Disruptive Technology

A Disruptive Technology is a technology that is a disruptive innovation (rapid and extensive impact to societal structures, societal norms, or organizational capabilities).

• Context:
  • It can (typically) disrupt a Support Network.
  • It can affect a Technology Organization (especially an incumbent company for some existing technology).
  • It can involve new Inventions, Innovations, or applications that redefine existing technology landscapes or create entirely new ones.
  • It can (often) bring about new ethical or Moral Dilemmas that were not previously considered (thereby affecting technological ethics and requiring new regulatory frameworks).
  • It can range from being a Largely-Positive Disruptive Technology to being a Largely-Negative Disruptive Technology.
  • It can be preceded by a Disruptive Technology Nascent Period.
  • …
• Example(s):
  • …
  • Wheel (~3500 BC), which disrupted Manual Transport.
  • Paper Manufacture (~105 AD), which disrupted Inscribing Industries.
  • Saltpeter and Gun Powder (~9th century), which disrupted Medieval Warfare.
  • Printing Press (~1440), which disrupted Handwriting Industries.
  • Telegraph (~1844), which disrupted Postal Systems.
  • Electricity Generation (~1880s), which disrupted Oil Lamp Industries.
  • Internal Combustion Engine (~1880s), which disrupted Steam Engine Industry.
  • Automobiles (~1880s), which disrupted Horse-Drawn Carriages.
  • Assembly Line (~1913), which disrupted Craftsmanship.
  • Airplane (~1903), which disrupted Long-Distance Sea Travel and Rail Travel.
  • Nuclear Explosion Tech (Nuclear Bomb Creation Period ~1945), which disrupted Global Warfare and Geopolitical Balance (ended World War II, introduced a First-Nuclear-Bomb Moral Dilemma and Mutually Assured Destruction).
  • Photocopier (~1938), which disrupted Manual Copying.
  • Personal Computer (~1970s), which disrupted Type Writers and Traditional Office Work.
  • Internet (~1990s), which disrupted Media Communications and Postal Communications and democratized information but also led to issues like Cyberbullying and Privacy Invasion.
  • Digital Photography/Digital Cameras (~1990s), which disrupted Film Photography.
  • eCommerce (~1990s), which disrupted Traditional Retail.
  • Music Streaming Services (~2000s), which disrupted CD and Cassette Sales.
  • Smartphones (~2007), which disrupted Fixed-Line Telephones and Portable Media.
  • Ride-Sharing (~2009), which disrupted Taxi Services.
  • Transformer Architecture (~2017), which is disrupting Traditional Machine Learning Algorithms.
  • Autonomous Vehicles (~2023), which will disrupt Taxi Services and Personal Transport.
  • Large Language Models (~2023), which will disrupt Web Search Industry and Content Creation Processes.
  • Artificial General Intelligence (~2029), which promises to disrupt multiple industries (including Healthcare, Law, and Military) and raises ethical concerns such as AI Arms Race.
  • …

Counter-Example(s):

• • a Hyped Non-Disruptive Innovation, such as: Potters Wheel (~3500 BCE), Betamax (~1975), Laserdisks (~1978), 3D Printers (~1984), and Virtual Reality (~1960s).
  • a Disruptive Business Model, like Uber (~2009) in the taxi industry, which did not rely on new technology but disrupted through a new service model.
  • a Foundational Technology, such as: Graphical User Interface (~1973), and IP Protocol (~1981), which serve as building blocks for many applications but are not directly disruptive.
  • a Sustaining Technology, like LED Light Bulbs (~1962), which improved upon existing light bulb technology without dramatically altering the market.
  • a Disruptive Corpus, such as Wikipedia (~2001), which changed the way people access information but is not a technology in itself.
  • Incremental software updates that do not significantly alter the function or impact of the technology.
  • …
• See: Technological Unemployment, Dual-Use Technology, Groundbreaking Technological Advancement.

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References

2016

• (Wikipedia, 2016) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/disruptive_innovation#Disruptive_technology Retrieved:2016-11-1.
  • In 2009, Milan Zeleny described high technology as disruptive technology and raised the question of what is being disrupted. The answer, according to Zeleny, is the support network of high technology. For example, introducing electric cars disrupts the support network for gasoline cars (network of gas and service stations). Such disruption is fully expected and therefore effectively resisted by support net owners. In the long run, high (disruptive) technology bypasses, upgrades, or replaces the outdated support network. Technology, being a form of social relationship, always evolves. No technology remains fixed. Technology starts, develops, persists, mutates, stagnates, and declines, just like living organisms. The evolutionary life cycle occurs in the use and development of any technology. A new high-technology core emerges and challenges existing technology support nets (TSNs), which are thus forced to coevolve with it. New versions of the core are designed and fitted into an increasingly appropriate TSN, with smaller and smaller high-technology effects. High technology becomes regular technology, with more efficient versions fitting the same support net. Finally, even the efficiency gains diminish, emphasis shifts to product tertiary attributes (appearance, style), and technology becomes TSN-preserving appropriate technology. This technological equilibrium state becomes established and fixated, resisting being interrupted by a technological mutation; then new high technology appears and the cycle is repeated.

1997

• (Christensen, 1997) ⇒ Clayton M. Christensen. (1997). “The Innovator's Dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail." Harvard Business School Press. ISBN:978-0-87584-585-2.
  • QUOTE: The technological changes that damage established companies are usually not radically new or difficult from a technological point of view. They do, however, have two important characteristics: First, they typically present a different package of performance attributes—ones that, at least at the outset, are not valued by existing customers. Second, the performance attributes that existing customers do value improve at such a rapid rate that the new technology can later invade those established markets.
  • NOTES:
    • Disruptive Innovation: Christensen introduces the concept of disruptive innovation, where small companies with inferior but evolving technologies eventually displace established firms by targeting overlooked customer segments.
    • Incumbent’s Dilemma: Successful companies face a dilemma when deciding whether to focus on high-end customers with sustaining innovations or risk cannibalizing their own products by investing in unproven, disruptive technologies.
    • Misalignment of Resources: Large companies allocate resources to areas that deliver the highest immediate returns, neglecting emerging opportunities. This misalignment makes it difficult for them to respond effectively to disruptive innovations.

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