Technology

1
Technology Job Displacement

• Improving Lives
• Taking Lives

2
The Cultural Impact

• Most people welcome the notion that increased
  reliance on computers and information technology
  will change how we work and how we play. But what
  old and new issues will advancement cause?
  Technology is advancing at a rate well beyond our
  human capacity to cope with the moral and ethical
  dilemmas associated with it. Technology will
  challenge us to re-examine aspects of our lives
  and how we relate to others. The march of
  progress will also demand that we re-think how
  we receive health care, how our children learn,
  how the elderly remain connected to society, how
  government conducts their affairs, how ethnic
  groups preserve their heritage, whose voices are
  heard, even how nations are formed. Increased
  reliance on computers and information technology
  will present serious challenges poor people
  might get poorer and sicker criminals, insurance
  companies, and employers might invade our bank
  accounts, medical files and personal
  correspondence.
• Sheldon Ayers

3
The Past (The Bad)

• Industrial Revolution (1750-1850)
• Smaller, Machine-Automated Tasks
• Steam Engine
• Unseen Benefits
• Roads
• Between 1780 and 1840 the population of the
  United Kingdom doubled.

4
The Present (The Good)

• More, Better, Faster, Cheaper
• Telecommunications
• Productivity
• Automation

5
Productivity Software

• Word Processors let you create, edit, and print
  documents. Includes desktop publishing programs
  and spelling checkers.
• Spreadsheets let you build and analyze financial
  models, balance sheets, budgets, and other types
  of numerical models.
• Databases let you create, index, and access
  files, such as personnel records and mailing
  lists, as well as create and print reports.
• Graphics let you paint, draw, and design.
  Includes computer-aided design (CAD) and
  presentation graphics programs.
• Data Communications lets you communicate between
  computers. Includes Internet browsing, electronic
  mail, computer conferencing, and networking
  software.
• Integrated programs let you combine at least two
  productivity functions with the ability to share
  data among them.

6
Influenced Areas

• Education
• Medicine
• Experimental Research
• Design Architecture
• Media
• Government
• Many Others

7
The Present (The Bad)

• Job Loses Through
• Automation
• Outsourcing Immigration
• Robotics
• Expert Systems
• Costly results
• Re-Education
• Worker Alienation

8
The Numbers

• Employers will move about 3.3 million
  white-collar service jobs and 136 billion in
  wages overseas in the next 15 years.
• The Washington Post reported (12/1/02) that half
  of new workers in the decade of the 1990s were
  immigrants. This figure is stunning when
  considered with the new immigrants share of labor
  force growth in previous decades, i.e., 27
  percent in the 1980s and 10 percent in the 1970s.
  
• According to Time, outsourcing to India "accounts
  for less than 10 percent of the 2.3 million jobs
  lost in the U.S. over the past three years."
• Wired says one in 10 U.S. tech jobs will have
  left by the end of this year.
• Siemens Information Communications Networks in
  Lake Mary, Florida, replaced its entire IT
  department with employees of the Indian
  consulting company Tata, who worked at about a
  third of the Americans' salary.
• 40 percent of Americans have computers.

9
The Future (The Uncertain)

• Artificial Intelligence
• Neural Networks
• The Automated Factory

10
The Ethics

• Speed Problem
• Public vs. Individual
• National vs. Global
• Money
• Technological Evolution

11
Sources

• Ethics Technology by Herman T. Tavani
• www.bls.gov
• www.immigrationshumancost.org/text/job.html
• www.google.com
• www.nationalacademies.org/
• www.villagevoice.com/issues/0413/perlstein.php
• www.wiley.com/college/busin/icmis/oakman/home.htm
• www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/
  ota/disk3/1981/8109/810909.PDF
• www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/ units/1999/7

12
Questions

• Is it more ethical to improve the quality of life
  for the many or keep the few able to be useable?
• Should we let technology control the evolution of
  society and employment? Can we even stop the
  evolution?
• How will the spread of information-rich
  technologies change the nature of governments and
  businesses?
• Should government industrial policy support "high
  tech" development and innovation?
• Will the worldwide spread of information through
  computers and communications, especially with the
  Internet, lead to greater freedom for
  individuals?
• Are we programming our way out of jobs or into
  new ones?
• Is better technology only encouraged by our greed?