Steve Jobs recently passed away; his death garnering him favorable comparisons to the likes of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. I was struck by the rather numbing uniformity of praise for the mind behind Apple: brilliant, confident and, perhaps above all, an innovator. Looking past the seeming robotic feel to it all, the importance of innovation was help as a self-evident, sacrosanct value.
If one peruses the speeches of politicians, particularly those that address the economy, the word “innovation” occurs far more times than is likely necessary. Yet I am struck by the lack of criticism toward this holy treatment of innovation, because it, like all things, has its shortcomings.
Here I will signpost my limited understanding of economics, but it doesn’t seem a leap of logic to see we might well innovate in a direction that is detrimental to our own well-being.
Consider, as the world continues to rapidly progress in the areas of software and robotics, it seems all but inevitable our innovations eliminate the need for humans. Dr. Sam Harris, neuroscientist and best-selling author, presents this very hypothetical situation in his Aug. 16, 2011, post to his blog.
His quotation in the blog is particularly compelling: “Imagine the future Google of robotics or nanotechnology: Its CEO could make Steve Jobs look like a sharecropper, and its products could put tens of millions of people out of work. What would it mean for one person to hold the most valuable patents compatible with the laws of physics and to amass more wealth than everyone else on the Forbes 400 list combined?”
Is the innovation of the future iPod really worth the joblessness that would be sure to follow under Harris’ frame of thought? Ask virtually any politician and it appears that the answer to that is a resounding yes.
Beyond the jobs concerns of broad, complete support for innovation, we must consider what we are innovating. After all, the value of our innovations is completely dictated by the market. It should go without saying: The market is often poor at deciding what is best for us.
An Oct. 21, 2011, publication in the British Medical Journal asserts arguably the most pressing problem with innovation is we the consumers often uptake new products and reject good ones in healthcare. As the Journal argues, innovations can be “rather like consumer fads – a new technology or therapy generates the excitement of newness and ‘must-have’ – even before the evidence base has been firmly established.”
As the article goes on to elucidate, because there is such an acceptance and zeal for innovation, proven, “old” practices get rejected. For example, pelvic floor exercises get passed over for flashy, “innovative” equipment.
Finally, we must consider what the concept of “innovation” is used to justify. Speaking in broad terms, when there is any conversation about the “Welfare State,” it is always brought up, as the Daily Capitalist of Oct. 9, 2011, points out, supplying people with basic needs suffocates innovation.
We have plenty of reason to doubt this, as there are multiple examples where money doesn’t serve as motivation: teachers, firefighters, social workers and so on. It is a reasonable expectation that people will continue to innovate for other reasons.
Beyond that however, even if innovation does suffer, is that result a terrible fate? If the innovation of innumerable gadgets and gizmos is our number one objective, then we must stay our current course. Conversely, if we are more interested in the well-being of our fellow human beings, we should reframe how we prioritize innovation.
Obviously innovation is important at some level, but, like all things, it must be kept in
perspective. The same holds true for the legacy of Steve Jobs: We must keep it in perspective.
After all, it is indicative of our thinking that most admirers pointed out his various products were the epitome of innovation. Yet what made the products significant – that they brought people untold amounts of joy – was treated with secondary status.
