Delays in technology development: Their impact on the issues of determinism, autonomy and controllability of technology

Abstract

This chapter presents a discussion of diverse delays in the processes of technology development. The concept of delay has a technical meaning here, related to the theory of automatic control. A delay in a dynamic system is the interval of time between the start of an action and the observation of its effects (first or advanced effects, this distinguishes pure delay from inertial delay). This chapter is based on the paper (Wierzbicki 2008), with modifications.