Technology and Australia’s Future – New technologies and their role in our security, cultural, democratic, social and economic systems

Technological change is the major driver of long-term economic growth. In an environment of uncertainty, ongoing investment in the skills and organisational capacities that allow effective technology development, evaluation, adoption and adaptation will help solve social, economic and environmental challenges, leading to a prosperous and healthy future.

Technology and humanity shape each other. To solve Australia’s social challenges, government policies and programs should understand the interrelationships between technology and humanity – solutions to complex problems will never be solely technological.

The way technology is categorised affects how it is imagined, evaluated, funded, adopted and used. Encouraging crossover between diverse areas and looking beyond narrow categories, sectors, and disciplines for inspiration will increase opportunities for technological innovation in Australia.

Public policy is often based on assumptions of stability, predictability, and linear progress. Policies which take into account the dynamic and multidimensional nature of technology will encourage adoption rather than protecting and favouring the status quo, allowing Australians to make better decisions to prepare for, and capture benefit from, technological change. Australia’s technological future is open, and not pre-determined.

Predicting future technology and its impact with any accuracy is extremely difficult. Recognising that general patterns of technological change will persist can help governments, businesses and communities facilitate and adapt to change. Attention should be focused upon problems that need to be solved and on helping innovators find solutions.

Technologies for data, especially data analytics, will play a substantial role in solving most social problems, and will augment and transform most existing technologies. In order to maximise the benefit of this technology, Australia needs to ensure it has the advanced skills and capabilities to create and use this technology.

The value of a technology always depends upon context and use. Judging technologies as intrinsically beneficial or detrimental limits the opportunities to make the best use of them. To improve the design, assessment and effectiveness of technology or any technological intervention, consider the technology in its historical, cultural, geographical, political and social contexts.

The adoption of any new technology in Australia will affect people differently. Costs and benefits of a technology should take into account the different impacts a technology will have on different sections of society.

Meanings associated with technology are deeply tied to values, beliefs, experiences and cultural setting, and as a result vary enormously. The meanings people ascribe to a technology substantially influence its adoption and use and therefore cannot be ignored in any technological intervention. 

Attitudes towards technology do not always reflect behaviour. Effective government policy to encourage new technologies should reflect the different reasons people have for engaging with technology. 

Adaptability and creativity are key skills in creating, assimilating and adopting new technology. The adoption of new 
technology and its effective use depends on people with diverse skills playing a variety of roles. Enhancing technological literacy, including fostering skills appropriate to engaging with technology in all levels of education, can enhance 
Australia’s ability to adopt and adapt new technologies. Promoting technology as a creative enterprise may serve to inspire a greater engagement with technology. Enhancing the tinkering aspect of STEM education at all levels (K–12, and tertiary) could create a culture that embraces technological change.

Technology evaluation is of central importance to technology adoption. The costs of a technology are complex to determine, context-dependent, variable, and contested. Governments can facilitate better technology evaluation by adopting international best practice and by minimising the role vested interests play in technology evaluation.

Cognitive biases play a major role in the evaluation of technologies, which in turn is a major determinant of adoption 
and use. The impacts of these biases can be substantially mitigated by adopting methods designed to counter them, including independent assessors, and readily available empirical data.

The difficulty of appropriating economic returns from early stage technology research and development means that substantial ongoing government investment in research is warranted. Increased investment in high quality scientific and technological research will lead to greater commercial and economic outcomes for Australia. Such research should be focused upon general purpose technologies, rather than particular technology winners. Having research institutions that are more willing to share their IP will create a more effective innovation system.

Government policy and legislation should focus on the effects due to the use of new technology, or the effects arising from new uses of technology, rather than on the technology itself in order to minimise regulatory impediments.

Interoperability allows the more rapid adoption of new technologies. Interoperability is facilitated by standards and gateway and platform technologies. Diffusion of technology in Australia can be aided by simple standards which lead to easier parts assembly. Adopting global standards will facilitate integration of a technology into global supply-chains. 

Accepting that failure can occur in any attempt to do something new and removing its stigma will facilitate and accelerate technology development and adoption. Training managers in business and government to acknowledge uncertainty, take risks, and deal constructively with failure will improve Australia’s entrepreneurial and innovative culture.