Why we are afraid of technology
Marco van Hurne
Partnering with the most innovative AI and RPA platforms to optimize back office processes, automate manual tasks, improve customer service, save money, and grow profits.
A study found that the average American is more afraid of robots than death. If you've read my booklet "When AI Turns Rogue" from a couple of years ago, you get a picture of what AI could do to us and how that could happen. It’s not hard to see why we fear bots— did you see that those Tesla humanoids making omelets now?
Mind control, designer babies, and covert listening devices and of course our recent scare, AI are no longer things of science fiction. They are integrating ever-deeper into our lives as the years pass, and the pace of change is accelerating. It’s enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the most tech-savvy among us — perhaps especially the tech-savvy among us.
You cannot swipe through any social media platform today without being convinced that generative AI will leave you and everyone you know, worst case dead, or, best case jobless; that’s unless you’re a prompt engineer. I literally just scrolled past a clip of a podcast that opened with, “If you are a creative, you are in trouble,” with another podcaster following that up by yelling into a microphone only an inch from his mouth, “Everybody is getting fired! Everybody is losing their job!”
Take OpenAI: founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman in 2015, the company’s stated goal is to “ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)… benefits all of humanity.” A noble, comforting mission, but one that conveniently glosses over the abject horror that their founders feel towards the very technology they’re developing.
The fear, of course, is that a sufficiently smart computer could decide to wipe humans off the map just as humans casually exterminate household pests — Musk called the development of advanced AI “summoning the demon,” and said that AGI represents a “fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.”
And so, while we laugh at OpenAI’s whimsical AI demonstrations…
…the company internally believes that they, the good guys, have to build AGI before the bad guys do, or else the world might literally end.
In a world with too-intelligent AI, killer robots, brain-to-computer interfaces, and gene editing, you can be forgiven for being a little bit afraid of modern technology.
It certainly feels like we’re standing at the knee of the exponential curve: the road behind us flat, the road before us vertical.
But we shouldn’t forget a truism of exponential growth: it always looks the same, relatively. A doubling from 0.5 to 1.0 is the exact same shape as a doubling from 5,000 to 10,000.
New technology has always been scary, and humanity has always been a little bit alarmist.
People worried that subways violated the will of God by getting people closer to hell, and that telephones would let people communicate with the dead. Early elevators were plagued by consumers who felt “elevator sickness” after their rides. And with the advent of the passenger train, people worried that “the unprecedented speeds of railroad travel could send women’s uteruses hurling from their bodies.”
Technology changes, but people stay the same.
Scary technologies can still succeed, but the initial, terrifying hurdle can only be cleared if entrepreneurs and inventors know how to build trust among the general public.
If you keep reading, I’ll help you understand how scary technologies become less scary over time, and how entrepreneurs can hasten that transition.
So why do we fear and love technologies? I firmly believe that it help us to understand these emotions and the role they play in those technologies to become truly useful to us?
Why we fear new technologies
The people who bring to life new technologies do so because they see a future where technologie, previously belonging to the realm of SciFi become reality. From when we figured out smacking some stones together could result in getting dinner faster and creating high fashion with animal hides to automating as much as we possibly can.
As a society we tend to fear technologies the most when we feel that they will cause significant economical disruptions. Especially when the hurt if very close to us, or even might involve us ourselves. In our current economic system of capitalism, this is usually reflected in the belief that there will be massive losses of jobs and income.
Us humans, we like to control, or at least have the perception of control, over our lives. A technology like AI (which is an umbrella term for a bunch of cool tools), sparks fears not just of economic impacts, but also our ability to control our societies. It is an existential threat.
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We also fear not just our loss of individual relevance with some technologies, but the relevance of our culture. The more we perceive relevance at scale, the more afraid of a technology we become. Especially so when we feel a technology may change the way we live and communicate with one another.
As AI technology becomes more integrated into everyday life, there's a growing concern about how these technologies might reshape or even potentially erode cultural identities and traditions.
One of the major fears is that AI, particularly those driven by datasets predominantly collected from certain regions (like North America or Europe), might propagate specific cultural norms and values, overshadowing local customs, languages, and practices. This could lead to a form of cultural homogenization where diverse cultural expressions are diluted.
AI developments in language technologies (like translators and voice recognition systems) tend to focus on major languages with vast amounts of data available. This focus can inadvertently neglect minority languages and dialects, leading to less support and potential extinction over time. For cultures where language is a significant part of identity, this poses a risk of losing an essential part of their cultural heritage.
One thing that personally worries me to be honest is that AI systems are increasingly used in decision-making processes, from legal judgments to hiring practices. If these AI systems are not carefully calibrated to reflect the cultural contexts in which they are used, they could impose external values and biases on local practices, potentially undermining cultural norms and ethics.
Another one that I would very much like to see more activity in, is that AI technologies are not free from biases. These biases can come from the data used to train them, which might not adequately represent all cultures or demographic groups. As a result, some groups may feel misrepresented or unfairly treated by AI systems, leading to a fear that their cultural context and realities are being ignored or misunderstood.
Interesting examples of society fearing technologies
Probably the most often cited fear at scale of technology is the Luddites. But they didn’t fear the technology so much, which they actually liked, they feared economic inequality.
Railways were deeply feared in the 1800’s. Some believed that a woman’s uterus would fly out of her if trains went faster than 60 Km/hr! Or that our bodies would melt.
In the late 1800’s as telephones became more popular a New York Times article suggested that using telephones would invade our privacy (sound familiar today too?) but perhaps most interestingly, meant we would communicate with the dead.
As the telegraph grew in use, some feared it would devastate the English language, especially poetry and that we’d all end up communicating in incomplete sentences.
When vaccines arrived on the scene, since they were created using cows, there was a pervasive fear and belief that humans would turn into cows. We even feared the use of electricity as it entered our every day lives.
How we overcome our fear of technologies
Rarely do most of our fears of technologies ever come to to reality. As sociologist Weber pointed out over a century ago, the more technology we bring into society, the greater the division of labour. This has held true.
As Amara’s law states too, we tend to overestimate the immediate impact a technology will have and underestimate its longer term impacts. A difference today over prior times of technological revolutions is that we have multiple technology advances happening much faster in a world where communication is also much faster.
As many of our fears fail to materialize and we tend to find more upsides than downsides and adapt a technology, it becomes boring. In that the technology becomes part of the fabric of our societies. Much like the telephone and television.
Technology is deeply intertwined with what it means to be human. Digital technologies have, arguably perhaps, had more impact on sociocultural systems than any prior technological revolution, which may contribute to the cultural reactions we see in society today.
But we are integrating these technologies into our cultural practices and gradually adapting to these changes. When we see this, we can step back and take a broader view of what is being undertaken and be a little less fearful about a given technology and how it might all work out.
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There is no doubt that the implementation of technology in daily life comes at the expense of other actions and largely destroys skills that were once done manually. As mentioned, this is true for motorized vehicles, for a calculator, for a microwave oven, a mobile phone, a keyboard/printer, and countless other technologies. When I submitted a printed assignment to my 10th grade teacher, she demanded that I handwrite it again, arguing that "we are not robots." Today, in most educational institutions, printing papers for submission is a mandatory requirement. The process of adopting any technology also involves overcoming the fear that it will completely replace human behavior that adds positive values, and the concern that it will fall into the hands of people who will use it maliciously and effectively to harm others. The concerns are natural, understandable and to some extent justified. Our challenge as human beings is not to avoid progress, but to make productive, informed and moral use of it.
Well, that's it for now. If you like my article, subscribe to my newsletter or connect with me. LinkedIn appreciates your likes by making my articles available to more readers.
Signing off - Marco
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Sharing about IoT AI EdgeComputing Cybersecurity, or help you discovering them (mix of personal thoughts) | Edge Intelligence advocate | Not ex-MIT, not ex-Google, not ex-Meta, not GPT-free-courses…
4 个月there is a subtle difference from other past technological breakthroughs. Those who are afraid of technology today are educated people. Not necessarily educated in technology, but in any case aware of what the world can become with a tech shift that, in a sense, shakes up ethics too.
Assistant Professor | Master's in Electrical Engineering
4 个月The fear of technology's impact often stems from the uncertainty and change it brings, challenging our understanding and control over our environment. This apprehension is heightened by concerns over artificial intelligence and its potential to significantly alter our way of living, working, and interacting with the world around us.