Understanding the Impact of Future Technologies
Computer Ethics Institute, October 3, 1990
Ramon C. Barquin , Washington Consulting Group and Computer Ethics Institute
"The challenge we confront today is the very same one that man has had to face since he started making tools in prehistoric times: that technology often crates new problems, at the same time it solves old ones. Second-order consequences of our inventions are almost impossible to predict. And as we climb the steady ladder of progress along technological development, it becomes very difficult to stop and cogitate about the future. Could we have predicted high rates of traffic accidents and deaths at the birth of the internal combustion engine? And even if we could have, what would we have done differently?
Raymond Bauer, the noted sociologist, has said that "the major task in control over our destiny is to make as many second-order consequences as possible intended, anticipated and desirable; and reduce to a practical minimum those that are unintended, unanticipated and undesirable." This articulates it well, but it is still a formidable directive to carry out."
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