by Andrew H. Dent, Ph.D

The evolution of technology is unstoppable, every day we witness more and more boundaries broken, exceptional innovations and endless possibilities. Advancement is a vital part of our society and it dictates our future through research and discovery. But, in the present we still face limitations that stop us from achieving the best possible results through the resources available. Dr. Andrew Dent, VP and Director of Library of Material ConneXion discusses the power of technology with Joichi Ito, Director of MIT’s Media Lab.

Dr. Andrew Dent (A.D.): Do you feel as though the requirements for new technology developments have changed over the last 5 or 10 years? Do MIT and you have a role to play in the ethics of developing new technologies?

Joichi Ito (J.I.): There are a couple of important things that are happening in technology trends. The main one is the constant emerging of the internet. With the internet there is a triumph of decentralized innovation over centralized innovation, where people can innovate without permission and connect and collaborate at nearly zero cost. Enabling production and distribution and collaboration at very low cost, lowers the value of innovation and it allows decentralization.

Innovation moves from the centers of these large research institutes to small groups and the most fascinating inventions are happening in academic institutions, but I think the idea of a decentralized kind of innovation, is now starting to penetrate other areas which is why we begin to see things like open hardware designs, low cost fabrication and manufacturing to be coming offline and allowing the client to contribute important changes.

This idea of innovation among small groups and at low cost fundamentally does change the way it occurs and where it occurs. The concept of first building then innovating rather than anticipating every problem, every activity makes the internet a central player, so it’s really again less central planning, less about huge budgets and more about agility and distributive networks.

This kind of innovation began with consumer internet companies but now it’s happening in a variety of fields which are tied closely to what Material ConneXion is working on. Definitely I think it’s happening in electronics through things like open hardware and agile manufacturing and leading startups in the hardware space but also it’s going to occur in pure science and materials and similar worlds where there’s more and more information available on the internet.
A fascinating aspect that you see today is this interdisciplinary diversity having a huge impact; you find people like math engineers coming up with solutions for consumer products. These innovations cross the boundaries of traditional disciplines which is something we often do at the Media Lab.

A.D.: One thing I was always intrigued about the times I’ve been at the Media Lab, was that it’s almost as if the journey is as important as the result. It’s as if the mechanism of that process becomes more interesting than the result itself.

J.I.: A lot of what companies and clients learn from us is the process. It’s interesting because the Media Lab is a bunch of answers looking for questions, so you don’t want to know the answer before you begin the journey. For example it often happens that a client asks us they want to design a replica of what they have but 30% lighter. That is knowing the answer before you ask the question, and I think the journey that you’re talking about, the wandering and sometimes finding your way and sometimes not, it has a lot to do with the ability to take risks and try something that may or may not have an immediate application. Sometimes, through serendipity, you stumble upon really interesting things, something you weren’t necessarily looking for, that is the undirected research the Media Lab can offer. The method we have established won’t catch everything but I think we’re much more likely to discover things that are unanticipated and the process encourages that.

A.D.: Going back to what you talked about the way technology has been developing as very decentralized. Do you ever worry about the ethical implications or the potential catastrophes that could happen when people in science don’t follow a certain code of conduct when dealing with technology developments?

J.I.: I would argue that the decentralized development is connected by the internet and by communication, which is much more rigorous than a peer group, especially when you add art. There’s a famous art piece where an artist used the gene sequence of the bioluminescence of a rabbit and that suddenly generated the idea of genetically modified animals. The conversation leapt to a much broader audience where this kind of decentralized development represents actual diversity. For example, in the Media Lab we’re doing animal testing on gene sequences to try to cure blindness using mice, and then we have another group of students that is talking about animal rights. It’s interesting to have that differentiation because you get relatively rigorous conversations quite early. In terms of rigor, one of the other elements of the internet and this centralized method is that we’re also trying to not only share the results of the work and the demos but also share data, and that’s really important because it allows people to verify and replicate and experiment, allowing us to substantially increase the consistency of the research by sharing more than just the results through the networks. The more the complexity grows the more imperfections there will be, but I do think that in this chaotic system there is a solidness that’s developing as people learn how to navigate and become liberated in a diverse network.

A.D.: What I have noticed when consulting clients on material or technology choices is that sometimes the complexity of that choice or the number of aspects you need to consider becomes too great to explain verbally. I feel the need of better graphics and ways of showing complex problems visually. Do you feel that graphics is going to help in the understanding of complex issues and is it something that we should implement on a wider scale when conveying information?

J.I.: Yes, I think graphics are just one layer. There’s a great deal of work being done in data science and analytics and the architecture of information and expression. We’re working for instances on a spin out from the Media Lab called SourceMap which is a really beautiful way of demonstrating how a product is created and developed. It shows all the factory processes, energy requirements and where all the materials came from or where they were mined. Showing the entire supply chain of an object in a graphic way shifts the focus on the materialization which is important, but more significantly it demonstrates how you do data science and analysis to try to visualize in a way that’s informative and meaningful. As the use of data and computer visualization continues to get more sophisticated and the world gets more complex, the importance of doing that well becomes fundamental.

A.D.: We reached a point where words just aren’t enough anymore. Do you have any technological breakthroughs that you have seen recently which you feel we should keep an eye on because they will gain relevance in the next 5-10 years?

J.I.: Sure, I do think that open hardware, electronics, manufacturing and the transparency around sourcing involve a lot of work that is not necessarily material. All that Neri Oxman (Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT Media Lab) is doing, which involves understanding different ways of getting inspiration for materials, designing new materials or patenting new materials, that’s a hugely important space. It defines how we learn from nature and how we implement that in the real world, because I think that computers are allowing us to deal with the kind of complexity that nature uses. The convergence of information science and materials science is a hugely important area that we’re just scratching the surface of.