Technology Manias

"Technology Manias and the Inefficient Dissemination of Information" was the most recent talk in the Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics (RKCSI) Speaker Series. The talk was given on November 13, 2009 by Andrew Odlyzko (abstract and biography below.) SLIS faculty member Alice Robbin is the Director of the RKCSI Center.

Abstract:
“A comparison of the Internet bubble with the British Railway Mania of the 1840s, the greatest technology mania in history, provides many tantalizing similarities as well as contrasts. Especially interesting is the presence in both cases of clear quantitative measures showing a priori that these manias were bound to fail financially, measures that were not considered by investors in their pursuit of 'effortless riches.' Yet even though these measures were simple and understood by at least a few people, their importance was not appreciated, even by skeptics. The role of such imperfect information dissemination in these two manias leads to speculative projections on how future technology bubbles will develop, and suggests interesting research questions on the social aspects of diffusion of knowledge.”

Bio:
“Andrew Odlyzko has had a long career in research and research management at Bell Labs, AT&T Labs, and most recently at the University of Minnesota, where he built an interdisciplinary research center and is now a Professor in the School of Mathematics. He has written over 150 technical papers in computational complexity, cryptography, number theory, combinatorics, coding theory, analysis, probability theory, and related fields. In recent years he has also been working in electronic commerce, economics of data networks, and economic history, especially on diffusion of technological innovation.”

Next Talk: November 20, 2009

• Robots in Society: Social Impacts, Mutual Shaping, and Collaborative Design
by Selma Sabanovic, School of Informatics, Indiana University Bloomington

Posted November 17, 2009