Professor Stephen Weeks:Technology by means of Artificial Selection

It has long been understood that human technology evolves in a manner consistent with that seen in biological evolution. Human-made products (i.e., “artifacts”) have even been portrayed using phylogenetic trees (e.g., cornets) to display their evolutionary changes over time. Numerous authors have devised hypotheses for how artifacts evolve, many using biological analogies (e.g., “replicators” and “interactors”) to explain evolutionary change in the technological realm. Most such hypotheses concentrate on companies that produce artifacts but such hypotheses do not well explain how information driving artifact evolution is passed down over time (i.e., inheritance). In this webinar, Professor Weeks presentsa new hypothesis that clearly defines technological analogs of “phenotype” and “genotype” driving artifact evolution: the artifact itself is the phenotype and the instruction set used to produce the artifact is the genotype. Consumers of the artifacts determine “winners” and “losers” through human (i.e., “artificial”) selection and supply the companies funds that allow them to flourish (or not) over time. Companies, through R&D and other mechanisms, supply the needed artifact variation that can then be selected upon. By moving the focus from the “company” or “firm” or “routine” to the artifacts themselves, one can more easily define inheritance of artifact evolution thereby allowing detailed testing of these ideas.