New things can be obtained according to available data and supporting reasons. If the reasons are repeated, renewal will never be possible, but if the data is new, what we get is new, congratulations

The dominant mentality of total economization (and planning agency) comes with a certain toll on creativity and spontaneous development. This is ultimately a human matter of practiced value preferences, which shape the 'physics of a social system'. I am reminded to Hermann Broch about the spirit in an unspiritual age:

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/brochh/geist.htm , who also coined the term 'total economy' in the 1930s, with reference to mass psychology.

In order to address this problem, you have to decide what your scale of analysis is. If you are treating this as a macroeconomic issue, then it is absolutely true that the rate of increase in productivity that new innovation produces is slowing and that the marginal cost of innovation is increasing. For a very readable middle-brow treatment of the subject see Tyler Cowen's The Great Stagnation. His middle-brow treatment of the implications for America's national power is Average is Over. The basic idea is that all the low-hanging fruit of the industrial revolution has been picked already.

From the level of the individual firm, the view is not so dire. Many innovations have made it much easier to launch a firm and there is no shortage of big ideas. As with all economic analysis there is a disconnect between the macroeconomic measures (measuring the wrong things?) and the microeconomic activity. Some innovation will never be reflected in productivity statistics. Take my field, cybersecurity. That is a pure cost to the economy. It is a basic truism that productivity = 1/security. Implementing security controls is a cost. Yet, this is one of the hottest areas of innovation in IT.

At the level of the individual firm, so much of the difficulty of new innovation is a matter of political choice, societal factors, chance, and negative (or positive) externalities. The ease with which it is to start a firm is purely a political choice--the "license raj" in India is a classic example of government bureaucracy hampering new business creation. Cultural and societal factors play a huge role having to do with the amount of risk taking. Chance plays a huge role in new firm creation. Silicon Valley is a product of chance that now is an engine for innovation. Suburban New Jersey and pharmaceuticals is another accident of location. Choices and accidents throw off positive and negative externalities that help hamper or sustain innovation.

Since human evolution does not operate on the time scale of centuries (too few generations to make a difference), and due to improvements in nutrition, schooling, etc., there is no shortage of smarts and imagination. The failure of innovation to deliver productivity gains is not a failure of the feedstock of innovation, human ingenuity. The next revolution is coming, we just don't know when or what it will be. Or you can say that at least in the developed world, societies have chosen to prioritize innovation harmful to productivity--for example, social media, entertainment, low productivity service industries--over other forms of innovation that would show up in aggregate statistics.

AI is the hot bit of innovation right now. There are promises being made both utopian and dystopian. We could be entering the golden age of Star Trek or the horror of The Terminator. Or the whole thing could basically be a repeat of the personal computing revolution, which hardly moved the needle compared to the introduction of the steam engine.

It is a myth that it is increasingly difficult to develop new things. Quite the contrary, the rate of true innovation is accelerating! The Revolution in Innovation is already here!

The problem is how to manage and appropriately use the myriad of new innovations! See my new book, the Accelerating Transport Innovation Revolution on the Elsevier website, Amazon Prime, and Google Books! It will inform your thinking.

Good scientific arguments that travel between quantitative vs. qualitative observations. A lot of human creativity will be needed to manage our age of exponential technology (in manufacturing, finance, medicine, education) and to achieve sustainable results for social systems stability. In my view, the outcome will depend on the wise shaping of a new production function.

Conference Paper Where Has All the Surplus Gone?

Yes it is difficult but it happens as we need it

Stephen's answer gives the impression that it is reversible to some extent, by revisiting values and 'spirituality' among other things

Ales has a very strong science driven view or perspective towards innovation and radical innovation. I am not going to argue against exhaustion of search. At the same time, patent analysis can prove innovation, but only reflect on it. Not finding x, does not imply x can not be found.

Perhaps in agreement with Greg, i would not discard technology driven innovation.

A new revolution may be necessary, but i am not sure whether it has to come from science.

And Greg is correct: technology has and is helping innovation.

Linking the answer to (the relationship between innovation and) productivity is interesting, but perhaps not all encapsulating and thus incomplete, as Greg also suggests.

The world's problems are increading and becoming more complex. This suggests to me greater potential for innovation, particularly technology driven innovation, and that it might be more a matter of focus and leadership, as Stephen remarks.

@John your view is refreshing. If you can perhaps expand by noting a few key premises or points.

@Anjay, the necessity argument is also interesting: i dont see much empirical evidence? Am i wrong in this?

Certain "truths" are fatal, in that the moment you ascribe to them you find yourself in a hole or without hope anymore.

So, it may be better to deny certain truths/ facts for as long as possible, in the hope to retain hope for as long as possible, until something changes, and be called unrealistic, etc, than to accept the truth/ fact, and be without hope or option.

So, arriving at such a place or position may be enough to discard the truth and look for alternatives.

I think the above also describes entrepreneurship mentality/ philosophy.

This (hope) should be a prerequisite for creativity too. You will be hard pressed to be motivated to look for a solution, when you have decided and told yourself there is no solution.

I see that some things can not be developed because they were created in this formality and quality, whatever we are testing to change it remains the main source is the same. thank you

D.R Hussein Saleh Al-Rubaey , you raise the point of breaking and stepping beyond, or developing new, paradigms

Developing new things is not more difficult it is just different. Historically it was individual work and was sufficient individual competences, but nowadays for innovation it is more important team work, collaboration, complementary competences and synergy.

Regarding Innovation and productivity. It could be analysed if we produce similar products. But if they are different, with another quality and even new features? Is the sell phone the same as it was 10 years ago? Statistically maybe there are the same productivity , but for sure in will be different product, more innovative.

Following answers

Historically it happens that productivity growth was about zero, but after it was increasing again. Indeed I don't belief that option a) is possible, as correctly mentioned Ales Kralj, but option of innovation or development of new technologies can increase productivity in a long run.

5G Technology, microelectronics is going to nano, quantum computer, artificial intelligence etc.

During the time we can say if technologies are worthless or not. Let's see.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.azonano.com/amp/article.aspx%3fArticleID=2357

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/quantum/what-is-quantum-computing

https://www.electronics-notes.com/articles/connectivity/5g-mobile-wireless-cellular/technology-basics.php

There are different points of view.

We can see half full or empty glass. I prefer half full.

https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/focus/tech-trends/2019/executive-summary.html

Ales,

Indeed is a lot of area of innovation and it is not easy to say where it will strike. In 80' s was a lot of research about superconductivity but it was fake.

So, let's continue this discussion after 5 years at least :).

I have to recognize it was a good debate, thank You!

I am wondering whether mere productivity is the only/ best way to measure innovation. Particularly in the sense and context of preparatory or exploratory innovation.

Ales' sources of productivity increases are generally very scientific-centered. And i dont think the list is exhaustive. It likely is, from simply a scientific perspective. Productivity increases can just as well come from social restructuring, hence social and technological innovation should not be excluded. I would also look to innovation in the field of new resources or resource cost.

@Ales, you should let me study you, as i dont thought it possible to be either pessimistic, cynical, or realistic and at the same time innovative and creative.

Aleš Kralj , your reply reminds me a lot of myself, before i did my mba. then the social realm opened up to me, and my understanding expanded accordingly.

science and technology may be relatively 'cheap' sources of innovation, because it is a lot more physical. but, i dont think they are the only sources of innovation.

"I've thought about it a lot (whether productivity is the best measure) and I came to a conclusion that it is. "

you seem to give an explanation, yet i am not sure of the alternatives you considered, and the steps that led you to this conclusion. humans differ from other biological agents in the sense that they are more apt and able to socially evolve. humans are spiritual beings too.

Your account of (r)evolution, does not consider social (r)evolutions.

"All highly skilled industrial inventors were like me (cynical, nasty personalities) highly realistic, rejecting things that were obvious to them that will not work and focusing on directions with merit. "

i think this is merely a convenient generalization.

Brian Barnard's question is also relevant for economic growth theory. If there will be no more new things (new goods and new services), it is inevitable that consumption demand (per capita) will stagnate sooner or later and economy will necessarily stagnate in the long run. (It is difficult to tell a good time scale.)

As for prospectus of the "growth rate" of new things, the low hanging fruit problem is an interesting parable, but we may also say that our stepladder is becoming higher. Even if all the low hanging fruits are reaped, we may reap fruits which hang in higher places in the overhead trellis.

Yoshinori Shiozawa

awesome answer.

you perhaps argue for an increase in the complexity/ sophistication of innovation necessary, with your higher stepladder.

it asks how innovation can be increased in sophistication, quality, etc, perhaps points to the organization and arrangements of innovation.

New things can be obtained according to available data and supporting reasons. If the reasons are repeated, renewal will never be possible, but if the data is new, what we get is new, congratulations

Climbing higher we can find new large ,,fruits".

It is right that at the beginning happens revolutionary technological change - large fruit, after incremental change - small fruits, but with a deeper understanding and knowledge ( climbing ) we see new large ,, fruits".

It happened and will happen.

I have once written a paper with the title "Why does technology continue to progress?".

Shiozawa, Y. (2014) Why does technology continue to progress? System, Control and Information (in Japanese, published by [Japan] Institute of Systems, Control and Information Engineers) 58(7): 261-266.

I answered yes to my question by two reasons: (1) Engineers like to talk about optimal designs and processes. However, they only mean the best among the known designs or processes. In view of complexity, there is always possibility that designs and processes can be improved than ever. (2) As Schumpeter argued, innovation emerges when new combinations are realized. As the technology progresses, the fields become more and more varied and combination possibility becomes great.

At this time, I did not know the concept General Purpose Technology (GPT). If I knew it, I would have argued employing this concepts. See

Lipsey, Carlaw, and Bekar (2005) Economic Transformations: General Purpose Technologies and Long Term Economic Growth, Oxford University Press.

Lipsey and his colleagues' book surveyed the economic history as interactions between GPTs and the economy for these 10,000 years. They count 24 transforming GPTs starting from Domestication of plants and Domestication of animals. Internet was the greatest visible example of the 20th century GPT, but in every era we have invented or discovered new GPTs. Nanotechnology is cited as 24th GPT but as a possibility in sometime in the 21st century. As Aleš Kralj claims, Naotechnology did not trace expected path, but it may still be a hopeful GPT in the latter half of the 21st century.

The last but one GPT in Lipsey et al's list is Biotechnology. This was promising technology since double helix was discovered in 1953. It remained a matter of pure science for a long time, but is becoming a real pervasive technology only recently, for example, by the discovery of i-PS cells and various kind of cytokines (information transmitting micro molecules).

New GPT emerges sporadically and intermittently. Its maturation takes a long time. In some phase of technology development, we may think it is saturating or stagnating. But, new GPT arrives steadily. Each time a new GPT is added, we have a better chance to combine it with old technologies, because our knowledge becomes richer and richer. Therefore, seen for a long-period view, technologies and new things will surely come. Only we can tell very little about its paces.

It is a lot of leaves and we don't know if we are on the top.:)

Yoshinori Shiozawa is right, that a deeper knowledge and interdisciplinary combination of them can provide new opportunities for innovation. When knowledge is becoming reacher it appears more possible combinations and more opportunities for innovation. From the other point of view if we establish a new links with other area of research it will appear also new unexpected opportunities.

The frequency of GPT appearance during the history is growing, also it can be in the future.

It can be proved in a long run. Innovation also is not just productivity ( cantitative indicator ) but it is also can be characterized by qualitative features.

@Ales, i dont believe all large fruit - low hanging or otherwise - are immediately visible. certain fruit have certain knowledge as prerequisite.

Also, you can not have exponential growth in knowledge, and not have innovation as outcome.

bringing in economics and economic language, i think few if any countries operate at full/ max innovation capacity. one may even talk of innovation productivity curves and an innovation frontier. a number of constrains limit innovation output. the general/ broad business environment and context, etc, are a classical/ typical innovation constraint. this alone suggests there is still a lot of room to innovate.

@Ales, interesting observation. how would you define/ measure knowledge growth?

True! Creating new things requires so much and is not an easy task to do! More importantly, innovation is a key element which has to be there as well.

Aleš Kralj , you should document your findings and views in articles

I don't feel, we may generalize that the level of difficulty is increasing in all the cases because in some cases the perception may be the other way around because of the emerging level of knowledge. I mean, may be decreasing! We may need explicit examples and experiences to more talk over in the line.

I feel, It may vary from situation to situation.

Cheers!

Very big fruits are rare. How long did it take to come from Newton concept to theory of relativity?

There are descriptive information ( less valuable ) and explanatory ( more valuable ). Descriptive information grows exponentially but their impact is not so obvious. But explanatory information also in growing although at a lower speed (evolution).

Information like Schrödinger equation ( revolutionary ) will not appear each year or even decades. Who was thinking that after Newton model will come something different? But it happened. It could happen again.

Rafael Ciloci , yet you need descriptive information (to grow exponentially) for explanatory information to develop, emerge, etc.

i still would argue that there are many types or sources of innovation, particularly besides scientific innovation. for instance, what about mathematical innovation - the ability to solve mathematical problems that to date are not fully solved, and that would have enormous benefits.

a number of phenomena are imperfectly modelled, including social phenomena.

Bakshi Hardeep Vaid ,

"I feel, It may vary from situation to situation. "

can you perhaps mention situations (contexts) where it is easier or more difficult?

Actually, no it couldn't. We have to look at General Relativity (GR)and Quantum M. (QM) as refinements of the Newtonian mechanics (Ales Kralj)

Yes it is refinement, it is true, but I mean revolutionary, as impact on innovation. If about GR it is still needed incremental change and Innovation to get on a new level and to use this knowledge. And perhaps it could be centuries ( for this specific case )

Hi Brian Barnard,

Thanks for asking. The easy availability of the most of the resources, expert advice and MORE importantly high tech. fast commutation FACILITIES via different channels (I am not giving list here) UNLIKE before making it much easier to develop new research outcomes and this is why for example - lot of progress is evident especially in REGIONAL monsoon prediction even on the different times scale, cyclone etc. (which was bit complicated in the past) is made feasible with higher degree of accuracy. I am NOT talking about much bigger problem or issues (where the difficulty level cum instability is VERY high) like accurate prediction of ENSO, IOD etc. phenomenon, these would be also be solved to some extent BUT it all matter of efforts, dedication and more importantly TIME.

Would appreciate, if you may also share your specific situations (contexts) on your own argument that it is increasingly difficult to create and develop new things?

Cheers!

Vaid, B. H.

Bakshi Hardeep Vaid ,

"Would appreciate, if you may also share your specific situations (contexts) on your own argument that it is increasingly difficult to create and develop new things? "

i was simply reflecting on the increasingly common view or perception, including among entrepreneurs/ innovators, that it is becoming increasing difficult...

i myself actually do not really subscribe to it.

Brain, Thanks for your views. In your mentioned case also, I feel, it depends on situation to situation and way of execution after having complete awareness of the all kind of available resources and lacunas following the precise blueprint to encounter demand.

Perception is perception, not always reality.

Cheers!

yes, i think innovation complexity and sophistication may be increasing, also separating the true innovators and entrepreneurs from the 'half' innovators and entrepreneurs.

it is simply a case of innovation 'costing' or 'demanding' more.

Don't forget, on the same time many things (have a look at precious discussion) are much simplified for the true innovators and entrepreneurs ALSO! and this is unlike the past.

Cheers!

by continuous observation and updation.

A group of authors including Stuart A. Kaufman recently published an interesting article:

Preprint A Simple Combinatorial Model of World Economic History

Their proposition can be summarized as contending that human economy grew by the increasing combination of prior small number of techniques. In other words, they are contending that it is becoming increasingly easy to create and develop new thing.

Aleš Kralj

I am saying that Kaufman and his colleagues' article is interesting. I am not baking it nor refuting it. As a thought experiment, it is intellectually interesting. We normally ignore this kind of thinking but what we are endeavoring may also be a product of chance if seen from long away.