From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Fri Jun 13 2003 - 19:27:24 MDT
http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250&
CID=1051-061203C
I spend a lot of time writing about science and technology, and my general
thrust has been one of promoting and defending science and technology. By most
standards, I am a technophile. Yet I find myself concerned by some of the
commentary presented by my fellow technophiles in various forums. In particular,
they (or we, because I don't think I'm immune to these tendencies) tend to take
expansive views about technology's potential to transform humanity and the
world, even when there is vast uncertainty about what that potential is.
My concerns crystallized after I read Arnold Kling's TCS article " which
argued that the march of technology is rapidly making the work of humanists
(experts on literature, philosophy and so on) irrelevant and obsolete. I debated
Kling in a few comments posted below his article, and the debate soon focused on
questions about technology and the Vietnam War.
But my broader objections were to the triumphal and sweeping tenor of his
article. In subsequent weeks, Kling has written several TCS pieces on current
issues in health care and education - and I have been tempted to post comments
asking why we should worry about such pedestrian issues, given that technology
is about to transform humanity anyway. (I decided to avoid such petty sniping,
of course.)
Speculating about the future of technology is part of any technophile
commentator's job description. But when technophiles assert, confidently and without
caveats, that vast change is in the offing, several dangers arise. One is that
technophobes will get undeserved material for presenting alarmist views, as
has been occurring in the debate over human genetic engineering. Another
concern is that overselling the product will lead to disappointment when the
promised results don't arise, fueling further public disenchantment with technology.
In addition, techno-hype can simply be a distraction when dealing with serious
issues involving technology.
In light of all this, I would like to suggest some guidelines that could be
helpful to technophiles in thinking and arguing about technology. These are
heuristics to be considered, not inflexible principles, and they are reminders to
myself as well as to others:
Extrapolate cautiously. The Wright brothers' original airplane in 1903 flew
at about 30 miles per hour. Just under 50 years later, two military aircraft
flew at over 1,600 miles per hour, more than twice the speed of sound. In the
mid-1970s, the supersonic Concorde began flying commercially, and military jets
pushed over Mach 3. Now, nearly 100 years after the first Wright flights, the
top military speeds are stable, and the Concorde is being mothballed. The
gains seen in the first half or three-quarters of the first century of flight
would have been a poor predictor of where aviation would be in 2003.
Remember failed predictions. Numerous technologies have failed to live up to
early expectations or speculations. Nuclear fusion and artificial intelligence
both fall into that category. Some hoped-for technologies, such as flying
cars or underwater cities, have failed to materialize at all. Meanwhile, the
important technologies that have emerged often have done so with little
expectation. In the late 1960s, the original Star Trek presented Ricardo Montalban's
villain Khan as a product of "selective breeding," rather than of the gene
splicing that emerged as a real technique the following decade.
Think negatively sometimes. Economists are adept at considering costs and
constraints. Physicists are good at it, too, being quick to notice, for example,
when a proposed energy device violates the laws of thermodynamics.
Speculations about future technologies become more credible when they take into account
possible physical, economic, social or political hurdles to their
actualization. Technologies also may carry crucial tradeoffs against other technologies or
goals. Hydrogen fuel-cell cars and electric-battery cars are unlikely both to
become major forms of transportation (even if either one ever does).
Consider low-tech options. Not everyone has the inclination or the means to
be on the technological cutting edge. Being focused on technology, technophiles
may overlook alternative methods that, for better or worse, might come into
use. During the conflict in Somalia in the 1990s, U.S. intelligence efforts
were frustrated by the enemy militias' use of low-powered radios (and lower-tech
drums) invulnerable to satellite interception.
Visit Monument Valley. This scenic Arizona-Utah area of mesas and buttes is
worth the trip. But it's also an interesting metaphor, as used by physicist
James Trefil in his book Are We Unique?: A Scientist Explores the Unparalleled
Intelligence of the Human Mind. Trefil argued that any future intelligent
computers would likely be very different from humans; they might outthink us in some
ways but fall short in others - much as Monument Valley's structures differ
from each other, rather than being adequately ranked by height. The Monument
Valley metaphor provides a valuable perspective on the possibility that genetic
engineering or other techniques could create "posthumans." But it's also a
helpful way of thinking about technology in general. Innovations do not
necessarily outperform, in every way, everything that came before.
Beware the horseshoe. It is sometimes suggested that the political spectrum
is like a horseshoe, in which the extremes are much closer to each other than
they are to the center. A similar argument could be made about the spectrum of
opinion regarding technology. Among both technophiles and technophobes, there
are fervent believers in the proposition that technology is about to radically
change the world and humanity. The disagreement is mainly about whether this
is a good thing. If you are a technophile who shares certain key assumptions
with technophobes, that doesn't necessarily mean you and they are wrong in
those assumptions. But it's a possibility you might want to consider.
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