Giving Compass' Take:

• A review of the book titled, Ingenious: The Unintended Consequences of Human Innovation, reveals issues with human innovation as a necessity in society now. 

• What is the role of donors in contributing to human innovation? 

• Read these five ethical principals for humanitarian innovation. 

In their new book, Ingenious: The Unintended Consequences of Human Innovation, “innovate or die” could well be authors Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson’s warning that humans will thrive only “if our species can indefinitely rely on ingenuity.”

Using metaphors from biology, the authors argue that “as persistent niche modifiers [living beings who deliberately and continuously craft their own environment to be hospitable and beneficial to their lives], we have to keep inventing new technologies to cope with the consequences of our previous modifications.” They add that “[o]ur ingenuity has enabled us to populate a wide range of environments. … We have an evolved ingenuity.”

But technological innovation, the authors rightly observe, doesn’t always produce the results we are seeking. We sometimes get unintended, unwanted, and unhelpful outcomes. These misses, or “mismatches,” as they refer to them, in turn create problems so complex that when we once again use technology to intervene—again—to “fix” these problems, we generate further unwanted and often unimagined consequences. These in due course require their own technological “fixes,” ad infinitum.

In brief, humanity’s endless pursuit of progress—whether in terms of growth or profit or human advancement—puts our species on an innovation treadmill. Unable to get off the treadmill, today we are required to embrace innovation more fiercely than ever before, even as we become ever more aware of human limitations and our dependence on technology. Whether the challenge is climate change, pandemics, or the spread of an all-seeing digital panopticon, managing the innovation process and understanding how to germinate desired and beneficial outcomes from technological change are the central tasks facing world leaders.

Read the full article about human innovation by G. Pascal Zachary at Stanford Social Innovation Review.