Fundamental innovation and/versus more practical development [Bell Labs]

The relationship between fundamental innovation and practical technique and technology is tricky. Fundamental innovation requires playful open-ended exploration that often fails to produce anything of practical value, though it may be of deep intellectual interest. And it may even fail to do that. It requires a different mindset from developing practical technology.

And yet, without fundamental innovation, the development of practical technology is threatened. It’s not a simple relationship. It’s not the case that all practical innovation is grounded in fundamental research into how the world works; there ARE independent lines of development. But some of it is, and that’s important.

Thus fundamental open-ended research tends to take place in one kind of institutional setting while practical innovation takes place in different kinds of settings. Much fundamental research happens in universities, which are not profit-making enterprises (tell that to the Harvard board!). Practical research and development happens in corporations, but generally segregated from production facilities. Now, practical research is funded from the profits of the companies that undertake it. How is fundamental research funded? (Historically, some of it was done by thinkers of independent means.)

That’s the issue at the heart of Noah Smith’s current post, The dream of bringing back Bell Labs, December 8, 2022. Bell Labs was funded by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company and was one of the finest research organizations in the world, doing both fundamental research and more practical development. rese

Smith’s second paragraph states his topic:

... a general theory of collective innovation, but never quite reaches a conclusion. How much of breakthrough discovery is due to the team vs. the individual? How do incentives and organizational structure matter? How much of the success of Bell Labs was due to the luck of history versus the unique way the organization was set up? The scientists at Bell themselves grappled with these questions, but nobody has ever answered them conclusively.

He explores that question in the rest of the article. I recommend it to you.

The problem is an acute for researchers in computation, especially artificial intelligence. Certain kinds of research require enormous resources – I’m thinking of deep learning, resources that are beyond the capacities of universities. Such research is thus dominated by profit-making corporations. It’s not at all obvious whether or not fundamental research will be harmed.