21St CENTURY TECHNOLOGIES

21 st Century Technologies Promises and Perils of a Dynamic Future ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION ORGANISATION 21st CENTURY TECHNOLOGIES PROMISES AND PERILS OF A DYNAMIC FUTURE ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT Pursuant to Article 1 of the Convention signed in Paris on 14th December 1960, and which came into force on 30th September 1961, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shall promote policies designed: ± to achieve the highest sustainable economic growth and employment and a rising standard of living in Member countries, while maintaining ®nancial stability, and thus to contribute to the development of the world economy; ± to contribute to sound economic expansion in Member as well as non-member countries in the process of economic development; and ± to contribute to the expansion of world trade on a multilateral, non-discriminatory basis in accordance with international obligations. The original Member countries of the OECD are Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The following countries became Members subsequently through accession at the dates indicated hereafter: Japan (28th April 1964), Finland (28th January 1969), Australia (7th June 1971), New Zealand (29th May 1973), Mexico (18th May 1994), the Czech Republic (21st December 1995), Hungary (7th May 1996), Poland (22nd November 1996) and Korea (12th December 1996). The Commission of the European Communities takes part in the work of the OECD (Article 13 of the OECD Convention). PubliÂe en franËcais sous le titre : LES TECHNOLOGIES DU XXIe SIECLEÁ : PROMESSES ET PERILSÂ D'UN FUTUR DYNAMIQUE OECD 1998 Permission to reproduce a portion of this work for non-commercial purposes or classroom use should be obtained through the Centre franËcais d'exploitation du droit de copie (CFC), 20, rue des Grands-Augustins, 75006 Paris, France, Tel. (33-1) 44 07 47 70, Fax (33-1) 46 34 67 19, for every country except the United States. In the United States permission should be obtained through the Copyright Clearance Center, Customer Service, (508)750-8400, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 USA, or CCC Online: http://www.copyright.com/. All other applications for permission to reproduce or translate all or part of this book should be made to OECD Publications, 2, rue AndrÂe-Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16, France. FOREWORD As part of the preparations for EXPO 2000 ± the World Exposition in Hannover, Germany ± the OECD Forum for the Future is organising a series of four conferences to take place beforehand around the theme of ``People, Nature and Technology: Sustainable Societies in the 21st Century''. The series will consider four key areas of human activity: technology, economy, society and government. The conferences will explore possible evolutions of key variables and analyse different development paths in order to expose some of the main policy implica- tions and options. Each conference will provide analysis of underlying trends and policy directions. However, the overall aim of the series is to build a comprehen- sive foundation for assessing the critical choices likely to face citizens and deci- sion-makers in the next century. The entire series is bene®ting from special sponsorship by EXPO 2000 and four German banks ± Bankgesellschaft Berlin, DG BANK Deutsche Genossenschaftsbank, NORD/LB Norddeutsche Landesbank, and Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (WestLB). Additional ®nancial support is provided by numerous Asian, European and North American partners of the OECD Forum for the Future. The ®rst of these conferences, hosted by the Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB), was held at Schloss Krickenbeck near Dusseldorf, È Germany 7-8 Decem- ber 1997. The theme was ``21st Century Technologies: Balancing Economic, Social and Environmental Goals''. Shaping the future in order to realise economic and social goals is one of the fundamental challenges of human society. Technology has proved key in meeting this challenge, and its role appears set to remain at least as important in the future. However, there are many uncertainties with regard to the transformation of technological potential into positive economic and social outcomes. Indeed, for many people displaced at work or bewildered by new, unfamiliar products, it seems as if technological progress is more of a curse than a blessing. This ®rst conference examined both the positive and the negative sides, the opportunities and the risks, that may arise as technology develops over the next twenty-®ve 3 21st CENTURY TECHNOLOGIES years. In so doing, it explored the two-way relationship between technology on the one hand and economy and society on the other. The conference was organised into three sessions. The ®rst assessed general trends in pervasive technologies, particularly information and biological technologies, with the aim of identifying areas of technically feasible future applications. The second session explored how different economic, social and political frameworks might lead to differences in the extent to which technological opportunities are realised and risks reduced. In the concluding session, the focus was on the policy directions most likely to enhance the contribution of technology to the realisation of sustainable economic, social and environmental goals. This publication brings together the papers presented at the meeting as well as an introductory contribution and summary of the main points of the discussions prepared by the Secretariat. The book is published on the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1. The Promises and Perils of 21st Century Technology: An Overview of the Issues by Riel Miller, Wolfgang Michalski and Barrie Stevens ................... 7 Chapter 2. The Next Twenty-®ve Years of Technology: Opportunities and Risks by Joseph Coates ............................................ 33 Chapter 3. Faster, Connected, Smarter by HervÂe Gallaire ........................................... 47 Chapter 4. Biotechnology for the 21st Century by Werner Arber and Mathis Brauchbar ............................ 77 Chapter 5. Technological Development and Organisational Change: Differing Patterns of Innovation by Meinolf Dierkes, Jeanette Hofmann and Lutz Marz ................... 97 Chapter 6. Enabling Macro Conditions for Realising Technology's Potential by Emilio Fontela ........................................... 123 Chapter 7. Global Possibilities: Technology and Planet-wide Challenges by Luc Soete .............................................. 147 Annex: List of Participants ............................................. 171 5 1 THE PROMISES AND PERILS OF 21st CENTURY TECHNOLOGY: AN OVERVIEW OF THE ISSUES by Riel Miller, Wolfgang Michalski and Barrie Stevens OECD Secretariat, Advisory Unit to the Secretary-General Over the past century there have been many profound technological, economic and social transformations. In OECD countries the full development and diffusion of innovations such as electricity, telephones and automobiles have accompanied the emergence of mass production, mass consumption and mass government. There are many who, facing the next century, wonder if it will be possible and/or desirable to continue along the path of such prodigious change. Some worry about the capacity, both technological and social, to continue advanc- ing and inventing new tools, new products and new ways of organising everyday work and home life. Others worry that the ongoing transition costs may be too high, or that the risks to cherished traditions or the threats to environmental sustainability will, singly or together, be too great to bear. Preservation versus dynamism, incrementalism versus radicalism, these are the polar extremes that, unsurprisingly, haunt many end-of-the-century, future-of-the-millennium debates. The OECD Forum for the Future Conference on 21st Century Technologies was no exception; all of these perspectives were analysed and discussed. How- ever, perhaps the most striking thing about the conference was the widely held view that the prospects for prosperity ± economic, social and environmental ± over the next twenty-®ve years will probably hinge on actively encouraging changes equal to, if not greater than, those already experienced in the twentieth century. In particular, realising the full potential of tomorrow's technologies to contribute to human well-being was seen as depending heavily on the capacity to embrace dynamic change. With only a few reservations, the analysis af®rmed the bene®ts of pursuing socio-technical dynamism rather than preservationism. The analysis also underscored the urgency of pushing beyond incremental and ad hoc 7 21st CENTURY TECHNOLOGIES reactive approaches in order to develop and implement more transformative and integrated economic, social and technological courses of action. This introductory chapter is divided into three sections. The ®rst focuses on the prospects for twenty-®rst century technologies ± largely ignoring economic or social factors ± given the current state of play in today's research and development labs. The second considers the crucial economic and social forces ± at micro, macro and global levels ± that are likely to play key roles in determining both the path of technological

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