CONCEPT
The Technology Transfer Problem
Collins's documented finding that scientific and technical practices <em>cannot be fully transmitted through published documentation</em> — the receiving community must acquire collective tacit knowledge through direct social contact with the source community, or fail.
The technology transfer problem is one of Collins's foundational empirical findings, established through studies of how specific scientific and engineering capabilities have (and have not) moved between laboratories and nations. The paradigmatic case is his study of TEA lasers: American laboratories attempting to replicate British techniques in the 1970s had access to every published paper and specification, but could not make the lasers work. Success came only when British physicists traveled to American labs and worked alongside American researchers, transmitting tacit knowledge through direct social interaction. The published literature was necessary but not sufficient; the social transmission was indispensable.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The finding has become foundational in science studies and directly relevant to AI evaluation. If technical practices cannot be transmitted through documentation alone to humans with strong prior training, the question of whether they can be transmitted through training data to systems without such prior engagement becomes acute. Collins's framework suggests the answer is structural:
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