“The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.” –James Cash Penney
MEDIA
Why Progress Matters - Jason Crawford and Don Watkins
What causes progress—and why should we care? Jason Crawford and Don Watkins discuss the crucial lessons to be learned from the history of human progress—and why taking that history for granted threatens our future prosperity.
Jason Crawford is a former software engineering manager and tech startup founder. He currently runs the website "Roots of Progress," which explores the history of technology and industry, and the philosophy of human progress.
Lost opportunities for progress – Silicon Valley Examined 6
On the Silicon Valley Explored podcast, Robert Hendershott and Don Watkins discuss how the failure to hold fast to Ingenuist principles has slowed down progress in space exploration, nuclear power, education, healthcare, and more.
INSIGHT
Patents and progress
Robert Hendershott and Don Watkins
Patents reward and thereby encourage innovators—but they limit the ability of other producers to use and build on an innovation. This raises an important question for Ingenuism. Since the rate of progress depends on the rapidity with which knowledge is shared, do patent protections hold progress back—or propel it forward?
It may seem obvious that patent protections slow innovation during the patent exclusivity period, but maybe not: patents limit the use of knowledge, not the observation of knowledge. Patented technologies and the insights behind them are in that sense shared even while the inventor holds exclusive commercial rights. It’s possible that the patent system increases knowledge connection despite its restrictions, at least relative to plausible alternatives.
For example, patents on bi- and tri-cone drill bits gave Hughes Tool a virtual monopoly on oil drilling equipment during much of the first half of the 20th Century. Once the patent on the tri-cone expired in 1951, however, competitors were able to immediately offer innovative alternatives—these competitors did not wait until 1951 to begin work! Within thirty years Hughes Tool’s drill bit market share had fallen from 100% to 40% and competitors were offering the most advanced models. Drill bit patents made Howard Hughes rich. But they did not stop innovation in the industry.
What would happen absent patent protection? Obviously, there would be less incentive to invest the time and money required to bring new inventions to the market. That alone could hamper knowledge creation. But we should also recognize that the alternative to patent protection likely isn’t the rapid sharing of knowledge, but the move from patents to trade secrets—private knowledge that is hidden.
More private knowledge could be extremely costly. In the absence of patent protection, perhaps Hughes Tool would have sold drilling services rather than drill bits, and nobody else would have had a clue how they operated. Instead, Hughes got its temporary monopoly, but competitors were able to observe and build on the original innovations.
Or to take more contemporary examples, the first patent on the quadcopter technology that underpins modern drones was granted in 1962. The first patent on stereolithography technology that underpins many 3-D printing technologies was granted in 1986. These ideas were well ahead of their time—would they have been widely shared in the absence of a patent system? And, if not, would these technologies be as advanced today?
To the extent that patent availability replaces knowledge hoarding, it likely increases connection and knowledge sharing.
Does that mean no conceivable patent system could hold back innovation? Of course not. And if we looked out and saw industries stagnating as a handful of patent holders sat back and got rich, that would raise real questions about whether the system was protecting the rights of innovators or discouraging innovation.
As it stands now, the evidence seems strong that U.S. patent laws are on the whole encouraging the creation and sharing of knowledge. And by increasing connection, they are accelerating rather than holding back progress.
QUICK TAKES
Disney’s Tomorrowland is going to need one heck of a revamp
Tyler Cowen speculates about how weird our future is going to be. Considering developments in fields like genetic engineering, longevity research, and AI he concludes:
…these changes are far more radical than those that occurred between 1921 and today. Compared to 1921, we are much wealthier and more secure—but a lot of basic structures of the world remain broadly the same. I don’t think that much of what we can do now would strike our 1921 predecessors as magical, though the speed and power of our computers might surprise them. Nor would visitors from 1921 think of us as somehow not human.
Of course none of these developments are inevitable. Another very weird future is entirely possible: that we humans use our creative energies for destruction, causing civilization to take some major and enduring steps backwards.
Either way, the future is not just more and nicer suburbs, better pay and new forms of social media. All those are likely to happen, but they won’t be the biggest changes. When it comes to the future of the human race, we—and our children, for those of us who have any—may turn out to be especially important generations. I very much hope we are up to this moment.
He raises a good point, but with more pessimism than I think is warranted. On the whole, our track record of solving problems is pretty good. And worst case, Tyler thinks there’s a non-zero chance we’ll be visited by aliens, which I’ve been made to understand will cause humanity to come together as one to defeat our alien overlords. So, we’ve got that going for us.
And we complain about going to the DMV
I’ve noted before that antitrust laws are so vague and convoluted that they can paralyze decision making and cause businesses to sacrifice innovation to risk-aversion. But even I didn’t take seriously how insanely bad things are in the age of globalization and the Internet.
Today companies like Facebook don’t simply have to anticipate what U.S. regulators will look at askance—they have to anticipate what almost any government will look at askance.
For example, Facebook recently planned to take over a small U.S.-based startup, Kustomer. According to the Wall Street Journal:
Facebook’s takeover of Kustomer didn’t cross the [U.S. Federal Trade Commissions] traditional threshold for [antitrust] review based on revenue. . . .
The deal did trigger a review in Austria, which in spring requested an EU review along with other member countries.
So European antitrust regulators are going to “review” a deal between two U.S. companies. Okay, fine. Maybe Facebook should have anticipated that. Only it’s not clear they could have.
With a new interpretation of an old law, European Union competition regulators have given themselves sweeping authority to review merger cases that previously would have escaped their notice, sparking outcry from companies and their lawyers that the change will cause confusion in deal-making. . . .
Some antitrust lawyers say the new policy, which required no regulatory or public review, introduces uncertainty and lacks legal rigor. Even those less overtly critical say it remains unclear how the commission will use its new powers.
Here's my question: just how innovative do you think companies like Facebook will be when these are the waters they have to navigate?
Highway to human flourishing
Breakthrough innovations get all the glory. And who could object? But James Pethokoukis points out that we can see major benefits to human flourishing if we encouraged more widespread use of innovations that already exist.
In all the enthusiasm about new tech, we shouldn’t forget about old tech that could be helpful if more widespread. Another example is partially-automated safety features such as blind-spot monitoring, lane departure warning, and forward-collision warning. While they don’t add up to fully autonomous driving technology, they actually exist and work well. They’re just not used enough. As Costa Samaras, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, recently tweeted about research he coauthored: “We found that if every car had the partially-automated safety features widely available on new cars (ADAS), & it worked 100% of the time, thousands of car crash deaths could be avoided, and potentially hundreds of billions in social costs too, every year.”
James closes by noting that “While some wonder if all the low-hanging fruit of innovation has been picked, let’s remember some of that fruit has fallen to the ground and just needs to be picked up.” But that poses an interesting riddle: why isn’t this happening?
The wonderful thing about tiggers is tiggers invent wonderful things
File this away under things I didn’t know: according to Leaps Magazine, the main person responsible for inventing the artificial heart was Paul Winchell, better known as the voice of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.
One day while Winchell was observing at the hospital, he witnessed a patient die on the operating table after undergoing open-heart surgery. He was suddenly struck with an idea: If there was some way doctors could keep blood pumping temporarily throughout the body during surgery, patients who underwent risky operations like open-heart surgery might have a better chance of survival. Winchell rushed to Heimlich with the idea—and Heimlich [that’s Dr. Henry Heimlich, of the Heimlich maneuver fame] agreed to advise Winchell and look over any design drafts he came up with. So Winchell went to work.
We often say that good ideas can come from anywhere. But, honestly, who thought that really meant anywhere?
RECOMMENDATIONS
Podcast episode: For the Billions of Creatives Out There with Marc Andreessen, Sonal Chokshi, and Brian Koppelman
What lessons can we learn about innovation from artists? This fascinating discussion with screenwriter and showrunner Brian Koppelman (Rounders, Billions) covers a lot of interesting territory—including the benefits and challenges of creative collaboration.
One challenge I don’t often hear discussed is the difficulty of navigating power dynamics when pursuing a collaborative goal. According to Koppelman, people often make one of two mistakes: they are intimidated into mindlessly obeying suggestions from influential people—or they assert their independence by becoming deaf to input and feedback. Learning how to genuinely listen to feedback while being willing to push back against bad ideas, Koppelman argues, is crucial to navigating these difficult waters.
There’s much more at the link.
Until next time,
Don Watkins
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