“⁠Given limited resources, should the scientific community focus on broadening our horizons or improving standard of living?” Entry from - Vivan Bakshi

 

From the perspective of Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation”.

Abstract

The distinction between humanity’s ever-expanding horizons and the standard of living of the population has become an increasingly significant topic with the rapid crescendo in technology in recent years. This essay, predicated upon the concepts—theoretical socioeconomic trends that, although rooted in fiction, can be observed even today—presented in Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” novel series, will explore the nuances of either side of this dilemma. It will discuss the current evolution of technology in computational and medical fields, comparing it to features within Asimov’s narrative, and assessing the path Asimov recommends science to follow.

Introduction

It is important to establish that ‘broadening our horizons’ and ‘improving the standard of living’ are by no means mutually exclusive. By broadening our horizons and pushing the bounds of our technology, we tend towards improving our standard of living by default—take the steam train, one of the greatest scientific milestones of the nineteenth century, and also the substratum for efficient transportation of goods and, now, public transport systems—and the same applies in reverse; improving the quality of life will simultaneously create friendlier environments for the masses, providing them with a greater medium in which to channel innovation and broaden our horizons. Ergo, naturally, the focus of the scientific community is of importance here, but overlap must be taken into consideration.

With that in mind, let us also establish that the exponential growth of contemporary technology serves as a backdrop to the current standard of living, to the current broadening of horizons, and to many of Asimov’s key concepts. It is the speed at which modern science mutates that has led to a sequence of momentous breakthroughs and developments such as virtual reality, or the rather topical artificial intelligence. It is also this speed that correlates with Asimov’s science-fiction prose, and it is this speed that gives it relevancy in a modern context despite being written just under a century ago. However, it must be kept in mind that “Foundation” is nonetheless a work of fiction, and hence it must be taken with a grain of salt, though that does not discredit the ideas embedded inside it.

The death of science

As drastic as it sounds, Asimov continuously refers to the ultimate decline of science, despite the world (more accurately, worlds) he writes of, in which technology is so developed as to accommodate for intergalactic travel. Specifically, he portrays the disparity between the elites and the masses— not in the typical fashion of a power dynamic, but rather the disparity between the scientific intellect of the two groups. In his narrative, those who understand and practice science, and those who are capable of technological innovation, are the ones who claim authority, the elites. Meanwhile, the masses are those who, on the contrary, do not understand the inner workings of the science behind their lives, and simply cruise upon the surface without the resources to obtain this understanding. Perhaps a good demonstration of this idea is proposed when focalizing character Hober Mallow meets the operator of a nuclear power plant at a nearby planet, giving him an array of gadgets to assist in the operation of it—in this interaction, it is clear from the beginning that the operator does not understand the science behind the power plant, and so when Mallow’s gadgets ultimately fail, the workers (without sufficient knowledge) have no feasible way of dealing with it. 

In essence, Asimov warns of the dilution of knowledge for the common person. The power plant operator did not grasp the intricacies of his task because he did not have access to the knowledge he required, and instead he relied on tools that disassociated him from its framework of nuclear science due to the tools’ automation and ease of use. Ironically, it is this ease of use that acts as a buffer between the man and the discipline, discouraging him from curiosity. After all, why should he learn atomic physics, when he can operate it without that bedrock of knowledge?

The matching trends in the modern world

The complacency of the common person in relation to science can be translated to the modern world. Much like Asimov’s power plant operator, we are becoming more and more reliant on tools that prove unchallenging to use, placing a greater value on ease of use over knowledge. We trade off mastery for comfort, and whilst it seems beneficial and even efficient in the short-term, it is, in reality, a considerable blow to humanity’s collective pool of wisdom in the long-term.

Perhaps one of the best examples of this gradual dilution is found in the science of website development. Traditionally, a programmer would build a website from scratch—writing the source code themselves in languages such as HTML—requiring, at a professional level, a full mastery of the theoretical and practical knowledge behind it. This meant a level of specialization in the field; however, in the modern sphere, the specialist knowledge required  has drastically decreased, largely due to the introduction of Content Management Systems (CMS) into the ecosystem. Essentially, a CMS is designed to manage the technical aspects of a website, allowing those with no practical knowledge to create and host one swiftly. CMS frameworks have, in turn, effectively taken over the market, with a mammoth 68.7% of all websites utilising a CMS to some capacity, and Wordpress alone serving 47.3% of the top 1,000 websites (ranked by traffic). It is clear that, in practice, a CMS is a highly powerful tool, yet it represents another layer of abstraction between discipline and developer, and, accounting for the convenience a CMS provides, it is foreseeable that the abundance of web development work conducted at a professional level will operate at the layer of abstraction of the CMS, rather than of the source code.

Whilst this may seem advantageous at a superficial level, the comfort a CMS supplies may prove to be the death of web development. Aside from the explicit drawbacks of introducing CMSes into the market—that being the oversaturation of the job market, and the subsequent lack of jobs available in the market, as CMS developers compete with the traditional HTML developer to fuel a 62.6% rise in demand for web developers since 2020—the allure of convenience may prove to be the driving factor towards Asimov’s complacency. Since the bulk of programmers now operate with a CMS, creativity will propagate at a layer of abstraction in which the disparity between the abstraction—the CMS—and the root of the science—the technical process—is too great. Pragmatically, this likens to Asimov’s power plant operator, whose tools are abstracted from nuclear physics to such a great extent that they are entirely based on convenience over specialization. Whilst the employment of a CMS in building a website may not inherently have as extreme of a level of abstraction as Asimov’s nuclear operator, it signifies a shift from technical mastery to convenience, a shift that will only increase exponentially over time, as both Asimov and recent trends suggests.

It would not, therefore, be wrong insofar as to say that the focus of the scientific community should be on broadening our horizons, rather than improving the quality of life. The transposition of focus from the technical scientific basis (i.e. broadening our horizons) to convenience (i.e. quality of life) correlates with the accrual of abstraction seen in the growth of the CMS market, incentivizing a form of innovation known as incremental innovation, over radical innovation—the former occurring when adding improvements to a product, and the latter when revolutionizing a product, or creating a new one. Whilst it is important to acknowledge that both forms of innovation are vital, an excess of incremental innovation to stimulate convenience may sacrifice radical innovation, thus, given time, causing the stagnation and subsequent death of science that Asimov warns of.

Let us apply, crudely, the concept of incremental against radical innovation to the automobile industry. The car itself was a radical innovation, no less, for its revolutionary ability for rapid transport, albeit using fossil fuels. In this instance, incremental innovation is, of course, important, perhaps to make the vehicle faster, or to improve the driver’s comfort, yet incentivize incremental innovation in surplus and suddenly there is no room for radical innovation in the market; consider that, without disruptive radical innovation, we would not have electric cars. At its core, this is the effect of excess abstraction—isolating the tool from the basis of the science will cause an increase in incremental innovation (as the abstraction is inherently centered on convenience) and a resultant decrease in radical breakthroughs.

The dangers of stagnation

If the technological trends of the modern world continue to follow the trends in Asimov’s “Foundation”, the consequences could be fatal, not just for science, but for humanity. Once again, the problem stems from the over-incentivization of convenience and incremental innovation, this time rooted in the medical industry. More specifically, the calculation of the Incremental Cost-Effectiveness Ratio (ICER) of a drug, based on Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALY), may prove to mirror the effect of CMSes on the web development industry. 

QALY is the assessment of the increase in quality of life a drug provides, measured in comparison to the equivalent worth of extending lifespan, for a patient. At a glance, this seems reasonable—and, naturally, it is, since material years of life cannot be the only unit as to which to measure a drug’s value by—yet, to some extent, QALY is open to debate. An opinionated preference for the patient’s comfort may skew QALY calculations by a sizeable margin, particularly if the treatment is long-term, and this can lead to a skewed calculation of the ICER of a drug, a highly important metric that often plays a major role in the decision of approving funding or not. 

If not controlled, this can lead to problematic decision-making. Notably, prioritising patient comfort can lead to the discouragement of radical innovation, and, in the medical industry, this translates to the discouragement of life-saving drugs. The problem becomes apparent when a high QALY contributes to a high ICER, pushing the ICER of a trivial yet convenient drug above that of a rare yet life-saving treatment, ergo incentivizing pharmaceutical companies to focus their efforts on incremental innovation rather than medical breakthroughs.

The potential for stagnation is also bolstered massively by the recent surge of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This highly topical subject serves as a near perfect example of Asimov’s suggested stagnation, due to the direction it has taken in recent times. The creation of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT was itself a radical innovation, and yet enterprises have spun them into a commercial asset, driving incremental innovation—rather than pushing for further breakthroughs, companies monetise the already existing LLM. Not only that, but LLMs can access any specialist knowledge available on the Internet within seconds, arguably making the need for specialist knowledge redundant; why learn to code, or to write, or to deliver a presentation, when you can simply get an LLM to do it for you? Consequently, this makes people less inclined to actually acquire said specialist knowledge, meaning that fundamentally, LLMs could be the source of a multi-disciplinary stagnation, particularly if the field of AI itself stagnates and radical innovation reduces.

Conclusion

It seems that, in the modern world, we are moving towards a scientific turning point in which we begin to focus on improving our quality of life through convenience, rather than broadening our horizons. However, as Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” warns, this could easily lead to complacency, which in turn could lead to stagnation, and thus we would begin to lose knowledge of the basis of our sciences. Therefore, it seems not unreasonable to continue to focus on broadening our horizons as a scientific community, for if we do not continue to push our limits, we may lose science altogether.

References:

1. Asimov, Isaac. Foundation. United States of America: Gnome Press, 1951

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