Krakauer, David
I would like to suggest that the most general definition of a technology is the combination of a set of rules with a system of rigid constraints whose degrees of freedom perform useful work when governed by these rules. Hence procedures with hammers, scissors, and engines are all technologies. And by generalizing the idea of work to computational work, we include the use of algorithms with the abacus, calculators, and computers. By generalizing rigidity to imply reliable inference and causality, then ideas, to include geometry and software, are candidate technologies. For simple classical phenomena, microscopes and telescopes have been our "go to" technologies. I shall focus on the world of complex adaptive phenomena, where ideas and ideas in software, are our most compelling candidate technologies. And the latest evolution of technology amplifies the fundamental dilemma of technology -- the fraught relationship between work-prediction and simplicity-understanding.