What Difference Does Technology Make?
In his book on policy-making, Geoffrey Vickers talks about three related types of judgment – reality judgment (what is going on, also called appreciation or sense-making), value judgment and action judgment.
In his book on technology ethics, Hans Jonas notes "the excess of our power to act over our power to foresee and our power to evaluate and to judge" (p22). In other words, technology disrupts the balance between the three types of judgment identified by Vickers.
Jonas (p23) identifies four critical differences between technological action and earlier forms
novelty of its methodsunprecedented nature of some of its objectssheer magnitude of most of its enterprisesindefinitely cumulative propagation of its effectsAnother disruptive effect of technology is that it affects our reality judgments. Our knowledge and understanding of what is going on (WIGO) is rarely direct, but is mediated (screened) by technology and systems. We get an increasing amount of our information about our social world through technical media: information systems and dashboards, email, telephone, television, internet, social media, and these systems in turn rely on data collected by a wide range of monitoring instruments, including IoT. These technologies screen information for us, screen information from us.
The screen here is both literal and metaphorical. It is a surface on which the data are presented, and also a filter that controls what the user sees. The screen is a two-sided device: it both reveals information and hides information.
Heidegger thought that technology tends to constrain or impoverish the human experience of reality in specific ways. Albert Borgmann argued that technological progress tends to increase the availability of a commodity or service, and at the same time pushes the actual device or mechanism into the background. Thus technology is either seen as a cluster of devices, or it isn't seen at all. Borgmann calls this the Device Paradigm.
But there is a paradox here. On the one hand, the device encourages to pay attention to the immediate affordance of the device, and ignore the systems that support the device. So we happily consume recommendations from media and technology giants, without looking too closely at the surveillance systems and vast quantities of personal data that feed into these recommendations. But on the other hand, technology (big data, IoT, wearables) gives us the power to pay attention to vast areas of life that were previously hidden.
In agriculture for example, technology allows the farmer to have an incredibly detailed map of each field, showing how the yield varies from one square metre to the next. Or to monitor every animal electronically for physical and mental welbeing.
And not only farm animals, also ourselves. As I said in my post on the Internet of Underthings, we are now encouraged to account for everything we do: footsteps, heartbeats, posture. (Until recently this kind of micro-attention to oneself was regarded as slightly obsessional, nowadays it seems to be perfectly normal.)
Albert Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Everyday Life (University of Chicago Press, 1984)
Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility (University of Chicago Press, 1984)
Geoffrey Vickers, The Art of Judgment: A Study in Policy-Making (Sage 1965)
In his book on technology ethics, Hans Jonas notes "the excess of our power to act over our power to foresee and our power to evaluate and to judge" (p22). In other words, technology disrupts the balance between the three types of judgment identified by Vickers.
Jonas (p23) identifies four critical differences between technological action and earlier forms
novelty of its methodsunprecedented nature of some of its objectssheer magnitude of most of its enterprisesindefinitely cumulative propagation of its effectsAnother disruptive effect of technology is that it affects our reality judgments. Our knowledge and understanding of what is going on (WIGO) is rarely direct, but is mediated (screened) by technology and systems. We get an increasing amount of our information about our social world through technical media: information systems and dashboards, email, telephone, television, internet, social media, and these systems in turn rely on data collected by a wide range of monitoring instruments, including IoT. These technologies screen information for us, screen information from us.
The screen here is both literal and metaphorical. It is a surface on which the data are presented, and also a filter that controls what the user sees. The screen is a two-sided device: it both reveals information and hides information.
Heidegger thought that technology tends to constrain or impoverish the human experience of reality in specific ways. Albert Borgmann argued that technological progress tends to increase the availability of a commodity or service, and at the same time pushes the actual device or mechanism into the background. Thus technology is either seen as a cluster of devices, or it isn't seen at all. Borgmann calls this the Device Paradigm.
But there is a paradox here. On the one hand, the device encourages to pay attention to the immediate affordance of the device, and ignore the systems that support the device. So we happily consume recommendations from media and technology giants, without looking too closely at the surveillance systems and vast quantities of personal data that feed into these recommendations. But on the other hand, technology (big data, IoT, wearables) gives us the power to pay attention to vast areas of life that were previously hidden.
In agriculture for example, technology allows the farmer to have an incredibly detailed map of each field, showing how the yield varies from one square metre to the next. Or to monitor every animal electronically for physical and mental welbeing.
And not only farm animals, also ourselves. As I said in my post on the Internet of Underthings, we are now encouraged to account for everything we do: footsteps, heartbeats, posture. (Until recently this kind of micro-attention to oneself was regarded as slightly obsessional, nowadays it seems to be perfectly normal.)
Albert Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Everyday Life (University of Chicago Press, 1984)
Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility (University of Chicago Press, 1984)
Geoffrey Vickers, The Art of Judgment: A Study in Policy-Making (Sage 1965)
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