Technology and Human Values: Science, Technology, and Society

Fundamental Perspectives on Nature and Technology

• Modern Phenomena: There is a persistent tension represented icons graphically as "Nature vs. Technology," highlighting two concurrent modern phenomena: the destruction of nature and the growth of technology.

• Philosophical Stance on Human Evolution: Christopher Potter, in How To Make A Human Being, argues that "Humans never were part of nature. We were always part of technology."

• The Procreation of Invention: Morton Winston, in Children of Invention Revisited, poses the rhetorical question: "If necessity is the mother of invention, who is the father, and who, or what, are invention’s children?"

• The Ascent of Civilization: According to Morton Winston, the transition from the Stone Age to our current global technological civilization (Caveman to Cosmonauts) was driven by:     * Intelligence: Described as "Superior."     * Motivations: Human needs and desires serve as the propulsion for discovery and invention.     * Creativity: Scientific and technological creativity guides development through theories, tools, and inventions that transform methods of living and working.

Defining Technology

• Etymology: The word comes from "techne," meaning art, craft, or skill.

• The Five-Fold Definition (Morton Winston/Oregon State University):     1. Technological System: The comprehensive system consisting of the technological process, objects, knowledge, developers, users, and the emerging worldview that drives the process.     2. Subset: A specific group of related technological objects and knowledge.     3. Knowledge Base: The facts and procedures required to order and manipulate matter, energy, and information, including the discovery of new transformation methods.     4. Set of Means: The collection of tools, devices, systems, methods, and procedures created by the technological process.     5. Rational Process: The intentional process of creating means to transform matter, energy, and information to achieve specific valued ends.

• Summary Definition: Technological systems are defined as the complex of techniques, knowledge, and resources employed by humans to create material and social artifacts serving functions perceived as useful or desirable relative to human interests in social contexts.

• Structural Aspects of Technology:     1. Skills, techniques, human activity-forms, or sociotechnical practices.     2. Resources, tools, and materials.     3. Technological products or artifacts.     4. Ends, intentions, or functions.     5. Background knowledge.     6. Social contexts (design, development, use, and disposal).

Technological Revolutions in Human History

• Agricultural Revolution ($8000\,BC$):     * Impact: Allowed for the establishment of settled communities and the birth of civilization.     * Advantages: Increased food production led to greater population density, which enabled coordinated efforts and specialized skills. It removed the requirement for portability characteristic of nomadic life.     * Disadvantages: Required significantly more work to maintain a higher, more complex standard of living.     * Social Emergence: Led to the development of morality, law, religion, record-keeping, mathematics, astronomy, class structures, and patriarchy.

• Industrial Revolution ($1700s$):     * Key Inventions: Development of the steam engine, followed by the gasoline-driven combustion engine.     * Societal Shifts: Created a more specialized division of labor and knowledge; individual workers required fewer comprehensive skills. It led to less expensive goods, an increased standard of living, and infrastructure for transportation.

• Knowledge Revolution ($20th\,Century$):     * Advancements: Improved record-keeping and communication.     * Production: Flexible programmable tools allowed for customized short production runs, aligning supply more accurately with demand.     * Logistics: Better scheduling and inventory control facilitated geographically distributed production systems (globalization).     * Education: Created an increased need for highly specialized education.

Opposition to Technological Progress: Luddism

• The Historical Luddites ($1811$–$1816$):     * Identity: English weavers and textile workers who opposed the introduction of mechanized looms and knitting frames.     * Motivation: As highly trained artisans, they viewed new machinery as a threat to their livelihoods. When the government offered no support, they resorted to destroying the machines.

• The Figure of Ned Ludd:     * Origin Story: Potentially fictional, Ned Ludd was said to be a young apprentice who destroyed textile apparatus in $1779$.     * Persona: Known as "King Ludd" or "General Ludd," he was famously referred to in a $1811$ poster offering a reward of $50\,guineas$ for information on "evil-minded persons" breaking frames.     * Historical Footnote: Descriptions sometimes characterized him as "feeble-minded," which supposedly saved him from prosecution after he destroyed two large stocking-frames producing inexpensive stockings.

The Case of the Unabomber (Theodore Kaczynski)

• Criminal History ($1978$–$1995$): Kaczynski conducted a series of bombings using increasingly sophisticated homemade explosive devices. His actions resulted in $3$ deaths and injuries to nearly two dozen individuals.

• The Manifesto: Titled Industrial Society and Its Future (sent to The New York Times and The Washington Post in June $1995$ by "FC"), Kaczynski demanded publication under threat of continued violence.

• Kaczynski's Core Arguments:     * Disaster for Humanity: He argued the Industrial Revolution made life unfulfilling, caused psychological suffering, and damaged the natural world despite increasing life expectancy in "advanced" countries.     * Loss of Autonomy: If the industrial-technological system survives, humans will eventually be reduced to "engineered products" and "cogs in the social machine."     * Advocacy for Revolution: He advocated for a revolution against the economic and technological basis of society, rather than a political one.

• Three Predicted Possibilities:     1. Machine Dependence: Humans drift into such dependence on intelligent machines that they have no choice but to accept all machine-made decisions, as the system becomes too complex for human intelligence.     2. Elite Elimination: A tiny elite may choose to eliminate the rest of humanity.     3. Elite Domesticaton: A tiny elite will engineer a purposeless, harmless humanity similar to domesticated animals.

Automation and the Future of Work

• The New Luddite Challenge (Ray Kurzweil):     * Higher-Level Jobs: Argues that new jobs involve higher-level education.     * No Return to Nature: Kurzweil notes we cannot abandon technology because "there is too little nature left to return to."     * Human-Machine Merger: Suggests that when human education reaches its limit, competence will be extended by merging with technology.

• Historical Trends in Automation:     * Legacy: Machines have displaced workers for centuries (e.g., the spinning jenny, elevator buttons, the Internet).     * Impact ($1990$–$2007$): One study estimated $400,000$ jobs lost to automation in U.S. factories.     * Modern Acceleration: The drive to replace humans is accelerating due to the need to avoid workplace infections (e.g., COVID-19) and lower operating costs.

• Perceptions of Job Replacement:     * $41\%$ of respondents believe technology could perform more than $60\%$ of their job.     * $24\%$ believe technology could perform $81\%$–$100\%$ of their job.

• Augmented Intelligence: A concept where AI is used to expand the workforce and improve performance rather than simply replacing it, characterized as a collaborative effort in the service of humans.

Scientism and Its Critiques

• Definitions:    

* Science: An activity seeking to explore the natural world using empirical, quantifiable, and falsifiable methods.

* Scientism: An exaggerated trust in the efficacy of natural science methods applied to all areas of investigation (philosophy, social sciences, humanities).

: It is a philosophical position claiming legitimate knowledge is attained solely through the scientific method.

• Roots of Scientism:

• * Scientific Revolution (17th Century): Stemming from Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, and Galileo Galilei.     * Philosophical Shift: Claims that science could enhance life, promote moral improvement, and even substitute for religion.

• Positivism (Auguste Comte):     * Argues sociology should only concern itself with sensory observations.     * The Law of Three Stages:         1. Theological or fictitious.         2. Metaphysical or abstract.         3. Scientific or positive state.

• Critiques from Famous Writers: G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) noted the dark side of scientific and technological progress.

• C.S. Lewis’s Case Against Scientism:     1. Similarity to Magic: Both suggest a quest for power over the world.     2. Religion: Science can provide a surrogate sense of meaning.     3. Credulity: Modern people believe almost anything if presented in the name of science.     4. Power: Lewis warned of a "new oligarchy" of scientists where politicians become mere puppets of scientific advisors.

• Problems with Scientism:     * Self-Defeating: The claim that "only science provides knowledge" is itself a philosophical/epistemological claim, not a scientific one.     * Narrowing Inquiry: It limits the realm of rational inquiry and reduces the perspective on the human experience.

• Modern Expressions of Scientism (Quotes):     * Carl Sagan: "The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be."     * Bertrand Russell: "What science cannot discover, mankind cannot know."     * Stephen Hawking: "Philosophy is dead… Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery."     * E.O. Wilson: "Having discovered that we are alone, we owe the gods very little."