are  any
                controls.

But it doesn't follow that the juggernaut
                is uncontrollable. To understand why not, readers should
                note the publication in which this article appeared. For
                the  better part of  a decade,  \textsf{Wired} has  been a
                cheerleader for the digital age. Until now, \textsf{Wired}
                has rarely been a venue  to which people have looked for
                a way to put a  brake on innovation. Therefore its shift
                with  Joy's article  from cheering  to warning  marks an
                important   and  surprising   moment   in  the   digital
                zeitgeist.

In  an effort  to locate  some controls,
                let's  go  back  to  the nuclear  age.  Innovation,  the
                argument  went back  in  the 1950s,  would make  nuclear
                power plants smaller and  cheaper. They would enter mass
                production    and    quickly    become   available    to
                all.

Even   today   the   argument   might   appear
                inescapable until  you notice what's  missing: The tight
                focus of  this vision makes it almost  impossible to see
                forces  other than technology  at work.  In the  case of
                nuclear  development,   a  host  of   forces  worked  to
                dismantle the  dream of  a peaceful atom,  including the
                environmental movement,  antinuclear protests, concerned
                scientists,  worried neighbors  of  Chernobyl and  Three
                Mile Island, government regulators and antiproliferation
                treaties. Cumulatively, these  forces slowed the nuclear
                juggernaut to a crawl.

Similar social forces are at
                work  on technologies today.  But because  the digerati,
                like technoenthusiasts  before them, look  to the future
                with technological tunnel  vision, they too have trouble
                bringing  other  forces  into  view.

\section{The Tunnel Ahead}

In Joy's  vision, as in  the nuclear one,
                there's a recognizable  tunnel vision that leaves people
                out of the picture and focuses on technology in splendid
                isolation. This vision  leads not only to doom-and-gloom
                scenarios,  but also  to  tunnel design:  the design  of
                "simple"  technologies that  are  actually difficult  to
                use.

To escape both trite scenarios and bad design,
                we have  to widen our  horizons and bring into  view not
                only    technological   systems,    but    also   social
                systems. Good designs look beyond the dazzling potential
                of the technology to social factors, such as the limited
                patience  of most  users.

Paying  attention to  the
                latter has, for  example, allowed the \textsf{PalmPilot}
                and \textsf{Nintendo}
                Game  Boy  to sweep  aside  more  complex rivals.  Their
                elegant  simplicity has  made them  readily  usable. And
                their usability has in  turn created an important social
                support  system. The  devices  are so  widely used  that
                anyone having  trouble with a  Pilot or Game  Boy rarely
                has  to look  far  for advice  from  a more  experienced
                user.

As this small example suggests, technological
                and social systems shape each other. The same is true on
                a larger  scale. Technologies ---  such as gunpowder,
                the printing press, the  railroad, the telegraph and the
                Internet --- can shape society in profound ways. But,
                on the other hand, social  systems --- in the form of
                governments,    the   courts,   formal    and   informal
                organizations, social  movements, professional networks,
                local  communities,  market  institutions and  so  forth
                ---  shape, moderate  and redirect  the raw  power of
                technologies.

Given  the crisp edges  of technology
                and the  fuzzy outlines  of society, it  certainly isn't
                easy to use these  two worldviews simultaneously. But if
                you want to see where  we are going, or design the means
                to  get   there,  you  need   to  grasp  both.

This
                perspective allows a more sanguine look at Joy's central
                concerns:   genetic   engineering,  nanotechnology   and
                robotics.    Undoubtedly,    each    deserves    serious
                thought. But each should be viewed in the context of the
                social    system    in    which   it    is    inevitably
                embedded.

Genetic engineering presents the clearest
                example. Barely a year  ago, the technology seemed to be
                an  unstoppable force.  Major chemical  and agricultural
                interests were  barreling down  an open highway.  In the
                past year, however, road conditions changed dramatically
                for              the              worse:              
                faced  Third  World  protests  against its  patents;  
                suspended  research on sterile  seeds; and  champions of
                genetically   modified   foods,    who   once   saw   an
                unproblematic  and lucrative  future,  are scurrying  to
                counter consumer boycotts of their products.

Almost
                certainly, those  who support genetic  modification will
                have  to look  beyond  the technology  if  they want  to
                advance it. They need to address society directly ---
                not  just by putting  labels on  modified foods,  but by
                educating  people about  the costs  and the  benefits of
                these new  agricultural products. Having  ignored social
                concerns, however, proponents  have made the people they
                need    to    educate    profoundly    suspicious    and
                hostile.

Nanotechnology  offers a  rather different
                example of  how the future can frighten  us. Because the
                technology  involves engineering  at a  molecular level,
                both the  promise and the threat  seem immeasurable. But
                they are immeasurable for  a good reason: The technology
                is still almost wholly on the drawing board.

Two of
                nanotechnology's main proponents,  Ralph Merkle and Eric
                Drexler,     worked     with     us    at     the     
                Palo Alto  Research Center in Palo Alto,  Calif. The two
                built powerful  nano-CAD tools and  then ran simulations
                of   the   resulting   molecular-level  designs.   These
                experiments  showed definitively  that nano  devices are
                theoretically feasible. No one,  however, has laid out a
                route from lab-based  simulation to practical systems in
                any  detail.

In   the  absence  of   a  plan,  it's
                important to ask the right questions: Can nanotechnology
                fulfill its  great potential in tasks  ranging from data
                storage to pollution  control, all without spiraling out
                of control? If the  lesson of genetic engineering is any
                guide, planners would do well to consult and educate the
                public  early on,  even though  useful nano  systems are
                probably   decades  away.

Worries   about  robotics
                appear premature, as  well. Internet "bots" that search,
                communicate  and negotiate for  their human  masters may
                appear to  behave like Homo  sapiens, but in  fact, bots
                are often  quite inept at functions that  humans do well
                ---  functions that  call  for judgment,  discretion,
                initiative  or tacit understanding.  They are  good (and
                useful) for  those tasks that humans do  poorly. So they
                are  better  thought of  as  complementary systems,  not
                rivals to  humanity. Although bots  will undoubtedly get
                better  at  what  they  do, such  development  will  not
                necessarily   make   them   more  human.

Are   more
                conventional  clanking  robots  --- the  villains  of
                science fiction  --- any great threat  to society? We
                doubt   it.   Xerox   PARC   research   on   self-aware,
                reconfigurable "polybots"  has pushed the  boundaries of
                what  robots  can  do,  pointing the  way  to  "morphing
                robots"   that    are   able   to    move   and   change
                shape.

Nonetheless,  for   all  their  cutting-edge
                agility, these  robots are a  long way from  making good
                dance  partners.  The  chattiness of  \textsf{Star  Wars'}
                C-3PO     still    lies    well     beyond    real-world
                machines. Indeed, what talk robots or computers achieve,
                though it  may appear  similar, is quite  different from
                human  talk.  Talking  machines travel  routes  designed
                specifically  to avoid  the full  complexities  of human
                language.

Robots  may  seem  intelligent, but  such
                intelligence is  profoundly hampered by  their inability
                to  learn  in any  significant  way.  (This failing  has
                apparently  led   Toyota,  after  heavy   investment  in
                robotics,  to consider replacing  robots with  humans on
                many  production lines.)  And  without learning,  simple
                common sense will  lie beyond robots for a  long time to
                come.

Indeed,  despite years of  startling advances
                and  innumerable successes  like  the chess-playing  Big
                Blue, computer science is still  about as far as it ever
                was from building a machine with the learning abilities,
                linguistic competence, common  sense or social skills of
                a   5-year-old   child.

As   with  Internet   bots,
                real-world  robots  will  no doubt  become  increasingly
                useful. But they  will probably also become increasingly
                frustrating to use as a result of tunnel design. In that
                regard, they may indeed  seem antisocial, but not in the
                way of \textsf{Terminator}-like  fantasies of robot armies
                that lay waste  to human society.

Indeed, the thing
                that  handicaps robots most  is their  lack of  a social
                existence. For it is our social existence as humans that
                shapes  how we  speak, learn,  think and  develop common
                sense.  All forms  of artificial  life (whether  bugs or
                bots) will remain primarily a metaphor for --- rather
                than  a threat to  --- society,  at least  until they
                manage to enter a debate, sing in a choir, take a class,
                survive a  committee meeting, join a union,  pass a law,
                engineer   a   cartel   or   summon   a   constitutional
                convention.

These critical  social mechanisms allow
                society  to shape  its  future. It  is through  planned,
                collective  action   that  society  forestalls  expected
                consequences  (such as Y2K)  and responds  to unexpected
                events (such as epidemics).

\section{The Failure of "6-D"   Vision}

Why  does  the   threat  of  a  cunning,
                replicating  robot  society   look  so  close  from  one
                perspective, yet so distant from another? The difference
                lies  in  the well-known  tendency  of futurologists  to
                count "1, 2,  3 ... a million." That  is, once the first
                step on a  path is taken, it's very  easy to assume that
                all  subsequent steps  are trivial.

Several  of the
                steps Joy asks  us to take --- the  leap from genetic
                engineering  to a  "white plague";  from  simulations to
                out-of-control nanotechnology; from replicating peptides
                to  a "robot  species" ---  are extremely  large. And
                they are certainly not  steps that will be taken without
                diversions,  regulations  or  controls.

One of  the
                lessons of Joy's article, then,  is that the path to the
                future   can  look   simple  (and   sometimes  downright
                terrifying) if you look at  it through what we call "6-D
                lenses." We  coined this phrase  having so often  in our
                research hit  up against upon such "de-"  or "di-" words
                as demassification, decentralization, disintermediation,
                despacialization, disaggregation  and demarketization in
                the  canon of  futurology.

If you  take any  one of
                these  words in  isolation,  it's easy  to follow  their
                relentless  logic  to  its evident  conclusion.  Because
                firms  are getting  smaller, for  example, it's  easy to
                assume  that  companies  and  other  intermediaries  are
                simply   disintegrating   into   markets.  And   because
                communication is growing cheaper and more powerful, it's
                easy  to believe  in the  "death  of distance."

But
                things rarely work in  such linear fashion. Other forces
                are  often at  work, such  as those  driving  firms into
                larger and  larger mergers to take  advantage of social,
                rather  than merely technological,  networks. Similarly,
                even   though  communications   technology   has  killed
                distance,  people  curiously can't  stay  away from  the
                social  hotbed   of  modern  communications  technology,
                Silicon Valley.

Importantly, these d-words indicate
                that   the  old  ties   that  once   bound  communities,
                organizations and institutions are being picked apart by
                technologies. A  simple, linear reading,  then, suggests
                that  these communities, organizations  and institutions
                will  now simply  fall  apart. A  more complex  reading,
                taking into account the  multiple forces at work, offers
                another   picture.

While  many   powerful  national
                corporations   have  grown   insignificant,   some  have
                transformed    into    more    powerful    transnational
                firms.  While  some forms  of  community  may be  dying,
                others,    bolstered   by   technology,    are   growing
                stronger.

Technology  and  society  are  constantly
                forming  and  reforming  new dynamic  equilibriums  with
                far-reaching implications.  The challenge for futurology
                (and for all  of us) is to see beyond  the hype and past
                the oversimplifications to the  full import of these new
                sociotechnical  formations.

Two hundred  years ago,
                Thomas   Malthus,  assuming   that  human   society  and
                agricultural  technology  developed  on separate  paths,
                predicted that society was growing so fast that it would
                starve  itself   to  death,  the   so-called  Malthusian
                trap.

A hundred  years later, H.G.  Wells similarly
                assumed  that  society  and technology  were  developing
                independently.  Like many  people today,  Wells  saw the
                advance  of  technology  outstripping the  evolution  of
                society,  leading  him   to  predict  that  technology's
                relentless    juggernaut    would   unfeelingly    crush
                society.  Like  Joy,   both  Malthus  and  Wells  issued
                important warnings,  alerting society to  the dangers it
                faced. But  by their  actions, Malthus and  Wells helped
                prevent the very future  they were so certain would come
                about.

These   self-\textit{un}fulfilling  prophecies
                failed to see that, once warned, society could galvanize
                itself into action. Of course, this social action in the
                face of threats showed  that Malthus and Wells were most
                at  fault  in   their  initial  assumption.  Social  and
                technological systems do  not develop independently; the
                two evolve  together in complex  feedback loops, wherein
                each  drives, restrains  and accelerates  change  in the
                other. Malthus and Wells  --- and now Joy --- are,
                indeed, critical parts of these complex loops. Each knew
                when and how to sound the alarm. But each thought little
                about how to respond to that alarm.

Once the social
                system is factored back into the equation like this, the
                road  ahead becomes  harder to  navigate.  Ultimately we
                should be grateful to Joy for saying, at the least, that
                there could be trouble ahead  when so many of his fellow
                digerati will only tell us complacently that the road is
                clear.
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