Risk of New Technology

1
Risk of New Technology

• Topic 3

2
Risk of New Technology

• Technology
• The practical application of science to
  commerce or industry
• The discipline dealing with the art or science
  of applying scientific knowledge to practical
  problems
• Todays world is blessed with many existing and
  new technologies
• Some see it as an improvements in human life
• But some see it as a complication and a mess to
  human life

3
Risk of New Technology

• The nature of technology is rooted and shaped by
  the people.
• As demand of productivity and efficiency
  increases, better and better technology is
  developed and acquired
• Little that people know, the hidden costs that
  come along with those new technology
• Eg deeping inequality, social alienation and
  community dissolution

4
Risk of New Technology

• New things certainly have risks associated with
  them.
• Security risk
• Data and information being tapped by unintended
  party
• Reliability risk
• Loss of data and information due to computer
  failure
• privacy
• Loss of freedom and privacy via government
  surveillance
• health risks
• RSI and the biological effect of wireless
  radiation exposure
• The measurement of risk involved cannot be
  determined until the technology is applied.
• Estimated study of the impact does not disclose
  the real failure

5
Risk of New Technology

• New technologies should be looked at from two
  facets,
• first, how it impacts the life of individuals and
  
• secondly which is most importantly, at how it
  impacts the society as a whole.
• And new technologies should also be looked from
  two angles,
• The good side
• The bad side

6
Risk of New Technology

• As been mentioned so many times, computers and
  technology bring improvements to human life
• Communication become cheap
• Jobs and tasks become easier and handy
• For the society at large, computers and
  technology has changed
• Part of the Financial system
• Part of the economic activities
• Part of the society activities (hobby, leisure,
  social meetings, etc)
• But what about the other side of it?

7
Risk of New Technology

• Quite apart from the environmental and medical
  evils associated with them being produced and
  used, there are two moral judgement against
  computers. One is that computerization enables
  the large force of our civilization to operate
  more swiftly and efficiently in their pernicious
  goals of making money and producing things,.. And
  secondly, in the course of using these, these
  forces are destroying nature with more speed and
  efficiency than ever before
• Kirkpatrik Sale, Interview With the Luddites 1995

8
Risk of New Technology

• The microchip is made of silicon, or sand a
  natural resource that is in great abundance and
  has virtually no monetary value. Yet the
  combination of a few grains of this sand and the
  infinite inventiveness of the human mind has led
  to the creation of a machine that will both
  create trillions of dollars of added wealth for
  the inhabitants of the earth in the next century
  and will do so with incomprehensibly vast savings
  in physical labor and natural resources
• Stephen Moore, The Coming Age of Abundance 1995

9
Risk of New Technology

• Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
  Where is the knowledge we have lost in
  information?
• T.S. Eliot, Choruses from the Rock, 1934
• I have a spelling checker,
• It came with my PC.
• It plainly marks four my revue,
• Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
• Eye ran this poem threw it,
• Im sure your pleased too no,
• My checker tolled me sew.
• Jerrold H. Zar, Candidate for a Pullet Surprise
  1994

10
Risk of New Technology

• The Neo-Luddites View
• Computers cause massive unemployment and
  deskilling of jobs.
• Computers manufacture needs, that is, we use
  them just because they are there, not because
  they satisfy real needs.
• Computers cause social inequity
• Computers weaken communities and lead to
  isolation of people from each other
• Computers separate humans from nature and destroy
  the environment
• Computers benefit big business and big government
  most
• Thwart development of social skills, human
  values, and intellectual skills in school
  children. They will create an ominous uniformity
  of knowledge consistent with corporate values.

11
Risk of New Technology

• Who benefits most form the computers in society?
• Some believe it benefits the transnational
  corporations and centralized corporate power and
  kills off the small businesses.
• Some believe it actually benefits the small
  businesses to compete with the big corporate
  using the technology of the telecommunication,
  e-commerce.
• Some believe it benefits the government and do
  little to the ordinary citizens or workers.

12
Prohibiting Bad Technology

• Why?
• Technology alter the way people act
• Controversies about specific products, services,
  and applications of computer technology
• E.g. encryption, filters for web access, music
  sharing systems on the web, and surveillance
  camera.
• Who?
• Some proposed that technology should not be
  used at all until it has been studied, its
  consequences figured out, and a determination
  made that the consequences are acceptable.
• Therefore, if the analysis does not meet the
  criteria set by the government, the technology
  would not be permitted.
• In the end, its the society to decide