Three Laws of Technology Rise or Fall

TL;DR

This paper proposes three fundamental laws and five corollaries to explain the rise and fall of technologies, using the open-source RISC-V processor as a case study and emphasizing the role of benchmarks.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework of three laws and five corollaries to analyze technology dynamics, inspired by physical laws, and demonstrates their application to emerging technologies.

Findings

The laws effectively explain technology success and failure patterns.

Benchmarks are crucial in applying the laws to real-world technology analysis.

The framework provides a new perspective on technology lifecycle analysis.

Abstract

Newton's laws of motion perfectly explain or approximate physical phenomena in our everyday life. Are there any laws that explain or approximate technology's rise or fall? After reviewing thirteen information technologies that succeeded, this article concludes three laws of technology and derives five corollaries to explain or approximate the rise or fall of technology. Three laws are the laws of technology inertia, technology change force, and technology action and reaction. Five corollaries are the corollaries of measurement of technology change force, technology breakthrough, technology monopoly, technology openness, and technology business opportunity. I present how to use the laws and the corollaries to analyze an emerging technology -- the open-source RISC-V processor. Also, I elaborate on benchmarks' role in applying those laws.