Inovação: breve história dos exageros e fracassos
"Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure" (2023) é o mais recente trabalho de Vaclav Smil (1943, Professor Emérito da Faculdade de Ambiente da Universidade de Manitoba, Canada), depois do brilhante “How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going" (2022). Neste novo livro, Smil trabalha um conjunto de tecnologias falhadas — Gasolina com Chumbo, DDT, Fusão Nuclear, Aviação Supersónica, Hyperloop, etc. — que permitem depois suportar toda uma argumentação no último capítulo a propósito do insuflamento das conquistas da invenção humana das últimas décadas. Quero, no entanto, frisar que por vezes o discurso de Smil se torna um pouco negro, parecendo quase apresentar-se contra a própria inovação, algo que sabemos não ser sua intenção, mas que acaba ficando latente. Smil procura com esta obra remar contra a corrente do endeusamento da inovação atual, oferecendo um lastro histórico e fundamentado da invenção humana e seus impactos, mas ao fazê-lo roça por vezes o quase descrédito dessa mesma invenção que tanto preza. Desde logo, um dos maiores problemas é que não pode existir inovação, menos ainda radical, sem muito falhanço, é uma condição obrigatória. Pelo que apontar promessas falhadas, não pode ser visto como algo completamente negativo, já que por cada falhanço é dado mais um passo no avanço no conhecimento. Ainda assim, temos de reconhecer que quando a repetição desse falhanço deixa de trazer novidade é necessário seguir em frente, e Smil aponta várias áreas onde isso não tem acontecido.
Assim, duas das conclusões que mais me impactaram foram o facto dos exageros à volta da inovação poderem estar ligados ao crescimento da Comunicação de Ciência dos últimos 20 anos, que na sua ânsia por apresentar resultados, ganhar créditos para os grupos de investigação, laboratórios e universidades, tem insuflado resultados, que depois acabam sendo exacerbados pelos média. A segunda é que a inovação das últimas décadas está longe de ser tão avassaladora como se apregoa, existindo a necessidade de reconhecer a história prévia das tecnologias, nomeadamente a do final do século XIX e início do século XX, que é por nós hoje completamente ignorada.
Em vez de aprofundar o que diz Smil, opto por colar aqui alguns excertos que não substituem de forma alguma a leitura do livro, mas que dão conta de ideias a reter:
“Medical research (and associated drug discovery) has become a steady provider of such breakthrough news. As a result of the competitive, grant-supported nature of much modern scientific research, dubious claims begin with the very first announcement of (often preliminary) findings that now take place via press releases by universities or institutions. In 2014 a study of nearly five hundred biomedical and health-related science press releases published in the British Medical Journal found that 40 percent of those announcements contained exaggerated advice, a third of them contained exaggerated causal claims, and nearly 60 percent of subsequent news stories based on such releases also contained such exaggerations. Far more remarkably, even completely unsubstantiated claims are now wholesaled as facts and, incredibly, are even approved for use by the very authorities whose duty it is to prevent such a turn of events.”
“Medical research is just one of many research-intensive endeavors that are often presented in too-good-to-be-true press releases. Exaggerated claims of soon-to-come possible practical achievements and not-too-distant commercial deployments have now become the norm in communicating scientific advances to the public.”
Isto tem sido naturalmente alimentado pelos media que atravessados por uma crise de falta de apoio se tornaram cada vez mais necessitados de captar a atenção, evoluindo para estratégias de click-bait:
“a way for machines to merge with humans’ brains: the brain-computer interface (BCI) has been a much-researched topic during the past two decades. This is something that would eventually require the implanting of miniature electronic devices directly into the brain to target specific groups of neurons (a noninvasive sensor on or near the head could never be so powerful or precise), an undertaking with many obvious ethical and physical perils and downsides. But one would never know this from reading the gushing media reports on advances in BCI. This is not my impression but the conclusion of a detailed examination of nearly four thousand news items on BCI published between 2010 and 2017. The verdict is clear: not only was the media reporting overwhelmingly favorable, it was heavily preoccupied with unrealistic speculations that tended to exaggerate greatly the potential of BCI (“the stuff of biblical miracles,” “prospective uses are endless”).”
Que por sua vez são altamente influenciados por quem precisa de capital para continuar a inovar:
“Forecasts of completely autonomous road vehicles were made repeatedly during the 2010s: completely self-driving cars were to be everywhere by 2020, allowing the operator to read or sleep during a commute in a personal vehicle. All internal combustion engines currently on the road were to be replaced by electric vehicles by 2025: this forecast was made and again widely reported as a nearly accomplished fact in 2017. A reality check: in 2022 there were no fully self-driving cars; fewer than 2 percent of the world’s 1.4 billion motor vehicles on the road were electric, but they were not “green,” as the electricity required for their operation came mostly from burning fossil fuels: in 2022 about 60 percent of all electricity in general came from burning coal and natural gas.”
Quanto ao segundo ponto, da aferiação de que ao contrário do que nos é dito todos os dias, a velocidade da inovação está longe do que se vende:
“At this point I should address the question of progress and innovative speed more directly and support my conclusion regarding the lack of any broad-based rapid exponential growth of inventions with easily verifiable facts.
(…)
"Rapid exponential growth has been an admirable reality in the advances of solid-state electronics and its applications in devices and designs ranging from personal computers and mobile phones to communication and Earth-observation satellites and data and image processing, but there has been no evidence of any ever-faster innovations in nearly all other sectors of modern economies, from food production to long-distance transportation."
(…)
"Nothing has affected, and warped, modern thinking about the pace of invention and the extent of innovation than the rapid exponential advances of solid-state electronics, resulting first in the introduction of transistors (in the late 1940s), then integrated circuits (starting in the early 1960s) and microprocessors (a decade later), followed by similarly rapid increases in their mass-scale deployment in industrial production, transportation, services, homes, and communications. The growing conviction that we have left the age of gradual growth behind began with our ability to crowd ever more components onto a silicon wafer (…) provided the foundation for the rapid rise of businesses based on electronic data processing, be they payment schemes (Paypal), e-commerce companies (Alibaba, Amazon), or social media (Facebook, now Meta, Instagram, Twitter) (…) going from bulky land-line phones (with high long-distance charges) to light portable palm-size mobiles (whose processing power goes far beyond conversations and still images to casual viewing of movies during a subway commute) is a leap whose enormous qualitative difference does not even yield itself to a meaningful qualitative comparison.”
(…)
"Not surprisingly, such stunning gains —— taking place within such relatively short periods of time leave deep impressions and we notice them far more, and perceive them to be disproportionately more important, than the unchanging or marginally evolving fundamentals of our lives. "
Contudo todo o crescimento providenciado pela eletrónica está de certa forma ameaçado, como bem explica Smil:
“The rapid exponential growth emblematic of many microprocessor-enabled activities and companies that offer such services to the public has already entered a more moderate expansion stage. Printing with ever-shorter wavelengths of light made it possible to crowd in larger numbers of thinner transistors on a microchip: the process began with transistors 80 micrometers wide; 7-nanometer–based chips are now common (their width is only 0.0000875 that of the first design), and in 2021 IBM announced the world’s first 2-nanometer chip, to be produced as early as 2024. Because the size of a silicon atom is about 0.2 nanometers, a 2-nanometer connection would be just ten atoms wide, and the physical limit of this fifty-year-old reduction process is obviously in sight.”
(…)
As a result, the growth of the best processor performance has slowed from 52 percent a year between 1986 and 2003 to 23 percent a year between 2003 and 2011 and eventually to less than 4 percent between 2015 and 2018. As with all cases of growth, an S-curve has been forming, and the period of very rapid exponential growth is history.”
E a machadada final nesta ilusão do novo mundo tecnológico do século XXI:
“No matter. Such questions, reminders, and objections—referring to basic physical realities, known constants, available rates, and capacities—are now seen as almost irrelevant, nothing but challenges to be vanquished by ever-accelerating innovation. But there are no signs of such a sweeping acceleration; there is no indication of ever-faster inventions as far as the most fundamental human activities are concerned. This inevitable conclusion is now supported by a detailed study of innovation across American industries spanning nearly two centuries, from 1840 to 2010."
(…)
"Breakthrough patents in the furniture, textiles, and apparel industries, in transportation equipment, machinery manufacturing, metal manufacturing, wood, paper, and printing, and in construction all peaked before 1900. Mining and extraction, the coal and petroleum industries, mineral processing, electrical equipment production, and plastics and rubber products had their innovative waves and peaks before 1950, and the only industrial sectors with post-1970 peaks have been agriculture and food (the wave dominated by genetically modified organisms), medical equipment (from MRI and CT scanners to robotic surgical tools), and, of course, computers and electronic products.”
"These incontrovertible findings refute any assertions about an ever-increasing rate of innovation and put claims about the extraordinary impact of recent inventions into a proper historical perspective."
E um abre olhos final, focado em 1880:
“And the historical corrective goes even further, as the energetic and material foundations of modern civilization go back into the five decades before the beginning of World War I and, to a surprisingly high degree, to a single decade, the 1880s. That decade saw the invention and patenting, and in many cases also the successful commercial introduction, of so many processes, converters, and materials indispensable for modern civilization that their aggregate makes the decade’s record unprecedented, and most likely unrepeatable. Bicycles, cash registers, vending machines, punch cards, adding machines, ballpoint pens, revolving doors, and antiperspirants (and Coca Cola and the Wall Street Journal) could be dismissed as the decade’s minor inventions and innovations."
"Above all, the inventions of fundamental and lasting importance included the near-complete creation of the system of electricity generation, distribution, and conversion. The decade saw the world’s first coal-fired and hydroelectric plants, steam turbines (the mainstay of thermal electricity generation), transformers, transmission (both of direct and alternating current), and meters, and electricity was used by the newly invented incandescent light bulbs, electric motors, and elevators, as well as for welding, urban transportation (street cars), and the first kitchen gadgets. Our microchip-rich world depends on a reliable electricity supply, and by 2020 thermal and hydroelectric generation still provided more than 70 percent of all electricity, with the new renewable sources, wind and solar, contributing only about a tenth of that."
"The 1880s were also the decade when three German engineers invented motor cars powered by internal combustion engines, when a Scotch inventor came up with inflatable rubber tires, an American chemist with the way to produce aluminum, and an American architect to complete the world’s first multistory steel-skeleton skyscraper. The enduring and fundamental importance of these inventions is self-evident. And there was still more: between 1886 and 1888 Heinrich Hertz proved that James Clerk Maxwell was right, as he generated and transmitted electromagnetic waves, measured their frequencies, and correctly placed them between “the acoustic oscillations of ponderable bodies and the light-oscillations of the ether.” This is where the modern world of intangible wireless communication began, with mobile phones and social media being what I have called the fifth-order derivations of Maxwell’s ideas.”
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