The social control of technology

Abstract

The control of technology is a pressing problem, as its benefits are often accompanied by unforeseen negative consequences. The difficulty in controlling technology arises from the mismatch between our deep technical understanding of the material world and our poor understanding of the social implications of that knowledge. It is impossible to predict the social effects of a technology early in its development. However, by the time those social effects become apparent, the technology is often too deeply embedded in the social and economic fabric to be easily controlled. This is what the author calls the “dilemma of control”. The author argues that instead of trying to improve our ability to predict the social consequences of technology, we should focus on finding ways to maintain the ability to control a technology even after it is fully developed and widely used. To that end, the author develops a theory of decision-making under “ignorance”, which calls for making decisions that are reversible, corrigible, and flexible. The book then presents several case studies to illustrate the theory, highlighting how entrenched positions, competition, lead times, and scale all contribute to the inflexibility of mature technologies. – AI-generated abstract.