The mechanism of individual technologies, both actual and possible ones, does not interest me much. [...] At times, frequently even, a technology is born from a

The mechanism of individual technologies, both actual and possible ones, does not interest me much. [...] At times, frequently even, a technology is born from an accident—like when one was looking for the philosopher’s stone but invented porcelain instead—but the role of intention, or conscious purpose, in all the causative efforts oriented toward technology increases with the growth of knowledge itself. In becoming more infrequent, surprises can actually reach almost apocalyptic dimensions. Stanisław Lem, Summa Technologiae