A complex systems view of advanced technologies

Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology and space. It’s easy to lump these fields together as advanced technologies. But they all operate very differently, they all need unique skill bases, and they all interlink in distinct ways. Take artificial intelligence (AI) for example. AI will play a role as an enabling technology in all these areas, but it’s also an advanced technology itself. Here in Aotearoa, do we want to become adept at creating AI as an advanced technology, or applying it to enable other advanced technologies? Or is it feasible and smart for us to try to do both?

To make decisions like these, we need to consider the talent we already have and need to grow in Aotearoa, the conditions that we need to create for people to develop fulfilling careers in these areas, the cost of developing these technologies, and the impact of our geographic location. We’re a long way from Silicon Valley, where some top AI engineers are being paid more than US$10 million a year.

Advanced technologies have become geopolitical assets. Have we focused on the advanced technologies that make sense with the strategic global partnerships that we have or want to create, or the resilience to geopolitical disruptions we need?

As we develop future technologies in Aotearoa New Zealand, they will impact humans and our environments in unexpected ways. Alongside research to ensure that we can rapidly leverage emerging technology to understand our world and make decisions, we also need to study the impact of these emerging technologies on humans and the environment – on Earth and beyond.

Grappling with these issues needs collaboration across disciplines, cultures, institutions and communities. The University of Auckland is growing a network of researchers skilled in these approaches by hosting Te Pūnaha Matatini, the Aotearoa New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence (CoREs) for complex systems. CoREs are inter-institutional research networks that support outstanding research that is collaborative, strategically aligned, and contributes to the advancement of Aotearoa.

The tools of complex systems can help us understand potential consequences as advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology and space travel develop and are applied at scale. 

Complex systems research can help reveal the underlying universal mechanisms of these developments and show us how they might affect our lives in the future. Understanding our country as a complex system will help us to understand the implications of focusing on specific advanced technologies.

Faculty of Science Postdoctoral Fellow Mackay Price is part of the Modelling for Impact Hub at Te Pūnaha Matatini, an ambitious project to model an entire country as a complex system. After building his modelling skills in wastewater epidemiology in the School of Environment, Mackay is now working with researchers across the country to develop a unique infrastructure for the models, algorithms and datasets created by Te Pūnaha Matatini researchers over more than a decade.

This infrastructure will be made available to researchers and practitioners to model or simulate aspects of life in Aotearoa – such as the impact of advanced technologies on the economy, environment and society.

In complex systems, small parts play vital roles. These systems are characterised by interconnections and feedback loops where a minor event can trigger widespread, unpredictable and sometimes dramatic consequences. We’re a small nation, and small players have important roles to play in developing these exciting new technologies. We know that we can strategically intervene at critical points to create significant change.

Taking a complex systems view to decisions around advanced technologies is useful for both economic and strategic reasons, often showing how technologies link to everything else that is feeding into the innovation system.

Almost 15 years after Paul Callaghan laid out a vision for Aotearoa as “the place where talent wants to live”, understanding the complex system that surrounds advanced technologies offers a way to realise this vision, with care for people and planet.

Markus Luczak-Roesch, Co-Director, Te Pūnaha Matatini