MIT271b: Technology

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MIT271bTechnology Human Values

• January 15, 2002
• Invention and Luddism

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Administration

• Essay option
• one longer essay (7-10pp. 40)
• instead of the two short essays
• (2-3pp. 10 5-7pp. 30)
• Tests not multiple choice
• Long answer
• Taken from a list of study questions distributed
  in advance

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ONTOLOGYWhat is technology?

• Contrast with nature
• Means to an end / purposeful / functional having
  a purpose, end, or value for which it is intended
  or used
• Most generally intended and used to increase
  freedom and power

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Children of Inventionby Morton Winston

• Technology creates new opportunities for human
  flourishing and new ways of life, which in turn
  create new social and ethical problems (children
  of invention)
• We will also be considering aesthetic and
  epistemological problems raised by technology

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The Scope of Technology

• End-product artifacts
• Tools machines and processes
• Agents scientists, engineers and technicians
• Social support purposeful organization
• Technology df the organization of knowledge,
  people and things to accomplish specific
  practical goals

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Technological systems consist of

1. Human activity form techniques and practices
2. Resources, tools materials
3. Artifacts
4. Ends/ functions/ valences
5. Background knowledge and skills
6. Social organization
7. NOTE 4 5 provide background to the 4 elements
   of the scope of technology

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1. Human activity form

• Use of natural objects or tools
• Procedural knowledge or know-how
• Increases human capacities and powers

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2. Resource well

• Original states or natural states that are acted
  upon
• Includes the built environment or physical
  infrastructure

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3. Artifacts

• Interaction effect artifacts may act as tools
  and resources for further technology

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4. Valences (VALUES)

• Typical or intended uses
• May be independent of actual use of a particular
  item
• Generally INSTRUMENTAL VALUE, serving human needs
  and desires

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5. Knowledge and skills

• Necessary background
• About the other aspects
• Resources
• Techniques
• Valences
• Social systems

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6. Social context

• For development, distribution and employment of
  technologies
• Includes social artifacts institutions that
  divide and coordinate labour
• Sophisticated cognitive techniques

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Technological Revolutions

• From hunter-gatherer societies requiring only
  simple portable technologies for
• Shelter
• Hunting
• Gathering
• Cooking
• Transportation
• Defense

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Agricultural Revolution8000 BC

• Allowed settled, communities (civilization)
• Advantages
• More food, so greater population density
• Greater population density allowed for
  coordinated efforts and specialized skills
• No need for portability
• Disadvantages
• More work to maintain higher, more complex
  standard of living
• Emergence of morality, law, religion, records,
  mathematics, astronomy, class structures,
  patriarchy

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Industrial Revolution1700s

• Steam engine, then gasoline-driven combustion
  engine
• More specialized division of labour and of
  knowledge each worker needed fewer skills
• Less expensive goods, so increased standard of
  living
• Infrastructure for transportation

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Luddites standard view

• English workers in 1811-1816, protested the
  changes of the Industrial Revolution that they
  felt threatened their jobs
• Often destroyed machines.

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Ned Ludd

• Perhaps fictional Man who destroyed two large
  stocking-frames that produced inexpensive
  stockings undercutting those produced by skilled
  knitters. Because he was feeble-minded, he was
  not prosecuted.
• A.k.a "King Ludd and General Ludd referred to
  by luddites (to avoid prosecution?).

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Luddites other views

• Opposition may not have been to technological
  change, but to the free market luddites wanted
  to protect their skills and livelihoods
• NOW luddite and luddism refer to anyone who
  opposes industrial technology, or technology more
  generally
• E.g. Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, including
  bomb sent to Yale computer scientist David
  Gelernter

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Knowledge Revolution20th century

• Better record keeping and communication
• Flexible, programmable tools allow more
  customized short production runs, so supply can
  more accurately follow demand
• Better scheduling and inventory control provides
  basis for geographically distributed production
  systems (globalization)
• Increased need for specialized education

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Kaczynski 3 possibilities

• 1. The human race might easily permit itself to
  drift into a position of such dependence on the
  machines that it would have no practical choice
  but to accept all of the machines decisions. As
  society and the problems that fact it become more
  and more complex and machines become more and
  more intelligent, people will let machines make
  more of their decisions for them, simply because
  machine-made decisions will bring better results
  than man-made ones.

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• Eventually, a stage may be reached at which the
  decisions necessary to keep the system running
  will be so complex that human beings will be
  incapable of making them intelligently.
• 2. A tiny elite will eliminate the rest of
  humanity.
• 3. A tiny elite will engineer a purposeless and
  therefore harmless humanity, like domesticated
  animals.

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Ray Kurzweil The New Luddite Challenge

• New jobs are on a higher level and increasingly
  involved with education
• Need a viable alternative to the nightmare
  envisioned by luddites such as Kaczynski
• Cant drop technologythere is too little nature
  left to return to
• Education will reach a human limit, but will be
  human competence will be extended by merging with
  the technology

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Evaluating Technology

• Different forms of value and relations to
  intrinsic value reveal how complicated it is to
  assess the value of technology
• These distinctions may nevertheless help clarify
  the conflicts among the various costs and
  benefits of technology.

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EPISTEMOLOGYTechnology Science

• TRADITIONAL VIEW
• Science pure, value-free pursuit of knowledge
• Technology matter of arts and crafts
• MODERN/ENLIGHTENMENT VIEW
• Empirical investigation as a means to knowledge,
  aided by technology
• Development of technology aided by scientific
  education
• Science systematic empirical inquiry
• Technology production of functional objects and
  systems

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AESTHETICSTechnology Beauty

• Improved standards of living can include more
  leisure time, better access to recreation and
  pleasant experiences
• Greater ease of performing tasks itself is a type
  of beauty

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ETHICSTechnology and Morality

• With power comes responsibility, and a new range
  of choices about how we live our lives
• Immediate questions raised by biotechnology

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4 kinds of ethical concerns arising from
technology

1. Whether and how new technologies should be used
   (esp. medical)
2. Aggregate responsibility (e.g. pollution,
   depletion of resources)
3. Distributive justice certain groups alone may
   be advantaged
4. Changing relationship to nature and other animals

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5 characteristics of technological dangers

1. Result of aggregate action
2. Not direct harms, but increased risks that are
   hard to detect
3. Impact far into the future
4. Affect not only humans but other forms of life
   and the environment
5. Affect no particular communities, but all of
   humanity.