By David K. Campbell, Dean

I was delighted by your strong responses to the first installment of “The Ecology of Technology,” which appeared in the spring 2003 issue of the College of Engineering Magazine. Many of you agreed that the United States is heading down a dangerous path in terms of losing our technological edge and that action is needed to ensure that our technological eco-system remains healthy. But several of you felt that my call for more trained technologists was an “Ivory Tower,” self-serving perspective and failed to recognize the plight of currently unemployed engineers. I can assure you that nothing could be further form the truth. I am acutely aware of the recently developed crisis in engineering employment as a result of the dramatic economic downturn. Suffice it to say that the technical professions do not stand outside the rest of the economy and that technologists are not insulated from the macro-economic decline of the past few years. Our country now has many unemployed engineers, along with unemployed MBAs, lawyers, and yes—even professors. Think of it this way: Just as a rising tide raises all boats, a tidal wave is likely to sink all ships. In my view, this debacle is related to the near-term policies of our political leaders not to the long-term needs and goals of our educational system or our society. But this political debate belongs in another forum.

Unfortunate as the current unemployment situation is, we all hope (and believe) that an economic recovery will come soon. My thesis, which I stand by, is that unless we shore up the technical infrastructure upon which our economic leadership is built, we will lose that leadership on the long term. Then we may well be in permanent economic doldrums. Please read part two of my essay, which further explores this important challenge to our future—I look forward to your comments.

The Ecology of Technology, Part Two

Recently, I met with Freeman Dyson, professor emeritus of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and a noted popular author on technology and the future. I had just finished reading his excellent book Imagined Worlds and was delighted by the chance to discuss my thoughts on the “ecology of technology” with him. Freeman liked the metaphor and pointed out that the failure to innovate or to remain at the forefront of the latest technology was a factor in the decline of many great historical empires. He also reminded me that historically the hegemony of great nations has lasted between 150 and 500 years. As the pace of change accelerates, this period of cultural dominance will likely grow even shorter. That is where the U.S. finds itself today, on the brink of losing its technological dominance sometime before the end of the 21st century.

The nation most likely to take our place is China, but there are other contenders. At the moment, “globalization” is causing thousands of technical jobs to leave the U.S. Even the highly skilled jobs like software development are leaving the U.S. and heading to places like India, with a large skilled workforce fluent in English, or Russia, with its strong tradition of excellence in science and engineering but low relative wages. Every job that leaves the U.S. takes us farther down the path to losing our edge. A recent CNN article states “according to Forrester Research, companies in the U.S. and Europe will spend 28 percent of their information technology budgets on overseas work in the next two years.” The isolationists would attempt to stop this exodus by putting up barriers to trade or export. But that is like Canute, king of England, Norway, and Denmark, commanding the tide not to rise—it will not work. There is only one way for us to maintain our economic leadership and that is to maintain our edge in technology.

Since we are not willing to work cheaper or longer hours than the people in the developing world, we need to work smarter. The solution is for Americans to nurture the “Ecology of Technology” in the U.S. In the first installment of this essay, I stressed three significant threats to our technological eco-system: 1) relatively poor state of our K-12 education in science, math, engineering, and technology, with the consequent lack of a diverse group of “home grown” technical talent; 2) the recent restrictions in immigration of foreign scholars and researchers, who have historically played key roles in our research and development; and 3) the relative lack of support for fundamental and applied research in the physical sciences and engineering, which threatens the next generation of novel technologies. To these threats I would add two more.

First, the many of our leading corporations, especially in the current economic cycle, are sharply cutting back in their research and development efforts. The fabled Bell Laboratories of AT&T and later Lucent is but a shadow of its former self, particularly in the area of the physical sciences. Another leading corporation is currently in discussions with us at BU in the hopes of moving a group of its researchers to our College because the corporate research effort in this area is being downsized. To be sure, some of our leading high tech companies—including Microsoft—are making significant investments in research and development, but too many are focusing on next quarter’s bottom line rather than the new technology that will transform their industry in a few years’ time.

Second, the general public does not appreciate sufficiently the link between the research, both basic and applied, and the technology on which our economic hegemony relies. This is one aspect of the widely recognized problem of “innumeracy,” many consequences of which were explored in John Allen Paulos’ excellent book of the same name. As with the three threats I discussed previously, our first challenge here is to make our fellow citizens aware of the seriousness of these additional threats to our technological superiority and then to work together to combat them. The time to act is now. There are signs economy may be recovering—although I am sure there are still unemployed engineers—and as it does, we need to convince our leaders that we must counter these threats to our technological leadership and restore and nurture our “ecology of technology.”