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Automating Invention is Robert Plotkin's blog on the impact of computer-automated inventing on the law (primarily patent law). The blog also explores the implications of computer-automated inventing for creativity, ethics, and high-tech industry.
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September 6, 2005
People are still good for something
Although the focus of this blog may appear to be on technology that automates invention, technology is only half the story. People are the other half. It's an obvious point that is often overlooked in our technophilic culture (I say this as someone writing in the U.S.).
For example, if you're fearing that computer automation will soon make humans obsolete, read this article from ADTmag.com, which reports on a study finding that "[t]he best in class software development projects are 3.37 times faster to market and 7.48 times cheaper than the worst." Management and technology approaches, not technology itself, constituted three out of the four factors that contributed to these results.
In other words, the best software development projects run as smoothly--and hence quickly and inexpensively--as they do primarily because of how people manage and execute those projects. Even in a field that has been driven so much by computer automation, there is substantial room for human expertise to make a significant real-world difference.
Posted by Robert at September 6, 2005 11:31 AM
category:
Technology Industry
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