Global and Social Issues in Engineering ENGR 195B – Lecture 6 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Low-Power Human System Tech Favorable Conditions Tech Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Unfavorable Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Dr. Gregory Courand gregory.courand@sjsu.edu 3/12/2021 Our Primary Representation Innovative Technology Evolving Society and its Recurring Activities Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) Our primary representation – key social interdependencies among three kinds of actors (technologists, conceptualizers, and all others) We can call this an artifactual system – artifacts play a central role in the evolution of the human system, and the concepts that are created Tech with political qualities “Artifactual time” is the concept of time within the artifactual system of the clockmakers, monasteries and villages, and emerging scientists gregory.courand@sjsu.edu The Generative Basis for Artifactual Systems Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Human Generative System Society’s Conditions Tech Behave to satisfy 𝛅 The human generative system is the system of actors, with technology, and abilities to monitor, evaluate, and behave/act to influence conditions Cycles here – responding to changing conditions, working toward goals, adjusting self to better fit into social formations – are all on behalf of the actor’s criteria 𝛅 Human generative systems follow routines, so that conditions recur ... and also, design and choose when conditions permit or require Conditions: physical (resources), social (relationships among actors), and mental (beliefs) The “artifactual system” is the aggregated result of individually-generated actions, through time gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Contrasting Our Two Representations = Ways to THINK ABOUT Our Subject Innovative Technology Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Evolving Society Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) and its Recurring Activities Human Generative System Society’s Conditions gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Tech Behave to satisfy 𝛅 This is our primary view of social structure at a point in time – the three key kinds of actor systems, for our interest in technologies that strongly influence social systems as well as our primary concepts (of things, people, values, ...). So it is a way to stress the key pieces, and note that they coevolve. We call this representation the “artifactual system.” This represents that actors have abilities (behavior generators, which may employ technology), and that how we behave, and what we focus our attention on, depends on embodied criteria 𝛅. Every behavior is the manifestation of our skillful ability, seeking to satisfy our criteria = seeking to create and preserve some conditions we value. The artifactual representation is the summary of individual humans acting out of this representation to create and defend their conditions. We use this representation to depict conflict among actors (due to seeking different values), differences in power (actors who can influence the conditions of others, and not the reverse), and also that powerful technology can strongly and durably affect conditions. Evolution of Artifactual Systems in Relation to Technology Innovative Technology (t1) Innovative Technology (t2) Evolving Society and its Recurring Activities (t1) Evolving Society and its Recurring Activities (t2) Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) (t1) Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) (t2) Society and concepts change under the influence of a potent technology, and sometimes, under the powerful exercise of a ‘regular’ technology gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Evolution of Artifactual Systems is NOT Neutral Innovative Technology (t1) Innovative Technology (t2) Evolving Society Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) (t1) Evolving Society Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) (t2) and its Recurring Activities (t1) and its Recurring Activities (t2) For the artifactual system centered on clocks and monasteries, the various influences were basically all to the good ... however, the evolution of artifactual systems is not neutral Powerful technologies can have a strong influence on social arrangements • e.g., centralized authority and a police/military apparatus (nuclear power) versus distributed authority and local control (solar power) • the arrangements, once in place, may be VERY durable Powerful actors can manipulate systems – serving personal interests at the expense of others gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Poll: What was Robert Moses After? Which of these conditions did Robert Moses most want to create? A. Automated tomato harvesting B. Extensive new transportation infrastructure (bridges) in Manhattan C. Fixing building entrances to enable access for the handicapped D. Racial segregation E. Pneumatic molding machines for the manufacture of grain reapers gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Before We Get to Artifacts with Political Qualities, What is ”Politics?” Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Human Generative System Society’s Conditions Tech Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Politics is our name for social-choice processes – how we set the conditions and relationships our society will have, enforce, and allow • Power, wealth, access, influence, self-determination A social choice is a choice whose decisions, actions, and outcomes may affect many stakeholder actors • We could say a social choice is fair if stakeholders get to participate, at least according to how much the consequences may affect them gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Sample Social Choice (Political) Processes Voting for and appointing people to key roles Voting on projects, infrastructure, education, hospitals, services, tax rates, ... Advocacy: bringing concerns and interests to the public’s consciousness Creating access rules – who gets to participate Creating process rules – how things will be decided Gaining endorsements, mobilizing others, building a movement, ... Proposing key choices, outlining the options, articulating consequences Any activity that creates new forms of authority or power gregory.courand@sjsu.edu The Most Influential Social Choices Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Human Generative System Society’s Conditions Tech Behave to satisfy 𝛅 The most influential social choices have strong influence over society’s conditions, • social relationships • who has the power to decide what Many key social choices are not made by society! Sometimes we put people in roles, such that the person in the role is empowered to choose for others over some domain • Supreme Court • NYC city planning commissioner gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Most Social Choice Processes are Messy, Some are Harmful Many or even most social choice processes are messy and even harmful to some populations ... not just conflicting values, but also barriers to participation, and differing influence among participants Powerful actors ‘rig the game’ – creating conditions that limit the activities, social arrangements, and choices of others Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Low-Power Human System Tech Favorable Conditions Tech Unfavorable Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Technology with “Political Qualities” – Moses’ Bridges A regular bridge/overpass is just a bridge/overpass – as technology, it is not political When a technology is deployed to strongly bias a social choice process, we say it has political qualities • Especially, radically changing the ability of some actors to choose • what we observe: actors with values X are able to harm a population with values Y = enforce negative conditions per values Y Moses created an abnormal bridge/overpass • This created conditions that prevented one population from choosing a recreation activity, while enabling another to choose it and so have a particular experience • Equally, he created an asymmetric ability to choose With Langdon Winner, we can say these abnormal bridges/overpasses had political qualities gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Contests of Values: Wielding Power Over Others Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Tech Favorable Conditions Low-Power Human System Tech Unfavorable Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Robert Moses built Manhattan bridges lower than normal – a way of ensuring that whites could get to the Jones Beach recreation area whereas non-whites probably could not • Value: racial segregation • Power: his position enabled him to control infrastructure projects • Conditions: low bridges, almost all whites at Jones Beach, whites making incorrect inferences (we, not POC, like the beach), POC inferring “more white prejudice” Cyrus McCormick introduced pneumatic molding machines as a way to break the labor union • Value: absolute control over labor, over the long term • Power: great wealth, and industry leadership • Conditions: feeling of unfairness, threats to livelihood, thoughts of competing with machines and loss of traditional skills gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Contests of Values: Wielding Power Over Others Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Tech Favorable Conditions Low-Power Human System Tech Unfavorable Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Russian operatives interfered with the US 2016 election • Value: projected Russian global influence under a Trump vs. Clinton presidency • Power: license (highest-level authority sanctions) to exploit complacent and silo’d US electorate mindsets • Conditions: breached technology; widespread confusion and anger, leading to increased polarization between conservatives and liberals; revealed flaws and limits of social media tech gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Never Presume It’s Just One Bad Actor ... Social Choices Inhabit Social Systems ”White Privilege” Institution Manhattan Businesses, Communities Tax/Legislation Authorities Robert Moses Civil Engineers Bridge Builders gregory.courand@sjsu.edu The Effects of Social Choices Can Be VERY Long-Lived Some technologies introduce important new social arrangements that cannot be undone ... these technologies have INHERENTLY political qualities ... the nuclear power / nuclear weapons complex cannot be set aside ... a decentralized energy grid to replace the current centralized A/C power grid ...advances in weapons systems (nuclear, chem, bio, killer drones, the next airframe) ... these cannot be undone and lead to arms races ... super-intelligent AI ... bioengineering gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Inherently Political Qualities, Defined Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Tech Favorable Conditions Low-Power Human System Tech Unfavorable Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Let us suppose that a technology forces a change in social arrangements; it is not compatible with present social relationships Then some actors are disrupted: their values are threatened, harmed, or no longer satisfied This triggers political behavior – social choice processes in which arguments are made for what matters, and how society should be arranged ... a defense of the old ways, or demands for a suitable position in the new system We see from this that the technology is the manifestation of some conflicting values – the technology embodies, expresses, crystallizes, or is the emblem of new, incompatible values (values of the actors who develop/deploy the technology) The inherently political qualities of the technology are those features of the technology that sit between the values that are being promoted, and the values that are being disrupted – they launch the conflict and so the political behavior gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Jia Jia, and Geminoid DK ... Technologies with Inherently Political Qualities ... What Do They Mean for Social Choice? What values are being expressed here? We are going here. What new conditions are created? Who wins? Who loses? Who is having the most influence, and who is marginalized? gregory.courand@sjsu.edu “Gateway Choices” for Humanity Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Tech Desired Conditions Collective Human System Tech Enduring Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Scientists created atomic weapons, requiring a very large public apparatus (military protection, a scientific community, intelligence methods and means, ...) • Value: US victory in WWII, ending the conflict with less loss of life • Power: small, secret, high-intensity project of scientific and military establishment • Conditions: we cannot put this genie back in the lamp President Kennedy commissioned NASA Engineers to land and safely return a manned mission to the Moon, which they did successfully, altering history • Value: American dominance over USSR, prestige • Power: Presidential authority in cold war, NASA’s purpose • Conditions: humankind sees space as its birthright and next challenge Note these social choices depended on a few people with great power gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Political Qualities of Technology Shape Transfer Between Cultures When technology crosses into a new culture it can disrupt the existing tech, human practices, and understandings of the ‘receiving’ culture ... such that social choice processes are activated We can ask: CULTURE ALPHA Technology and its Recurring Activities Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) What conditions are challenged? What experiences change? What actor relations are threatened? Aided? CULTURE BETA Technology and its Recurring Activities Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) What social choices emerge? How are social choice processes affected? gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Essentials on Reflection Paper #2 Consider whether or not some technology (of your choice) possess inherently political qualities. Do research on how that technology has influenced the political behavior of another country's people outside of the US and Canada (that is, how and where they work, how they think, how they live, how they form organizations and institutions, etc.), regardless of where that technology was first designed and developed. I will send out a note with methods to think about how a technology may disrupt a culture = how it may carry values (inherently political qualities) that (a) are at odds with established values of the culture (b) create or remove important possible futures (c) change the willingness or ability of some actors to participate in political activity (contribute to or influence social choices) any/all of which triggers or influences actual political activities in the form of key social choices or choice processes gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Advanced Notes gregory.courand@sjsu.edu The Contest of Values 2: Meaning No Harm, but Looking Narrowly Participants, Stakeholders, Gatekeepers Social Choice Processes Designers unintentionally created standard accesses to buildings, inadvertently barring the handicapped from many types of social participation • Value: design for what’s normal ... special characteristics and the values of the handicapped ‘invisible’ • Power: standard economic arrangements Researchers transformed tomato harvesting for sound economic reasons, influenced the tomato genome, and upended harvesting communities • Value: the research problems and the economic potential (progress!) ... plus harvesters had no say in the process • Power: large agribusiness funding and ambitions It does not have to look like a contest for the values of stakeholders to lose out gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Details of Values Infrastructure Centered on Robert Moses ... The Ethical Part Actor 𝛅 = core criterion Manhattan and surrounding Use road/recreation communities and businesses infrastructure for wide range (whites and non-whites) of personal and business purposes Taxation and Legislative Authority Create funds to develop Manhattan infrastructure Robert Moses Develop Manhattan road, bridge, and recreation infrastructure Civil/structural Engineers Design bridges/overpasses per terrain, budget, guiding specs Bridge Builders Implement the design for $ gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Details of Values Infrastructure Centered on Robert Moses ... The UN-Ethical Part Actor 𝛅 = core criterion Bigoted white population in US (”White Privilege” institution) Manhattan and surrounding communities and businesses (all whites and non-whites) Manhattan and surrounding communities and businesses (bigoted whites) 𝛅’ = unethical criteria Enjoy (and for some, protect) “white privilege” Use road/recreation infrastructure for wide range of personal and business purposes Taxation and Legislative Authority Create funds to develop Manhattan infrastructure Robert Moses Develop Manhattan road, bridge, and recreation infrastructure Civil/structural Engineers Design bridges/overpasses per terrain, budget, guiding specs Bridge Builders Implement the design for $ Have exclusive use of recreation sites Distort infrastructure specs, etc., to enforce segregation gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Extending Winner’s Analysis: Sensitivity to Unknown and Rare Events We are sensitive to risks – some entirely unknown, some known but not ‘scaled’ • Designing without all the relevant variables (and so around some values while leaving out others) • Setting a choice horizon too soon • Being unaware of potentially emergent conditions owing to large-scale use • Putting technologies in place and monitoring only for their ongoing operational requirements (e.g., not detecting new phenomena, anomalies) • Being unmindful of the weaknesses bad actors can exploit, by not thinking about their aims and how they might seek to serve them with our tech If risks actualize, (as Winner notes) we may subject ourselves to extreme responses gregory.courand@sjsu.edu The Elements of a Social Choice I Optional Actions Results Value of Each Possible Result Overall Option Value Each element depends on who gets to participate in the social choice process gregory.courand@sjsu.edu The Elements of a Social Choice as Formed by Participants Optional Actions I Information about initial conditions Optional Actions and their cost to enact Results Outcome conditions that may result from implementing an optional action under the initial conditions Value of Each Possible Result Costs, benefits, consequences of the possible results for each option Overall Option Value Overall value for each optional action ... best option = “decision” Each element depends on who gets to participate in the social choice process gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Actors Choose in Ways that Limit the Choices of Others – Robert Moses: Jones Beach Part 1 Regular Bridges Whites in cars Nonwhites in buses Jones Beach Low Bridges Whites in cars No buses, no nonwhites Desired attendance, usual bridge cost Undesired attendance, usual bridge cost Desired attendance, ~higher bridge cost Desired attendance, ~higher bridge cost Mixed overall value High overall value gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Actors Choose in Ways that Limit the Choices of Others – Robert Moses: Jones Beach Part 2 Block Mass Transit Whites in cars No mass transit, no non-whites Jones Beach, low bridges Implement Mass Transit Whites in cars Nonwhites on mass transit Desired attendance, budget saved, ’political’ cost High overall value Desired attendance, budget saved, ‘political’ cost Desired attendance, expensive project Undesired attendance, expensive project Mixed overall value gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Any Part of a Social Choice Can be Manipulated! I Optional Actions Results Valuation of a Prospect Option Value Starting conditions others have to live with; what counts as relevant information What is allowed as an option Forecasts of results and their probability; the horizon (how far out we look) Who gets to weigh in on value; focusing on technical and economic but not social consequences Who gets to decide, and by what process gregory.courand@sjsu.edu ENGR 195B – Lecture 5 Global and Social Issues in Engineering Langdon Winner: “Technologies as Forms of Life”, cont. Dr. Gregory Courand gregory.courand@sjsu.edu 3/5/2021 Our Primary Representation Innovative Technology Evolving Society and its Recurring Activities Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) Winner asks us to see the subtle shaping ... as our technology changes it isn’t that we simply have a new tool, to take up, use, and put down ... rather, we are becoming a different sort of human (human system) ... with different ways of understanding our world and others gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Poll on “Technologies as Forms of Life” What does Langdon Winner mean by a technology being a “form of life?” A. Once a technology is born, it takes on a life of its own ... and some technologies do seem to be taking over the world B. A technology becomes so much a part of human activities that we cannot imagine ourselves without it ... it becomes part of our identity C. Technologies are beginning to interact directly with other technologies, like the “internet of things” – lifeforms touching other lifeforms D. Technologies are starting to look like, and act like, human beings E. Biotechnologies – genetic engineering of the human genome, and using biological systems to produce human products – is where the future is headed gregory.courand@sjsu.edu What Does it Mean, to Work Next to a Robot? “The introduction of a robot to an industrial workplace not only increases productivity, but often radically changes the process of production, redefining what “work” means in that setting.” gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Are You Always the Same Patient in the Same Process? “When a sophisticated new technique or instrument is adopted in medical practice, it transforms not only what doctors do, but also the ways people think about health, sickness, and medical care.” gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Tech Change Introduces Role Change “The construction of a technical system that involves human beings as operating parts brings a reconstruction of social roles and relationships. Often this is a result of a new system’s own operating requirements: it simply will not work unless human behavior changes to suit its form and process.” gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Human Self-Understanding Can Change in a Singular, Dramatic, or Pervasive Way “What is needed is an interpretation of the ways, both obvious and subtle, in which everyday life is transformed by the mediating role of technical devices. ... Individual habits, perceptions, concepts of self, ideas of space and time, social relationships, and moral and political boundaries have all been powerfully restructured in the course of modern technological development.” gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Culture ≡ {schemata} ... ~learned mimetically Performance, Language, Role, Actor Constraints O u t pu Proto t cols **Activity to Perform** A ct i v a ti o Proto n cols “We carry within us highly structured anticipations about entities that appear to participate, if only minimally, in forms of life and associated language games* that are parts of human culture.” **Value/Completion Statement** T T Context conditions (physical, social, mental), including resources, tools/technology Influence link T Task (or, encapsulated context-task graph) Manage indeterminacy (reduce uncertainty, ambiguity; resolve conflict; plan/design; choose) * Wittgenstein: “the speaking of language is a part of an activity, or of a form of life.” Criteria served by schema T Technology gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Technology Shifts à Labor Shifts à Form of Life Shifts à ‘Consciousness’ Shifts “Thus, as they employ tools and techniques, work in social labor arrangements, make and consume products, and adapt their behavior to the material conditions they encounter in their natural and artificial environment, individuals realize possibilities for human existence that are inaccessible in more primitive modes of production.” Figure: MGI-Jobs-Lost-Jobs-Gained-Executive-summary-December-6-2017 gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Summing Up Innovative Technology “Through technological creation and many other ways as well, we make a world for each other to live in.” Evolving Society and its Recurring Activities Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) Conditions are flowing along each arrow • Disturbances • Necessary changes in human practices, to employ the tech plus absorb it into one’s culture • Emergent phenomena owing to millions or even trillions of users/uses We create and inhabit a coupled developmental trajectory in which the practices of actors are changing, creating new understandings, and new widely-shared conditions gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Next Time Langdon Winner: Do Artifacts Have Politics? gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Global and Social Issues in Engineering ENGR 195B – Lecture 7 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Low-Power Human System Tech Favorable Conditions Tech Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Unfavorable Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Dr. Gregory Courand gregory.courand@sjsu.edu 3/26/2021 On the Importance of Participation Every thought, emotion, intention, attitude, or aspiration is shaping how ensuing experience will unfold. This means that every single moment of consciousness is a moment of practice, whether we like it or not. We are practicing to become ourselves. The important question is really just how much we want to participate in the process. How we hold ourselves right now is the key to everything we will become. It is that important. Andrew Olendzki, Unlimiting Mind Reflection Paper #2 – Setting the Stage for Today Select a technology (created anywhere), and describe the result of its adoption in another country (not the US or Canada) 1. Describe the relevant factual details of the case you will be discussing (i.e., the technology, where it was first developed, how people are using it in another country, etc.). 2. Take a position on whether or not the technology possesses inherently political qualities. Explain. 3. Take a position on whether or not it was ethical to introduce the technology into the country you chose. 4. Give an argument for how you reached your conclusions and defend your position appealing to the theories of technology discussed in class and readings. gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Social Arrangements ... The Foundation The essence of social structure is given by the roles people may play. These roles are manifest within relationships among actors in social routines. Cultures/societies are largely described by their widely enacted social routines – a recurring pattern of joint activity • Actors who count as legitimate participants, and their roles • Associated beliefs • Structured delivery of experiences, outcomes • Governing values Structural relations among actors, based on key routines of key organizations, institutions • Occupants of primary roles (familial, organizational, institutional, social, archetypal) • Power, influence, access to others • Legitimacy, decision purview Affordances as a function of one’s history, past/present connections with others, and roles • Wealth, access to social services (education, health, ...), memberships, ... Aggregate social properties depend on all previous (e.g., distribution of wealth) gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Ethics ... The Essence Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Low-Power Human System Tech Favorable Conditions Tech Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Unfavorable Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Actions and arrangements are ethical if they promote collective flourishing Promote: active not passive, seeking after, doing, ... creative and epigenetic Collective: a population, ideally, everyone Flourishing: individual self-determination (agency) and ability to become; growth and health of society at large, as individual activities and associations are aggregated Ethical à non-harming • intentionally or tacitly benefits others, supports flourishing • guards against possible harm arising from error or misuse Flourishing is violated if actor @1 achieves it at the expense of actor @2 • marginalizing or oppressing, even if unreflected-upon gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Inherently Political Technology ... The Essence Technology is apparently neutral – a general good Technology can be warped for political purposes Technology necessarily biases social arrangements or political processes (“inherent”) Political qualities of technology lead (in its use) to influences on the AGENCY of individual and collective actors • The ability to determine one’s life course, better oneself, have what others have, experience the good things that others experience, be with selected others, ... How it works ... political processes that harm social arrangements or social change • The technology is only compatible with some social relationships – gateway to some futures, and barrier to others ... solidifies social structure and processes (e.g., nuclear power) • The technology is wielded to introduce and sustain some conditions that favor some but not all (e.g., Moses’ bridges; Facebook used to influence elections) gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Inherently Political Technology ... Explorations Does the deployment and use of the technology affect the agency of some actors – altering or constraining the ability of some to chart their life course (survival, livelihood, self-determination)? Does it open or close important futures? Does the use of the technology introduce or reinforce a harmful distinction among peoples? Does the use of the technology change who may interact with who on matters that affect many? Does the use of the technology change, or solidify, who has the power to make important decisions about the future? gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Inherently Political Technology ... Explorations Can powerful actors deploy the technology for their own political purposes – achieve their own ends at the expense of many others, or benefit some while harming others? Can some actors use the technology to influence (stop, start, alter) political processes, such as participation in public discussion and decision-making around change? Can the technology be deployed to influence how we set and enforce our laws, govern ourselves, or evolve ourselves? gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Values Infrastructure ... The Essence Human social arrangements are value-seeking systems. Technology, a product of a human system, embodies presumptions and values of its creators ... do this thing, in this way, with these others, for these purposes Technology supports {cultural routines} = recurring sorts of jointly-conducted activities • conducted by these kinds of actors • in this way (logic of process, norms) • with these role relationships • toward these ends (outcomes, experiences) • and thereby creating these recurring conditions Each aspect of a routine has embodied values – so that the routine is a way of arraying values = a ‘values infrastructure’ Actors differentially participate, contribute to, and share in value A receiving culture will have different routines. Some routines (and so actor roles!!) are eliminated, some augmented, some changed ... all revealing value conflict gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Reflection Paper #2 Select a technology (created anywhere), and describe the result of its adoption in another country (not the US or Canada) 1. Describe the relevant factual details of the case you will be discussing (i.e., the technology, where it was first developed, how people are using it in another country, etc.). 2. Take a position on whether or not the technology possesses inherently political qualities. Explain. 3. Take a position on whether or not it was ethical to introduce the technology into the country you chose. 4. Give an argument for how you reached your conclusions and defend your position appealing to the theories of technology discussed in class and readings. gregory.courand@sjsu.edu The Generative Basis for Artifactual Systems Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Human Generative System Society’s Conditions Tech Behave to satisfy 𝛅 The human generative system is the system of actors, with technology, and abilities to monitor, evaluate, and behave/act to influence conditions Cycles here – responding to changing conditions, working toward goals, adjusting self to better fit into social formations – are all on behalf of the actor’s criteria 𝛅 Human generative systems follow routines, so that conditions recur ... and also, design and choose when conditions permit or require Conditions: physical (resources), social (relationships among actors), and mental (beliefs) The “artifactual system” is the aggregated result of individually-generated actions, through time gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Contrasting Our Two Representations = Ways to THINK ABOUT Our Subject Innovative Technology Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Evolving Society Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) and its Recurring Activities Human Generative System Society’s Conditions gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Tech Behave to satisfy 𝛅 This is our primary view of social structure at a point in time – the three key kinds of actor systems, for our interest in technologies that strongly influence social systems as well as our primary concepts (of things, people, values, ...). So it is a way to stress the key pieces, and note that they coevolve. We call this representation the “artifactual system.” This represents that actors have abilities (behavior generators, which may employ technology), and that how we behave, and what we focus our attention on, depends on embodied criteria 𝛅. Every behavior is the manifestation of our skillful ability, seeking to satisfy our criteria = seeking to create and preserve some conditions we value. The artifactual representation is the summary of individual humans acting out of this representation to create and defend their conditions. We use this representation to depict conflict among actors (due to seeking different values), differences in power (actors who can influence the conditions of others, and not the reverse), and also that powerful technology can strongly and durably affect conditions. Evolution of Artifactual Systems in Relation to Technology Innovative Technology (t1) Innovative Technology (t2) Evolving Society and its Recurring Activities (t1) Evolving Society and its Recurring Activities (t2) Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) (t1) Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) (t2) Society and concepts change under the influence of a potent technology, and sometimes, under the powerful exercise of a ‘regular’ technology gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Evolution of Artifactual Systems is NOT Neutral Innovative Technology (t1) Innovative Technology (t2) Evolving Society Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) (t1) Evolving Society Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) (t2) and its Recurring Activities (t1) and its Recurring Activities (t2) For the artifactual system centered on clocks and monasteries, the various influences were basically all to the good ... however, the evolution of artifactual systems is not neutral Powerful technologies can have a strong influence on social arrangements • e.g., centralized authority and a police/military apparatus (nuclear power) versus distributed authority and local control (solar power) • the arrangements, once in place, may be VERY durable Powerful actors can manipulate systems – serving personal interests at the expense of others gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Poll: What was Robert Moses After? Which of these conditions did Robert Moses most want to create? A. Automated tomato harvesting B. Extensive new transportation infrastructure (bridges) in Manhattan C. Fixing building entrances to enable access for the handicapped D. Racial segregation E. Pneumatic molding machines for the manufacture of grain reapers gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Before We Get to Artifacts with Political Qualities, What is ”Politics?” Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Human Generative System Society’s Conditions Tech Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Politics is our name for social-choice processes – how we set the conditions and relationships our society will have, enforce, and allow • Power, wealth, access, influence, self-determination A social choice is a choice whose decisions, actions, and outcomes may affect many stakeholder actors • We could say a social choice is fair if stakeholders get to participate, at least according to how much the consequences may affect them gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Sample Social Choice (Political) Processes Voting for and appointing people to key roles Voting on projects, infrastructure, education, hospitals, services, tax rates, ... Advocacy: bringing concerns and interests to the public’s consciousness Creating access rules – who gets to participate Creating process rules – how things will be decided Gaining endorsements, mobilizing others, building a movement, ... Proposing key choices, outlining the options, articulating consequences Any activity that creates new forms of authority or power gregory.courand@sjsu.edu The Most Influential Social Choices Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Human Generative System Society’s Conditions Tech Behave to satisfy 𝛅 The most influential social choices have strong influence over society’s conditions, • social relationships • who has the power to decide what Many key social choices are not made by society! Sometimes we put people in roles, such that the person in the role is empowered to choose for others over some domain • Supreme Court • NYC city planning commissioner gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Most Social Choice Processes are Messy, Some are Harmful Many or even most social choice processes are messy and even harmful to some populations ... not just conflicting values, but also barriers to participation, and differing influence among participants Powerful actors ‘rig the game’ – creating conditions that limit the activities, social arrangements, and choices of others Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Low-Power Human System Tech Favorable Conditions Tech Unfavorable Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Technology with “Political Qualities” – Moses’ Bridges A regular bridge/overpass is just a bridge/overpass – as technology, it is not political When a technology is deployed to strongly bias a social choice process, we say it has political qualities • Especially, radically changing the ability of some actors to choose • what we observe: actors with values X are able to harm a population with values Y = enforce negative conditions per values Y Moses created an abnormal bridge/overpass • This created conditions that prevented one population from choosing a recreation activity, while enabling another to choose it and so have a particular experience • Equally, he created an asymmetric ability to choose With Langdon Winner, we can say these abnormal bridges/overpasses had political qualities gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Contests of Values: Wielding Power Over Others Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Tech Favorable Conditions Low-Power Human System Tech Unfavorable Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Robert Moses built Manhattan bridges lower than normal – a way of ensuring that whites could get to the Jones Beach recreation area whereas non-whites probably could not • Value: racial segregation • Power: his position enabled him to control infrastructure projects • Conditions: low bridges, almost all whites at Jones Beach, whites making incorrect inferences (we, not POC, like the beach), POC inferring “more white prejudice” Cyrus McCormick introduced pneumatic molding machines as a way to break the labor union • Value: absolute control over labor, over the long term • Power: great wealth, and industry leadership • Conditions: feeling of unfairness, threats to livelihood, thoughts of competing with machines and loss of traditional skills gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Contests of Values: Wielding Power Over Others Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Tech Favorable Conditions Low-Power Human System Tech Unfavorable Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Russian operatives interfered with the US 2016 election • Value: projected Russian global influence under a Trump vs. Clinton presidency • Power: license (highest-level authority sanctions) to exploit complacent and silo’d US electorate mindsets • Conditions: breached technology; widespread confusion and anger, leading to increased polarization between conservatives and liberals; revealed flaws and limits of social media tech gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Never Presume It’s Just One Bad Actor ... Social Choices Inhabit Social Systems ”White Privilege” Institution Manhattan Businesses, Communities Tax/Legislation Authorities Robert Moses Civil Engineers Bridge Builders gregory.courand@sjsu.edu The Effects of Social Choices Can Be VERY Long-Lived Some technologies introduce important new social arrangements that cannot be undone ... these technologies have INHERENTLY political qualities ... the nuclear power / nuclear weapons complex cannot be set aside ... a decentralized energy grid to replace the current centralized A/C power grid ...advances in weapons systems (nuclear, chem, bio, killer drones, the next airframe) ... these cannot be undone and lead to arms races ... super-intelligent AI ... bioengineering gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Inherently Political Qualities, Defined Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Tech Favorable Conditions Low-Power Human System Tech Unfavorable Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Let us suppose that a technology forces a change in social arrangements; it is not compatible with present social relationships Then some actors are disrupted: their values are threatened, harmed, or no longer satisfied This triggers political behavior – social choice processes in which arguments are made for what matters, and how society should be arranged ... a defense of the old ways, or demands for a suitable position in the new system We see from this that the technology is the manifestation of some conflicting values – the technology embodies, expresses, crystallizes, or is the emblem of new, incompatible values (values of the actors who develop/deploy the technology) The inherently political qualities of the technology are those features of the technology that sit between the values that are being promoted, and the values that are being disrupted – they launch the conflict and so the political behavior gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Jia Jia, and Geminoid DK ... Technologies with Inherently Political Qualities ... What Do They Mean for Social Choice? What values are being expressed here? We are going here. What new conditions are created? Who wins? Who loses? Who is having the most influence, and who is marginalized? gregory.courand@sjsu.edu “Gateway Choices” for Humanity Monitor to satisfy 𝛅 Monitor to satisfy 𝛅* Powerful Human System Tech Desired Conditions Collective Human System Tech Enduring Conditions Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Behave to satisfy 𝛅* Behave to satisfy 𝛅 Scientists created atomic weapons, requiring a very large public apparatus (military protection, a scientific community, intelligence methods and means, ...) • Value: US victory in WWII, ending the conflict with less loss of life • Power: small, secret, high-intensity project of scientific and military establishment • Conditions: we cannot put this genie back in the lamp President Kennedy commissioned NASA Engineers to land and safely return a manned mission to the Moon, which they did successfully, altering history • Value: American dominance over USSR, prestige • Power: Presidential authority in cold war, NASA’s purpose • Conditions: humankind sees space as its birthright and next challenge Note these social choices depended on a few people with great power gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Political Qualities of Technology Shape Transfer Between Cultures When technology crosses into a new culture it can disrupt the existing tech, human practices, and understandings of the ‘receiving’ culture ... such that social choice processes are activated We can ask: CULTURE ALPHA Technology and its Recurring Activities Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) What conditions are challenged? What experiences change? What actor relations are threatened? Aided? CULTURE BETA Technology and its Recurring Activities Conceptual Frames (Science, Politics, Ethics) What social choices emerge? How are social choice processes affected? gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Essentials on Reflection Paper #2 Consider whether or not some technology (of your choice) possess inherently political qualities. Do research on how that technology has influenced the political behavior of another country's people outside of the US and Canada (that is, how and where they work, how they think, how they live, how they form organizations and institutions, etc.), regardless of where that technology was first designed and developed. I will send out a note with methods to think about how a technology may disrupt a culture = how it may carry values (inherently political qualities) that (a) are at odds with established values of the culture (b) create or remove important possible futures (c) change the willingness or ability of some actors to participate in political activity (contribute to or influence social choices) any/all of which triggers or influences actual political activities in the form of key social choices or choice processes gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Advanced Notes gregory.courand@sjsu.edu The Contest of Values 2: Meaning No Harm, but Looking Narrowly Participants, Stakeholders, Gatekeepers Social Choice Processes Designers unintentionally created standard accesses to buildings, inadvertently barring the handicapped from many types of social participation • Value: design for what’s normal ... special characteristics and the values of the handicapped ‘invisible’ • Power: standard economic arrangements Researchers transformed tomato harvesting for sound economic reasons, influenced the tomato genome, and upended harvesting communities • Value: the research problems and the economic potential (progress!) ... plus harvesters had no say in the process • Power: large agribusiness funding and ambitions It does not have to look like a contest for the values of stakeholders to lose out gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Details of Values Infrastructure Centered on Robert Moses ... The Ethical Part Actor 𝛅 = core criterion Manhattan and surrounding Use road/recreation communities and businesses infrastructure for wide range (whites and non-whites) of personal and business purposes Taxation and Legislative Authority Create funds to develop Manhattan infrastructure Robert Moses Develop Manhattan road, bridge, and recreation infrastructure Civil/structural Engineers Design bridges/overpasses per terrain, budget, guiding specs Bridge Builders Implement the design for $ gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Details of Values Infrastructure Centered on Robert Moses ... The UN-Ethical Part Actor 𝛅 = core criterion Bigoted white population in US (”White Privilege” institution) Manhattan and surrounding communities and businesses (all whites and non-whites) Manhattan and surrounding communities and businesses (bigoted whites) 𝛅’ = unethical criteria Enjoy (and for some, protect) “white privilege” Use road/recreation infrastructure for wide range of personal and business purposes Taxation and Legislative Authority Create funds to develop Manhattan infrastructure Robert Moses Develop Manhattan road, bridge, and recreation infrastructure Civil/structural Engineers Design bridges/overpasses per terrain, budget, guiding specs Bridge Builders Implement the design for $ Have exclusive use of recreation sites Distort infrastructure specs, etc., to enforce segregation gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Extending Winner’s Analysis: Sensitivity to Unknown and Rare Events We are sensitive to risks – some entirely unknown, some known but not ‘scaled’ • Designing without all the relevant variables (and so around some values while leaving out others) • Setting a choice horizon too soon • Being unaware of potentially emergent conditions owing to large-scale use • Putting technologies in place and monitoring only for their ongoing operational requirements (e.g., not detecting new phenomena, anomalies) • Being unmindful of the weaknesses bad actors can exploit, by not thinking about their aims and how they might seek to serve them with our tech If risks actualize, (as Winner notes) we may subject ourselves to extreme responses gregory.courand@sjsu.edu The Elements of a Social Choice I Optional Actions Results Value of Each Possible Result Overall Option Value Each element depends on who gets to participate in the social choice process gregory.courand@sjsu.edu The Elements of a Social Choice as Formed by Participants Optional Actions I Information about initial conditions Optional Actions and their cost to enact Results Outcome conditions that may result from implementing an optional action under the initial conditions Value of Each Possible Result Costs, benefits, consequences of the possible results for each option Overall Option Value Overall value for each optional action ... best option = “decision” Each element depends on who gets to participate in the social choice process gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Actors Choose in Ways that Limit the Choices of Others – Robert Moses: Jones Beach Part 1 Regular Bridges Whites in cars Nonwhites in buses Jones Beach Low Bridges Whites in cars No buses, no nonwhites Desired attendance, usual bridge cost Undesired attendance, usual bridge cost Desired attendance, ~higher bridge cost Desired attendance, ~higher bridge cost Mixed overall value High overall value gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Actors Choose in Ways that Limit the Choices of Others – Robert Moses: Jones Beach Part 2 Block Mass Transit Whites in cars No mass transit, no non-whites Jones Beach, low bridges Implement Mass Transit Whites in cars Nonwhites on mass transit Desired attendance, budget saved, ’political’ cost High overall value Desired attendance, budget saved, ‘political’ cost Desired attendance, expensive project Undesired attendance, expensive project Mixed overall value gregory.courand@sjsu.edu Any Part of a Social Choice Can be Manipulated! I Optional Actions Results Valuation of a Prospect Option Value Starting conditions others have to live with; what counts as relevant information What is allowed as an option Forecasts of results and their probability; the horizon (how far out we look) Who gets to weigh in on value; focusing on technical and economic but not social consequences Who gets to decide, and by what process gregory.courand@sjsu.edu [Lecture for the Komaba undergraduates, June, 2003] What Is Philosophy of Technology? Andrew Feenberg Our subject today is philosophy of technology. I'm going to approach this subject from two standpoints, first of all historically and then I'll look at the contemporary options in the field, the various different theories that are currently under discussion. Before I begin, I would like to situate the field for you briefly. You may already have some familiarity with philosophy of science as this is one of the most prestigious fields of philosophy. It is concerned with the truth of science, the validity of theories and experimentation. We call these “epistemological” issues, issues in the theory of knowledge. Science and technology share the same kind of rational thinking based on empirical observation and knowledge of natural causality, but technology is not concerned with truth but with usefulness. Where science seeks to know, technology seeks to control. Nevertheless, there is more to the story than this simple contrast. In traditional societies, the way of thinking of the people is formed by customs and myths that cannot be explained or justified rationally. Traditional societies therefore forbid certain kinds of questions which would destabilize their belief system. Modern societies emerge from the release of the power of questioning against these traditional forms of thought. The European Enlightenment of the 18th century demanded that all customs and institutions justify themselves as useful for humanity. Under the impact of this demand, science and technology become the new basis for belief. They reshape the culture gradually to be what we think of as “rational.” Eventually, technology becomes omnipresent in everyday life and technical modes of thought predominate over all others. In a mature modern society such as Japan, technology is taken for granted much as were the customs and myths of the earlier traditional society. One might say that scientific-technical rationality has become a new culture. This culture is clearly “useful” in all its details in the sense the Enlightenment demanded, but it is now so all encompassing that larger questions can be asked about its value and viability as a whole. We can judge it as more or less worthy, more or less ethically justified, more or less fulfilling. Modernity itself authorizes, even demands such judgment. This is how it came into being. Now we have moved beyond usefulness in the narrow sense to the question of the kind of world and the way of life that emerges in a modern society. Insofar as such a society is technological at its basis, the issues raised in this larger questioning concern the field of philosophy of technology. We need to understand ourselves today in the midst of technology and technical knowledge itself cannot help us. Philosophy of technology belongs to the self-awareness of a society like ours. It teaches us to reflect on what we take for granted, specifically, rational modernity. The importance of this perspective cannot be over-estimated. 1 Japan is a uniquely suitable place to pursue philosophy of technology although it is my understanding that the field is so far very small here. In the Meiji era Japan was a kind of test case for the universality of Western achievements. Its rapid modernization brought modernity itself into question almost immediately as thinkers contrasted the fast disappearing traditional ways with the new ways imported from the West and consequent on technological advance. Today Japan faces the same problems as other modern societies but potentially with more distance from modernity given its history as a non-Western country. I am hopeful that that difference will prove an Archimedean point for an original reflection on technology. Having introduced you briefly to the field, let me turn now to the historical perspective on its origins. For this we must go back to ancient Greece. As you will see, the question of technology is raised at the very origins of Western philosophy, not as I have just described it of course, but at a deeper level. Philosophy begins by interpreting the world in terms of the fundamental fact that humanity is a laboring sort of animal constantly at work transforming nature. This fundamental fact shapes the basic distinctions that prevail throughout the tradition of Western philosophy. The first of these is the distinction between what the Greeks called physis and poiêsis. Physis is usually translated as nature. The Greeks understood nature to be that which creates itself, that which emerges from out of itself. But there are other things in the world, things which depend on something else to come into being. Poiesis is the practical activity of making in which human beings engage when they produce something. We call these created beings artifacts and include among them the products of art, craft, and social convention. The word techne in ancient Greece signifies the knowledge or the discipline associated with a form of poiêsis. For example, medicine is a techne that aims at healing the sick; carpentry is a techne that aims at building from wood. In the Greek view of things each techne includes a purpose and a meaning for the artifacts the production of which it guides. Note that for the Greeks, technai show the “right way” to do things in a very strong, even an objective sense. Although artifacts depend on human activity, the knowledge contained in the technai is no matter of opinion or subjective intention. Even the purposes of things made share in this objectivity insofar as they are defined by the technai. The word techne is at the origin of the modern words for technique and technology in every Western language, although these have a somewhat different meaning as we will see. The second fundamental distinction is that between existence and essence. Existence answers the question whether something is or is not. Essence answers the question what the thing is. That it is and what it is appear to be two independent dimensions of being. In the tradition of Western philosophy, existence becomes a rather hazy concept. It is not really clear how to define it. We know the difference between what exists and what does not, for example, as immediate presence or absence, but there is not much more to 2 say. Most of the attention is given to essence and its successor concepts as developed by the sciences because this is the content of knowledge. These distinctions are self-evident. They form the basis of all philosophical thought in the West. I'm sure there are equivalent distinctions in traditional Asian thought as well. But the relation between these two distinctions is not obvious, is in fact puzzling. The source of the puzzle is the Greek understanding of technê, the ancestor of modern technology. Of course the Greeks did not have technology in our modern sense, but they did have all sorts of techniques and crafts that were the equivalent for their time of what technology is for us today. And strange though it seems, they conceived nature on the model of the artifacts produced by their own technical activity. To show this, I will analyze the relation between the two basic distinctions that I've introduced, physis and poiêsis, and existence and essence. In poiêsis, the distinction between existence and essence is real and obvious. The thing exists first as an idea and only later comes into existence through human making. But note that for the Greeks the idea of the artifact is not arbitrary or subjective but rather belongs to a technê. Each technê contains the essence of the thing to be made prior to the act of making. The idea, the essence of the thing is thus a reality independent of the thing itself and of the maker of the thing. What is more, as we have seen, the purpose of the thing made is included in its idea. In sum, although humans make artifacts, they do so according to a plan and for a purpose that is an objective aspect of the world. On the other hand, the distinction between existence and essence is not obvious for natural things. The thing and its essence emerge together and exist together. The essence does not seem to have a separate existence. The flower emerges along with what makes it a flower: that it is and what it is “happen,” in a sense, simultaneously. We can later construct a concept of the essence of the flower, but this is our doing, not something essential to nature as it is to artifacts. Indeed, the very idea of an essence of the things of nature is our construction. It lies at the basis of science, episteme in Greek, the knowledge of things. Unlike the knowledge that is active in technê, which is essential to the objects the essences of which it defines, episteme, knowledge of nature, appears to be a purely human doing to which nature itself would be indifferent. Or is it? Here is where the story gets interesting. This difference between the relation of essence to physis and poiesis is important for an understanding of Greek philosophy and in fact the whole philosophical tradition precisely because philosophers have tried so hard to surpass it. You may recall Plato’s theory of ideas, the foundation of the tradition. For Plato the concept of the thing exists in an ideal realm prior to the thing itself and allows us to know the thing. Note how similar this theory is to our analysis of technê in which the idea is independent of the thing. But Plato does not reserve this theory for artifacts; rather, it is applied to all being. He relies on the structure of techne to explain not only artifacts, but nature as well. Plato understands nature as divided into existence and essence just as artifacts are and this becomes the basis for Greek ontology. This has many important consequences. In this conception there is no radical discontinuity between technical making and natural 3 self-production because they both share the same structure. Technê, you'll recall, includes a purpose and a meaning for artifacts. The Greeks import these aspects of technê into the realm of nature and view all of nature in teleological terms. The essence of natural things includes a purpose just as does the essence of artifacts. The world is thus a place full of meaning and intention. This conception of the world calls for a corresponding understanding of man. We humans are not the masters of nature but work with its potentials to bring a meaningful world to fruition. Our knowledge of that world and our action in it is not arbitrary but is in some sense the completion of what lies hidden in nature. What conclusion do we draw from these historical considerations on ancient Greek philosophy? I will be provocative and say that the philosophy of technology begins with the Greeks and is in fact the foundation of all Western philosophy. After all, the Greeks interpret being as such through the concept of technical making. This is ironic. Technology has a low status in the high culture of modern societies but it was actually there at the origin of that culture and, if we believe the Greeks, contains the key to the understanding of being as a whole. Now we're going to skip to modern times and talk about the status of technology in our era. You are probably familiar with the founders of modern thought, Descartes and Bacon. Descartes promised us that we would become “the masters and possessors of nature” through the cultivation of the sciences, and Bacon famously claimed that “Knowledge is power.” Clearly we are in a different world from the Greeks. We have a very different common sense from the Greeks so things that seemed obvious to them are not obvious to us. Of course we share with them the fundamental distinctions between the things that make themselves, nature, and the things that are made, artifacts, and between essence and existence. But our understanding of these distinctions is different from theirs. This is especially true of the concept of essence. For us essences are conventional rather than real. The meaning and purpose of things is something we create not something we discover. The gap between man and world widens accordingly. We are not at home in the world, we conquer the world. This difference is related to our basic ontology. The question we address to being is not what it is but how it works. Science answers this question rather than revealing essences in the old Greek sense of the term. Note that technology is still the model of being in this modern conception. This was particularly clear in the 18th century Enlightenment, when philosophers and scientists challenged the medieval successors to Greek science with the new mechanistic worldview of Galileo and Newton. These thinkers explored the machinery of being. They identified the workings of the universe with a clockwork mechanism. Thus strange though it may seem, the underlying structure of Greek ontology survived the defeat of its principles. In the modern context technology does not realize objective essences inscribed in the nature of the universe, as does technê. It now appears as purely instrumental, as value free. It does not respond to inherent purposes, but is merely a means serving subjective goals we choose as we wish. For modern common sense, means and ends are independ4 ent of each other. Here is a crude example. In America we say “Guns don't kill people, people kill people.” Guns are a means which is independent of the ends brought to them by the user, whether it be to rob a bank or to enforce the law. Technology, we say, is neutral, meaning that it has no preference as between the various possible uses to which it can be put. This is the instrumentalist philosophy of technology that is a kind of spontaneous product of our civilization, assumed unreflectively by most people. Technology in this scheme of things encounters nature as raw materials, not as a world that emerges out of itself, a physis, but rather as stuff awaiting transformation into whatever we desire. This world is understood mechanistically not teleologically. It is there to be controlled and used without any inner purpose. The West has made enormous technical advances on the basis of this understanding of reality. Nothing restrains us in our exploitation of the world. Everything is exposed to an analytic intelligence that decomposes it into usable parts. Our means have become ever more efficient and powerful. In the 19th century it became commonplace to view modernity as an unending progress toward the fulfillment of human needs through technological advance. It was this notion that captured the imagination of the Japanese in the Meiji era and led to the modernization of Japanese society in the 20th century. But for what ends? The goals of our society can no longer be specified in a knowledge of some sort, a techne or an episteme, as they were for the Greeks. They remain purely subjective arbitrary choices and no essences guide us. This has led to a crisis of civilization from which there seems no escape we know how to get there but we do not know why we are going or even where. The Greeks lived in harmony with the world whereas we are alienated from it by our very freedom to define our purposes as we wish. So long as no great harm could be attributed to technology, this situation did not lead to serious doubts. Of course there were always literary protests against modernization. In Japan you have Tanizaki and his wonderful essay “In Praise of Shadows.” But as the 20th century proceeds, from world wars to concentration camps to environmental catastrophes, it becomes more and more difficult to ignore the strange aimlessness of modernity. It is because we are at a loss to know where we are going and why that philosophy of technology has emerged in our time as a critique of modernity. I want to turn now to the contemporary perspective on philosophy of technology I promised at the start and sketch the sorts of debates in which philosophers engage today. I will organize my comments around the following chart: Technology is: Autonomous Humanly Controlled Neutral (complete separation of means and ends) Determinism (e.g. modernization theory) Instrumentalism (liberal faith in progress) Value-laden (means form a way of life that includes ends) Substantivism (means and ends linked in systems) Critical Theory (choice of alternative means-ends systems) 5 As you can see, technology is defined here along two axes reflecting its relation to values and human powers. The vertical axis offers two alternatives: either technology is value neutral, as the Enlightenment assumed, or it is value-laden as the Greeks believed and, as we will see, as some philosophers of technology believe today as well. The choice is not obvious. From one perspective a technical device is simply a concatenation of causal mechanisms. No amount of scientific study will find in it anything like a purpose. But from another perspective this misses the point. After all, no scientific study will find in a 1000 yen note what makes it money. Not everything is a physical or chemical property of matter. Perhaps technologies, like bank notes, have a special way of containing value in themselves as social entities. On the horizontal axis technologies are signified as either autonomous or humanly controllable. To say that technology is autonomous is not of course to say that it makes itself. Human beings are still involved, but the question is, do they actually have the freedom to decide how technology will develop? Is the next step in the evolution of the technical system up to us? If the answer is “no” then technology can rightly said to be autonomous in the sense that invention and development have their own immanent laws which humans merely follow in acting in the technical domain. On the other hand, technology would be humanly controllable if we could determine the next step in its evolution in accordance with our intentions. Now let me turn to the four boxes defined by the intersection of these axes. We have already discussed instrumentalism, the occupant of the box in which human control and value neutrality intersect. This is the standard modern view, according to which technology is simply a tool or instrument of the human species through which we satisfy our needs. As noted in the chart, this view corresponds to the liberal faith in progress which was such a prominent a feature of mainstream Western thought until fairly recently. The next box over to the left is entitled “determinism.” This is the view so widely held in social science since Marx that the driving force of history is technological advance. Determinists believe that technology is not humanly controlled, but that on the contrary it controls humans, that is, it shapes society to the requirements of efficiency and progress. Technological determinists usually argue that technology employs advancing knowledge of the natural world to serve universal features of human nature such as basic needs and faculties. Each worthwhile discovery addresses some aspect of our nature, fulfills a basic need or extends our faculties. Food and shelter are such needs and motivate some advances. Technologies like the automobile extend our feet while computers extend our brains. Technology is rooted on the one side in knowledge of nature and on the other in generic features of the human species. It is not up to us to adapt technology to our whims but on the contrary, we must adapt to technology as the most significant expression of our humanity. These two views, instrumentalism and determinism, have an interesting history in Japan. The Meiji state started out with a firm instrumentalist conviction that it could adopt Western technology to enhance its power without sacrificing traditional values. 6 The technological means imported from the West would serve Eastern goals. This was the famous idea of “wakon yosai.” But technology soon appeared to be undermining the values it was supposed to serve, confirming the thesis of technological determinism. It is still unclear what has happened since Japan has a somewhat distinctive society based largely on Western technology. But just how distinctive it is, just how significantly it has retained its originality, is in dispute. On this issue depends the contest between instrumentalism and determinism. The box on the lower left of the chart is titled “substantivism.” This is a more complex and interesting position than those we have reviewed so far. The term “substantivism” was chosen to describe a position which attributes substantive values to technology in contrast with views such as instrumentalism and determinism which view technology as neutral in itself. The contrast here is actually between two types of value. The neutrality thesis does attribute a value to technology but it is a merely formal value, efficiency, which can serve any number of different conceptions of the good life. A substantive value on the contrary involves a commitment to a specific conception of the good life. If technology embodies a substantive value, it is not merely instrumental and cannot be used for the different purposes of individuals or societies with different ideas of the good. Using technology for this or that purpose would be a specific value choice in itself, and not just a more efficient way of realizing a pre-existing value of some sort. This distinction can be clarified best with examples. Take the extreme difference between a religion such as Buddhism or Christianity and money. Religions are based on substantive value choices, choices that reflect a preferred way of life and exclude other disapproved alternatives. Money is a purely formal basis of social action. It can be used to buy an infinite variety of different things and integrated to different and contradictory ways of life without prejudice. In principle, it seems as though money carries no particular substantive value in itself but can serve any value system. The question posed by substantive theory is whether technology is more like religion or more like money, as I have just described it. Substantive theory replies that technology is more like religion. When you choose to use technology you do not simply render your existing way of life more efficient, you choose a different way of life. Technology is thus not simply instrumental to whatever values you hold. It carries with it certain values that have the same exclusive character as religious belief. But technology is even more persuasive than religion since it requires no belief to recognize its existence and to follow its commands. Once a society goes down the path of technological development it will be inexorably transformed into a technological society, a specific type of society dedicated to values such as efficiency and power. Traditional values cannot survive the challenge of technology. Actually, this vision of technology can be extended to money as well. Although it seems as though money is a neutral instrument of our purposes, on closer examination we realize that it is much more than that. We say there are things money can’t buy such as love and happiness. Yet people do try to buy them all the time with disappointing results. Bought love is after all something quite different from the real thing. Those who 7 base their whole lives on the power of money have poor lives. Money is fine in its place, but outside its place it corrupts and diminishes people and things. So in a sense money too has a substantive value and basing a way of life on it is a positive choice and not the best one at that. You will have noticed the similarity between substantive theory of technology and determinism. In fact most substantive theorists are determinists as well. But the position I have characterized as determinism is usually optimistic and progressive. Both Marx and the modernization theorists of the post-War era believed that technology was the neutral servant of basic human needs. Substantive theory makes no such assumption about the needs technology serves and is critical rather than optimistic. In this context the autonomy of technology is threatening and malevolent. Once unleashed technology becomes more and more imperialistic, taking over one domain of social life after another. In the most extreme imagination of substantivism, a Brave New World such as Huxley describes in his famous novel overtakes humanity and converts human beings into mere cogs in the machinery. This is not utopia—the “no place” of an ideal society, but dystopia—a world in which human individuality has been completely suppressed. Huxley has people produced on assembly lines for specific social purposes and conditioned to believe exactly those things that adapt them to their function. People have become, as Marshall McLuhan once said, the “sex organs of the machine world.” The most famous substantive theorist was Martin Heidegger, a major 20th century German philosopher. Heidegger argued that modernity is characterized by the triumph of technology over every other value. He noted that Greek philosophy had already based its understanding of being on technical making and argued that this starting point culminates in modern technology. Where the Greeks took technê as the model of being in theory, we have transformed being technically in practice. Our metaphysics is not in our heads but consists in the real technical conquest of the earth. This conquest transforms everything into raw materials for technical processes, including human beings themselves. Not only are we constantly obeying the dictates of the many technical systems in which we are enrolled, we tend to see ourselves more and more as devices regulated by medical, psychological, athletic, and other functional disciplines. I do not know if you have so many of these books in Japan as we do in America, but in our bookstores you can find the equivalent of operating manuals for every aspect of life: love, sex, raising children, eating, exercise, making money, having fun, and so on and so forth. We are our own machines. But, Heidegger argues, although we may control the world through our technology, we do not control our own obsession with control. Something lies behind technology, a mystery we cannot unravel from our technological standpoint. Where we are headed is a mystery too. The West in Heidegger’s view has reached the end of its rope. In his last interview, he stated, “Only a God can save us.” 8 We come now to the last box, the one I have entitled “critical theory.” This is where I place myself. Critical theory of technology holds that human beings need not await a God to change their technological society into a better place to live. Critical theory recognizes the catastrophic consequences of technological development highlighted by substantivism but still sees a promise of greater freedom in technology. The problem is not with technology as such but with our failure so far to devise appropriate institutions for exercising human control over it. We could tame technology by submitting it to a more democratic process of design and development. Consider the parallel case of the economy. A century ago it was believed that the economy could not be democratically controlled, that it was an autonomous power operating according to inflexible laws. Today we assume the contrary, that we can influence the direction of economic development through our democratic institutions. Critical theory of technology argues that the time has come to extend democracy to technology as well. It thus attempts to save the Enlightenment values that have guided progress for the last several hundred years without ignoring the threat to which that progress has led. As you can see from the chart, critical theory shares traits of both instrumentalism and substantivism. It agrees with instrumentalism that technology is in some sense controllable, and it agrees with substantivism that technology is also value-laden. This seems a paradoxical position since precisely what cannot be controlled in the substantivist view are the values embodied in technology. According to substantivism the values contained in technology are unique to technology as such. They include efficiency and power, goals which belong to any and every technical system. Insofar as we use technology, we are engaged with the world in a maximizing and controlling fashion. This approach to the world determines a technological way of life. Obviously human control would have little significance if every way of life based on technology realized the same values. The element of human control would be like the choice between soaps in the supermarket, trivial and delusory. How then does critical theory conceive the value-ladenness of technology such that human control matters? According to critical theory the values embodied in technology are socially specific and are not adequately represented by such abstractions as efficiency or control. Technology frames not just one way of life but many different possible ways of life, each of which reflects different choices of design and different extensions of technological mediation. I use the word “frame” here purposely. All the pictures in the museum have frames but they are not in the museum for that reason. Frames are boundaries and holders for what lies within. Similarly, efficiency “frames” every possible technology but does not determine the values realized within that frame. Does this mean that technology is neutral, as instrumentalism believes? Not quite: modern societies must all aim at efficiency in those domains where they apply technology, but to claim that they can realize no other significant values besides efficiency is to overlook the obvious differences between them. What is worse, it overlooks the difference between their current miserable state and a better condition we can imagine and for which we can struggle. One must look down on mankind from a very great height indeed 9 not to notice the difference between efficient weapons and efficient medicines, efficient propaganda and efficient education, efficient exploitation and efficient research! This difference is significant socially and ethically and so cannot be discounted as thinkers like Heidegger would claim. Nevertheless, the substantivist critique of instrumentalism does help us to understand that technologies are not neutral tools. Means and ends are connected. Thus even if some sort of human control of technology is possible, it is not instrumental control. In critical theory technologies are not seen as tools but as frameworks for ways of life. The choices open to us are situated a higher level than the instrumental level. We cannot agree with the instrumentalist that “Guns don't kill people, people kill people.” Supplying people with guns creates a social world quite different from world in which people are disarmed. We can choose which world we wish to live in through legislation either making the possession of guns legal or illegal. But this is not the sort of choice the instrumentalist claims we make when we control technology. This is what you might think of as a meta-choice, a choice at a higher level determining which values are to be embodied in the technical framework of our lives. Critical theory of technology opens up the possibility of thinking about such choices and submitting them to more democratic controls. We do not have to wait for a god to save us as Heidegger expostulated but can hope to save ourselves through democratic interventions into technology. You will no doubt want to know more about these democratic interventions. Clearly, it would not make much sense to hold an election between devices or designs for technologies. The public is not sufficiently concerned, involved, and informed to choose good politicians at this time, much less good technologies. So, in what sense can democracy be extended to technology under current conditions? Admittedly, this is a problematic hope. But not an absurd one. People affected by technological change sometimes protest or innovate in ways that promise greater participation and democratic control in the future. Where it used to be possible to silence all opposition to technical projects by appealing to progress, today communities mobilize to make their wishes known, for example, in opposition to nuclear power plants in their neighborhood. In a rather different way the computer has involved us in technology so intimately that our activities have begun to shape its development. Consider that email on the Internet was introduced by skilled users and did not originally figure in the plans of the designers at all. Yet today email is the most used function of the Internet and one of the most important contributions of the computer to our lives. I could show you similar examples from medicine, urban affairs, and so on. Each one seems a small matter but perhaps all together they are significant. Critical theory of technology detects in examples such as these a trend toward greater participation in decisions about design and development. The public sphere appears to be opening slowly to encompass technical issues that were formerly viewed as the exclusive preserve of experts. Can this trend continue to the point where citizenship will involve the exercise of human control over the technical framework of our lives? We must hope so for the alternative appears to be certain destruction. Of course the problems are not only technological. Democracy is in bad shape today on all fronts, but no one has 10 come up with a better alternative. If people are able to conceive and pursue their intrinsic interest in peace and fulfillment through the political process, they will inevitably address the question of technology along with many other questions that hang in suspense today. We can only hope this will happen sooner rather than later. 11 2 DO ARTIFACTS HAVE POLITICS? No IDEA IS more provocative in controversies about technol­ ogy and society than the notion that technical things have politi­ cal qualities. At issue is the claim that the machines, structures, and systems of modern material culture can be accurately judged not only for their contributions to efficiency and productivity and their positive and negative environmental side effects, but also for the ways in which they can embody specific forms of power and authority. Since ideas of this kind are a persistent and troubling presence in discussions about the meaning of tech­ nology, they deserve explicit attention. Writing in the early 1960s, Lewis Mumford gave classic state­ ment to one version of the theme, arguing that "from late neo­ lithic times in the Near East, right down to our own day, two technologies have recurrently existed side by side: one authori­ tarian, the other democratic, the first system-centered, im­ mensely powerful, but inherently unstable, the other man­ centered, relatively weak, but resourceful and durable." 1 This thesis stands at the heart of Mumford's studies of the city, archi­ tecture, and history of technics, and mirrors concerns voiced ear­ lier in the works of Peter Kropotkin, William Morris, and other nineteenth-century critics of industrialism. During the 1970s, antinuclear and pro-solar energy movements in Europe and the United States adopted a similar notion as the centerpiece of their arguments. According to environmentalist Denis Hayes, "The increased deployment of nuclear power facilities must lead so­ ciety toward authoritarianism. Indeed, safe reliance upon nu­ clear power as the principal source of energy may be possible only in a totalitarian state." Echoing the views of many propo19 A Philosophy of Technology being made in what people are doing and at a substantial invest­ ment of social resources, then it always pays to ask in advance about the qualities of the artifacts, institutions, and human ex­ periences currently on the drawing board. Inquiries of this kind present an important challenge to all disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Indeed, there are many historians, anthropologists, sociologists, psycholo­ gists, and artists whose work sheds light on long-overlooked human dimensions of technology. Even engineers and other technical professionals have much to contribute here when they find courage to go beyond the narrow-gauge categories of their training. The study of politics offers its own characteristic route into this territory. As the political imagination confronts technolo­ gies as forms of life, it should be able to say something about the choices (implicit or explicit) made in the course of technological innovation and the grounds for making those choices wisely. That is a task I take up in the next two chapters. Through tech­ nological creation and many other ways as well, we make a world for each other to live in. Much more than we have ac­ knowledged in the past, we must admit our responsibility for what we are making. 18 2 DO ARTIFACTS HAVE POLITICS? No IDEA IS more provocative in controversies about technol­ ogy and society than the notion that technical things have politi­ cal qualities. At issue is the claim that the machines, structures, and systems of modern material culture can be accurately judged not only for their contributions to efficiency and productivity and their positive and negative environmental side effects, but also for the ways in which they can embody specific forms of power and authority. Since ideas of this kind are a persistent and troubling presence in discussions about the meaning of tech­ nology, they deserve explicit attention. Writing in the early 1960s, Lewis Mumford gave classic state­ ment to one version of the theme, arguing that "from late neo­ lithic times in the Near East, right down to our own day, two technologies have recurrently existed side by side: one authori­ tarian, the other democratic, the first system-centered, im­ mensely powerful, but inherently unstable, the other man­ centered, relatively weak, but resourceful and durable." 1 This thesis stands at the heart of Mumford's studies of the city, archi­ tecture, and history of technics, and mirrors concerns voiced ear­ lier in the works of Peter Kropotkin, William Morris, and other nineteenth-century critics of industrialism. During the 1970s, antinuclear and pro-solar energy movements in Europe and the United States adopted a similar notion as the centerpiece of their arguments. According to environmentalist Denis Hayes, "The increased deployment of nuclear power facilities must lead so­ ciety toward authoritarianism. Indeed, safe reliance upon nu­ clear power as the principal source of energy may be possible only in a totalitarian state." Echoing the views of many propo19 DEVELOPMENT OF THE MECHANICAL CLOCK 1 The Development of the Mechanical Clocks The 14th century constituted a significant phase in the history of mankind as it was characterized by the development of mechanical clocks. The invention of these clocks came after the water clocks, which were in use for almost a millennium until the technological breakthrough. Like the water clocks that had been in use in the societies, the mechanical clocks trolled hours and displayed planets. The monasteries of the West showed the desire to have order and power after the collapse of the Roman Empire. There were orders and no room for irregularity within the walls of the monastery. Bells in the monastery would be rung 7 times in 24 hours, and there were some means of counting them to ensure regular intervals and repetitions. There were specific time intervals set for activities like meals, sleep, prayers, and work. This political influence led to the development of the mechanical clock. The development of the vital technology leveraged an escarpment mechanism, whose action ticked in a steady rhythm, thereby enabling the gears to oscillate forward in a series of little equated jumps, and with the initial escapement being the verge and foliot mechanism. Importantly, the verge and foliot mechanisms were in the application for over three hundred years, while constituting variations in the foliot's shape, and evidenced technology as an expression and means of achieving human values (Courand, 2021). However, the oscillation period largely depended on the magnitude of the driving force and friction in the drive. The factors that facilitated the mechanical clock development were diversified and included the creation of astrolabes, which were the predecessors of mechanical clocks and were triggered by solar eclipses. Their development in China occurred DEVELOPMENT OF THE MECHANICAL CLOCK 2 during the Song dynasty at around 976 A.D. and was particularly useful for the emperor as it helped determine the song that would be selected first for the heirs. Besides, they were made to indicate time more effectively than the water and sun clocks which were in widespread use. It was also a way of improving the traditional canonical forms of time that were tied to events, thus enabling improvements in the economic activities at the time. Humans' efforts to tell time have been vital in driving forward technological evolutions and science throughout history. Since the development and use of various mechanisms of determining time, such as the sun, water clocks, and mechanical clocks, their functionality was highly unpatterned and had to rely on external influences, which ultimately precipitated the need for the development of a dependable instrument for timekeeping. Differences in weather patterns and economic activities across regions further facilitated the need for the respective populace to plan and initiate their schedules differently than those in other regions. They designed them in relation to their respective seasons and activities, as a standard mechanical clock would not be uniformly appropriate for the distinct societies (Rowlatt, 2014). As such, different communities engaged in differentiated approaches, for instance, the creation of sundials that measured day hours. However, such mechanisms were seasonal and ineffective in particular times, for instance, during the cloudy and freezing weather in Europe. Despite the mechanical clock's adjusting ability to maintain temporal hours, it naturally kept equal ones. The presence of unequal hours borne the question of when to begin counting them among different societies. Notably, significant transitions in one element ultimately influence other elements (Mumford, n.d). Therefore, distinct DEVELOPMENT OF THE MECHANICAL CLOCK 3 individuals partitioned the day into equal respective parts, although they varied at the start of the count. For example, the Italians began counting theirs at sunset and Babylonians at sunrise, subsequently leading to differences in the start and end of days across societies. The clock technology is largely attributed to the initiation and development of the industrial age in both Europe and the United States. Before the commencing of the Industrial Revolution towards the middle of the eighteenth century, time was usually not appropriately measured, except for a few scientists. However, the improvements that followed the industrialization phase were characterized by new organizations among people. The conditions improved in Great Britain, which was the initial home to the Industrial Revolution, including enabling ocean navigation which led to its national security and commercial prosperity and the American way of life, for instance, in enabling trade and other economic activities (Vieira, 2016). For example, time was an important factor in military arts and trading. The rise of capitalism is also attributed to this technology as trade became widespread and people valued time in their trade activities. The mechanical clock was in high demand from the rising merchant class, triggering economic growth. Time was applied in industries like the manufacturing industry. Consequently, Britain, which was viewed as a technically and a marginal part of Europe, proliferated into the world's greatest power at the time. For example, the continued advancement of the industrial revolution improved the lives and well-being of the workers, leading to more technical improvements, which benefited the rural craftsmen who engaged in the retail production of accurate clocks. DEVELOPMENT OF THE MECHANICAL CLOCK 4 I feel that precise and accurate time measurement has a notable impact on my everyday life and behavior as a software engineer. I have become time-conscious, and I now value time as an important resource. Measuring time with accuracy and precision is important in my daily life as it saves both the time and cost of doing something. For example, I write some common scripts and save them as drafts. Therefore, when I need them, I just automate them from the saved folder instead of writing them again. In so doing, I save time and cost of developing the software. Since I understand that as a software engineer I can utilize all the 24 hours in a day, I learn how to save time when developing software. Measuring time with accuracy ensures that I get it right the first time to avoid the costly process of repetition. Precision and accuracy in time measurement have enabled me to devise ways of saving time when developing software. For instance, I create a timesheet template that I follow to help me manage the time I have allocated in the development of the software. As an engineer, I know that I need to maximize output per time. There I try to use shortcuts when carrying out my tasks to save on time and cost. DEVELOPMENT OF THE MECHANICAL CLOCK 5 References Courand, G 2021. Global and social issues In Engineering: Human systems innovating and adapting to innovations around time, lecture notes, ENGR 195 B, 05 February 2021. Mumford, L. (n.d). Technics and Civilization. San Diego New York London: Harcourt Brace & Company. Rowlatt, J. (2014). Caesium: A brief history of timekeeping. BBC News. Retrieved 20 February 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29476893. Vieira, H. (2016). Mechanical clocks prove the importance of technology for economic growth. LSE Business Review. Retrieved 20 February 2021, from https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2016/09/27/mechanical-clocks-prove-theimportance-of-technology-for-economic-growth/.
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