Technology Creating Technology
From Santa Fe Institute Events Wiki
| 2007 Public Lectures |
W. Brian Arthur is External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and Visiting Researcher, Intelligent Systems Lab, PARC. Formerly he was Dean and Virginia Morrison Professor of Economics and Population Studies at Stanford. He has been associated with SFI since 1987. He is currently writing a book: The Nature of Technology, to be published by Simon & Schuster.
Discussant: J. Doyne Farmer, Professor, Santa Fe Institute
Technology—the collection of devices and methods available to us as humans—grows over historical time by a self-reinforcing mechanism. Novel
technologies are created out of building blocks that are themselves technologies, and they go on to become potential building blocks for the construction
of further new technologies. In this sense, technology creates itself out of itself. Brian Arthur will explore these ideas by looking at the evolution of
technology both in human history and in an artificial computer world. In both cases, technology builds by bootstrapping itself from few building-block
elements to many, and from simple elements to complicated ones. Arthur will also discuss links with biological evolution.
Wednesday, November 14 at 7:30 pm
James A. Little Theater
New Mexico School for the Deaf
1060 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe