less humans, more robots

While globalization has witnessed the decline of U.S. dominance in manufacturing, energy and even finance, one thing had long been presumed unassailable: Good old American ingenuity.

Now it appears that’s not safe, either. China, whose industries have been envied in the West more for their tenacity than their ingenuity, has established a multi-year framework to become more innovative and, therefore, competitive. So has Singapore. Finland is merging its top business school, design school and technology school to create a multi-disciplinary “university of innovation” next year.

Council members of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering have “expressed concern that a weakening of science and technology in the United States would inevitably degrade its social and economic conditions and in particular erode the ability of its citizens to compete for high-quality jobs,” according to a 600-page report from the National Academies published in 2007 and titled, “Rising Above the Gathering Storm.”

The wild card these days is what will happen to innovation — the advance of progressive ideas in science, technology and business — now that the world economy is in a tailspin. The conventional wisdom might suggest that business, government and academia will be less willing to embrace the risk-taking and short-term costs that come with the territory of innovating.