Knowledge and Digital Technology

Development happens as a society undergoes structural transformation. Structural change in a society's culture, institutions, and technologies is driven by new ways of thinking, new knowledge, and innovations. Although the latest wave of techno- logical change, often referred to as the fifth Kondratieff cycle (Schumpeter, 1961), has been transforming world society since the 1990s. Innovative uses of digital technology have continued to yield radical and disruptive changes. Digitization has been central to shaping new ways of observing (e.g., by collecting big data and augmenting reality), knowing (e.g., supported by machine learning), and transforming (e.g., by automation and robotics) our environment. As humanity uses its knowledge to advance technologies, which in turn have an effect on human knowledge and our ways of learning, we have dedicated this book to the reflexive relationship between knowledge and technology.