Technology is a tool and just like any tool it can be used for good and it can be used for evil. In the age of information we are presented with new tools everyday that make our life better in some areas and worse in others. While reading this paper you must ask yourself some questions. How much should we give up to progress the evolution of this technology? At what point should the pursuit of the greater good outweigh the good of the individual? Lastly, what are we truly afraid of when it comes to technology?
Just like a car, a gun or medicine, technology is a tool that can only do what the user tells it to do. Whether or not that use is good or bad is completely up to them. A car can be used to get from point A to point B in a timely manner or it can be used to run over a crowd of civilians. A gun can be used to hunt and provide food to your family or it can be used to commit massacres. Medicine in the correct doses can cure diseases and increase quality of life or in the wrong doses it is a poison that can kill whatever it touches. All of these examples are things many of us either have or know someone who has them. So if we're not that afraid of these tools, why are we afraid of tools such as artificial intelligence and data collection? The simple answer is that the majority of people don't understand them or their purposes yet. The examples I provided earlier have been around for longer than most of us have been alive and have been tested through time. This time has allowed them to gain our trust, unfortunately some of the new technology we have been presented with today hasn't had the time to gain our trust. Concepts such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and mass data collection are all very new and we haven't even scratched the surface of what we can do with them. Naturally this makes people uneasy and rightfully so but this isn't the first time this has happened and it won't be the last. In 1913 when Henry Ford invented the assembly line these same concerns were being raised one big concern that is the same back then as it is now is job loss. Before the assembly line Henry Ford had around fifty two thousand workers and after most had to be let go. While this was terrible for the people that lost their jobs and their families it was good for humanity as a whole. Without it we either wouldn't have the car or we’d still be in a state where cars were something only the rich could possess. Even now one hundred plus years later we are still using the same technology to make everything, airplanes, machines, phones and most other things with mechanical components. We are no longer afraid of the assembly line because the good it provided us greatly outweighed the bad and I believe in time artificial intelligence and mass data collection will do the same thing.
So if we now know that technology is a tool that can be good or bad depending on the user then what other reasons would we have for being afraid of them. I believe it is not the technology we are afraid of but rather we are afraid of ourselves. It is human nature to use this for war, once our ancient ancestors millions of years ago developed they could make fire they started using it to burn villages down. When the ancient Chinese developed gunpowder and guns they realized they could use them to obliterate their enemies. Nuclear energy has the strength to power entire countries but every major super power holds them only to destroy the other. It is who we are as people to create tools of destruction because it is what we have done since the first person used a big rock to kill someone. We can not project our failures as a species onto the technology when we are the ones that are flawed, not the machines.
So why do I bring all of this up? Why am I so adamant on the evolution of technology? Technology removes the flaws that we have as humans. We aren't strong enough to lift boulders so we created technology that was and we weren't smart enough to do the vast amounts of computation needed to understand the universe so we created something that could. We must continue to use technology not to harm others but to increase the lives of those around us. In the short term it can often seem that what we are doing is harmful to us but when we step back and understand that we must give these things time we will realize that technology will help us overcome any obstacle as long as we allow it.
Sources
- https://youtu.be/5dZ_lvDgevk
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/one-hundred-and-three-years-ago-today-henry-ford-introduced-assembly-line-his-workers-hated-it-180961267/
- https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/inventions/who-invented-the-first-gun.htm
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