Technology & Computer Science

Technology has been the overriding tidal wave in the last several centuries (maybe millennia, if tools like plows and horse bridles are considered) and understanding the fundamentals in this field can be helpful in seeing the patterns behind these innovations, how they were arrived at, and their potential impacts.¹The difficulty with the word “technology,” like “artificial intelligence,” is that they are moving yardsticks. What was considered technology twenty years ago is seen as mundane today. Arthur Clarke has a very apt and telling line, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Danny Hillis also has a great quote along similar lines: “Technology is everything that doesn’t work yet.” The ideas discussed in this section have far reaching implications which tie together several other key disciplines already discussed and yet to be discussed. 

These driving forces influence so much of our world today, to the point that Marc Andreessen’s quip that “software is eating the world” is now seen as axiomatic. Every company will soon be a technology company, or whither.