Untitled EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND SOCIETY

Clearly we have adopted a technologically mediated way of living which inherently has far reaching consequences. Here we offer a forum for an initial inter-disciplinary discussion based on the complex issue of this technology evolution in its wider socio-cultural context. Following an initial statement on the topic from an anthropological perspective, we invited the responses of individuals and groups from the technical and legal disciplines. In this way we hope to contribute to the growing debate on the wider implications of emerging technology for our (continued) way of life. These statements can be considered personal and subjective rather than factual in the strictest sense. As such a short biography of each author is given to help set each discussion into its broader context. 

Daniela Cerqui 

Author’s background: Daniela Cerqui is a social and cultural anthropologist working at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and University of Reading, UK, involved in the study of the relationship between technology and society and, more fundamentally, humankind. Her research focuses on the development of new information technologies and the ‘information society’ these technologies are supposed to create.

Social and cultural anthropologists are involved in the study of differences between human cultures, and in the study of what human beings may have in common despite these differences. One common thing is the use of technology, as there is absolutely no human culture without it. Therefore, the study of the relationship between technology on the one hand, and society – and more fundamentally humankind – on the other hand, is a relevant topic. 

Most anthropologists are more interested in other cultures than in their own. Nevertheless, our western society deserves being studied at different levels. As far as I am concerned, I am interested in the way technology is designed, produced, and used in my own society. 

The main anthropological questions are related to what kind of society we want to live in, in the future. That implies a need to stand back from the classical visions of technology, which are, basically: 

1. Technological neutralism. According to this view, technology is neutral, and only its use can be good or bad. If you take a hammer to nail, it is good. If you take it to kill someone, it is bad. The user is the only responsible person for the good or bad result. The only thing we can do is to promote good uses. 

2. Technological determinism. According to this view, technology is intrinsically either good or bad. In the first case (technophile determinism), there is a faith that technology is the right solution for solving all the problems of the world (knowledge, wealth, and even happiness for everyone). In the second case (technophobe determinism), there is the belief that technology will lead us to a huge catastrophe. 

Moreover, we very often find a mix of neutralism and determinism in common speeches. A good example is the World Summit on the information society. Organised by a Committee established under the patronage of Kofi Annan, the summit was initially mentioned in a resolution of the International Telecommunication Union, in order to be organised by the United Nations. It was held in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis. Most positions defended during the meetings assumed that we have no choice (determinism) and at the same time that we have to do the right things, if we want to reach the right goal (neutralism).

All these views have in common one thing: they consider that what has to be analysed is the impact of technology. It is taken for granted that technology does exist, and we ‘just’ have to assess its consequences. In other words, we have to wonder how to live with technology in the best way, considering that there are no other options. For instance, the discussions about privacy fall into this category. 

Once a specific technology exists, we must indeed ask these questions, but the resulting debates are never-ending, unless we consider first the cultural context in which it was developed. An anthropological approach takes into account the society and its values as a whole. According to this holistic view, technology is never neutral. And neither is it deterministic. 

It does not emerge from nowhere. Our values are embedded in it. Talking about impact and consequences is only one half of the problem, because technology is itself the result of a process. It is thought, built, and used according to principles that are taken for granted. Once it exists, it will reinforce these principles. Therefore, being responsible does not just mean being able to cope with consequences. Those who produce new technologies are at least as responsible as the users. The main question is related to what we develop these technologies for. What is the ultimate goal? Why do we want them? What implicit project for society and humankind are they part of? And only once we are aware of these long term issues, can we properly tackle the problems linked to how to live with technology. 

To answer the question “why do we develop these technologies?”, we need to know that all of us have a taken for granted definition of humankind, at two levels. First, we have a definition of what a human being is. That is so obvious for us, that most of the time it is difficult to detail it. Even more difficult: we also have a normative definition, i.e. an idea of what a human being should be. 

All the technological devices are produced according to these two definitions, which are culturally and socially grounded. In other words, it means that they are the result of cultural choices. There are different ways of living together, and each society collectively defines its own rules. Generally speaking, society includes our social, our political and our economical systems. All of them continuously interact with each other, according to the main cultural values. Whatever the driving system is, it is shaped by these shared values. In such a context, the individual choices are subordinated to - and can hardly step out from - the cultural frame.  

If we look further at our current values, we understand that our western society has clearly chosen a technologically mediated way of living. As we are convinced that there is no other option, we are diffusing it all over the world, where other cultures currently try to follow the same pattern, even if it is not their cultural one. According to people with power over our political or economical lives, as well as those from the scientific world, we are supposed to have recently entered the information era, which is supposed to be synonymous with an improvement in all the fields. French discourse talks of the ‘information society’ or the ‘knowledge society’, while English-speakers frequently refer to ‘information highways’. All these phrases express differently the same idea: we are supposed to live in a radically new kind of society. That so-called information Society is often considered as an unquestionable reality linked with the emergence and development of the Information and Communication Technologies. With such a point of view, globalisation - defined as an extension of the Western information society to the entire world - has to become a reality in order to obtain a better quality of life for everybody. Information is described as the most important source of wealth for individuals and for countries (see for example [Gates, (1996)] and [Dertouzos, (1997)]) and it is expected to bring money and education to the whole world. That means that if, in the past, the industrial society needed efficient bodies to produce more and more, the information society needs nowadays efficient brains to deal with information. The keyword is: access. To be successful in such a society, you need to access information. And the quicker access, the better. Computers are nowadays put everywhere in our environment. They are becoming ubiquitous. But, paradoxically, they are also becoming less and less visible, by becoming smaller and smaller. Information technologies are also getting closer to the human body with each new breakthrough. Thereof, technological implants, brain to machine and brain to brain direct interfaces appear as the last logical step. If the device is implanted, there is no delay in accessing information.

According to Virilio (1995), the history of humankind has seen three major revolutions that point towards an ever-increasing speed in getting in touch with the world. The first one – in transportation – allowed humankind to master space by achieving the ability to move through it. The second revolution – that of transmission or communication – permitted a mastery over time, and allowed the elements of mankind’s environment to reach him faster than if he was forced to move himself in order to obtain them. And the third revolution – that of transplantation – shortens the process even more by directly incorporating the information into the organism.

With his experiments, Kevin Warwick [Warwick, (2003)] is just one step further than the rest of us. With the Internet, we merge metaphorically with technology. By interfacing his nervous system with a computer and the internet, he did it for real. 

Coming back now to how to live with technology, we can think again about the problem of privacy, as it is valued in our society. IT must by definition be transparent. But this value is contradictory with the respect of the private sphere. Until we are aware of that, we will never solve the problem, because each coin has two sides. In this case, either the information must circulate without any boundaries and everybody can access everything in real time, or we want our privacy to be preserved. But we cannot have both.