Don’t Blame the Tech…

In writing the opening to my article last week, I posed the question of whether Edward Snowden was a traitor or a hero.

I asked that question to demonstrate that technology itself is value neutral. A tool. What we do with it — and how we respond to what’s been done with it — depends on our views and values, our own history that fuels our own opinions.

Frankly, while the debate on Snowden’s fate is interesting and related, my point was not political, as many of the comments skewed. But, fair enough, this is clearly an important issue and a legitimate, passionate divide.

The issue remains, however, that we confuse technology not only with who is using it, but how it’s applied. In fact, we bundle technology with all that surrounds it and call everything technology. So, when Amazon couldn’t deliver packages to last-minute Christmas shoppers, it felt like and was reported as a technological fail, when in fact, the basics of shipping have been around since Sears started its mail-order catalog in the 1800s, and probably way before.

The NSA failed, too. So focused on their own data capture, it shockingly never occurred to them that someone could do to them what they were doing to others, collecting the data. And so a cheap, off-the-shelf piece of software brought the NSA to its knees.

But that, too, is not a failure of technology. It’s a lack of human touch. Even worse, a deficit of human vision. Someone didn’t think it through.

So, given that the Internet was designed with the precise intent of information sharing, it seems to me that we are scarily abdicating responsibility when we allow algorithms to make the tough judgment — and moral — calls.

Technology can make life easier. It can help us make sense of massive amounts of information. It can organize, sort and order. It can bring people together as never before. But the flip side holds true, too. Technology can complicate lives if process becomes a substitute for thoughtful decisions. It can distort information if it isn’t filtered intelligently. And, as we’ve seen, it sure can divide people as never before.

All of which means that technology is better, wiser, more effective when we believe its power is mechanical more than magical. Algorithmic, but not analytic.

Technology makes us better, but in every case we make the technology better. And if we’ve learned anything this year, it’s that people still matter most — for good or for bad.

So, to those who continue to debate Snowden’s fate, I leave it to you…hero or zero, either way only you will make the decision and not a passionless algorithm.