From the primordial soup to self-driving cars: standards and their role in natural and technological innovation

Abstract

Standards are specifications to which the elements of a technology must conform. Here, we apply this notion to the biochemical 'technologies' of nature, where objects like DNA and proteins, as well as processes like the regulation of gene activity are highly standardized. We introduce the concept of standards with multiple examples, ranging from the ancient genetic material RNA, to Palaeolithic stone axes, and digital electronics, and we discuss common ways in which standards emerge in nature and technology. We then focus on the question of how standards can facilitate technological and biological innovation. Innovation-enhancing standards include those of proteins and digital electronics. They share common features, such as that few standardized building blocks can be combined through standard interfaces to create myriad useful objects or processes. We argue that such features will also characterize the most innovation-enhancing standards of future technologies.

Keywords: evolution; innovation; technology.

Figure 1.

Three examples of standards in different domains. (a) The phosphodiester bond (dashed circle), a standard interface linking the nucleotide building blocks of RNA and DNA, such as the nucleotides containing adenine (‘A’) and guanine (‘G’) of this RNA example. (b) An ancestral Pueblo cooking pot. The exterior texture was created by combining the raw materials of pottery with techniques from basket weaving. ‘Corrugated’ vessels like this improve cooking control relative to older, plain-surfaced vessels. Courtesy of Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. (c) A standard NOR (‘not OR’) logic gate comprised four transistors. Millions of identical copies of this and a few other gate types are interconnected on a single integrated circuit to perform logical and arithmetic functions.