This Winner’s view, that Technology is more social than physical leads us to consider on this study questions of ethical nature about technology.
Philosophies of Technology [1]
Norman Vig (1988) identifies three philosophies of technology, which determine the nature of the ethical questions posed by technology.
As he states, “The nature of the ethical questions posed by technology depends on ones conception of how technology relates to human purpose”, and identifies three philosophies of technology: Instrumentalist, Social Determinism and Technological Determinism.
These concepts, as presented by Norman Vig, will be here superficially referred.
Instrumentalism
According to Vig, Instrumentalism holds that a technology is simply an instrument – a means to an end – created to achieve a given purpose or meet a human need. In this interpretation, technology is seen has human progress that creates a new series of choices for human action while leaving their disposition uncertain.
What the technology does is dependent on what society does with the technology. It is the people who create technology that make it a force for benign or malicious ends. The technology itself is morally neutral.
The utility of the technology, not the societal consequences of its introduction is the priority. The effect is often to divorce technology from its social consequences.
About this view of technology, Vig argues that “it is ingenious to claim that technology is neutral if it vastly increases the power of those who control it, allows one group to dominate others, or consistently produces changes that are opposed by substantial segments of the population.”
Vig admits that the difficulty with instrumentalism lies in determining the motives of those who use the technology.
Social Determinism
On Vig’s exposition of Social determinism, technology is not an instrument for problem solving, but a reflection of societal values. This includes social, political, and cultural values. Technology is understood in terms of its particular social context.
Vig argues that technology is something that is used with deliberation, for a purpose. These purposes are cultural and based on knowledge. The knowledge is passed on through generations. As he admits, this is a very abstract definition of technology. It makes no mention of hardware, machines or the material realm in general. Instead it simply defines a process by which goals are accomplished.
For Vig, the benefit of this abstract definition of technology lies in the ability to think of technology as a generic phenomenon related to all other facets of society. It is valuable in tracing the origins of particular inventions and in explaining why variations in technological innovations can occur across cultures.
The difficulty however, is that it tells us little about technology as modern social phenomena. It reduces technology to another form of cultural expression alongside the arts, literature and music. Any ethical difficulties with the introduction of technologies are thus seen as a cultural problem. The technology itself is not considered, nor is the idea that technology can influence culture.
This idea of technology faces further problems when one considers how technology has become multinational.
Technological Determinism
Vig establishes the concept of technological determinism as one in which technology is its own governing force. “Technology follows its own logic and shapes human development more than it serves human ends”. Technology asserts certain values; the will to power; the goal of greater efficiency; and the gain of profit. Such values are said to take precedence over other human needs, both social and environmental.
This philosophy of technology is taken by Neil Postman (1992).where he describes society as being a technopoly where men serve his machines with a culture monopolized by the technological. Postman sees "progress without limits, rights without responsibilities, and technology without cost. The Technopoly story is without a moral centre. It puts in its place efficiency, interest, and economic advance.” Postman goes on metaphorically: "The computer, it is implied, has a will, has intentions, has reasons - which means that humans are relieved of responsibility for the computer's decisions."
Technological Determinists see “that technology is the most powerful force behind the modern world, that technology ‘drives’ history (Smith, Marx 1994). Those who support this idea claim more: technology may well be pushing us in directions we do not want to go, that technology has somehow gotten ‘out of control’” (Hamlett, Patrick, 1997)
Daniel Chandler (1995) puts this question of the interpretation of technology as being “neutral” or “non-neutral” where the non-neutral term is related to technological determinism.
Technology in action
Postman (1979:193, in Chandler 1995), about technology argues that “1) because of the symbolic forms in which information is encoded, different media have different intellectual and emotional biases; 2) because of the accessibility and speed of their information, different media have different political biases; 3) because of their physical form, different media have different sensory biases; 4) because of the conditions in which we attend to them, different media have different social biases; 5) because of their technical and economic structure, different media have different content biases.”
“Technologies are designs for action, but that action always takes place in a social context, and thus some other nontechnological action is necessary for technologies to do the work asked of them. ...
Couch ... understands that information technologies are designs for action that extend the human senses, especially seeing and hearing, and thereby possess certain transformative capabilities. ... he argues that different information technologies contain internal logics of their own that, in some sense, prefigure their use. ... Technologies ... call out some responses and not others, although not in a deterministic way, since sentences and cinema in and of themselves do not determine their interpretations. ...
Information technologies - speaking, quantification, writing, photographs, recordings, printing, telegraph, radio, photocopying, telephones, cinema, television, computers, Internet, satellite dishes, and so on - are designs for communicative action that, when used, transform the people and situations caught up in that action. They are symbolizations of symbols ..., that are formatted and reified in ways that potentiate different forms of association. Couch uses the ... distinction between evocative and referential symbols ... As he makes clear in wide variety of substantive cases, the emergence of a particular information technology occurs in societal contexts that contain both the potential for that technology´s adoption and sources of resistance to it. ...” (Maines, 1996)
Portuguese Information Society
Introduction
The Green Book for Information Society in Portugal (Green Book 1997) is a political document containing political statements revealing will of change towards a modern Information Society. It is a statement of intentions and orientations done on 1997. As stated on the book, it should be followed of action plans of the government.
The last action plan “Plano de Acção para a Sociedade de Informação”was approved by the Portuguese government on June 2003.
On the base of this study of the Portuguese Information Society is the view of Technology on it and how does it relates to society on cultural, political and economic aspects.
View of Information Society
As stated on the Green Book, “the expression Information Society refers to a way of social and economic development in which the acquisition, storage, processing, appreciation, transmission, distribution and dissemination of information conducive for the creation of knowledge and at the satisfaction of the necessities of the citizens and companies, performs a central role at the economic activity, in creating richness, in the definition of quality of life of the citizens and of its cultural practices.”
It is admitted on the Green Book that Information Communication Technologies (ICT) “is now integrant part of our quotidian. They had invaded our homes, work and leisure places.” Their usefulness is also stated in the book: ”[ICTs] offer useful tools for personal and work communications, for text and systematized information processing, for data base access to distributed information on digital electronic networks, moreover are integrated in many equipments of our daily lives, in home, on the office, on factories, on transportation, on education and health.” And later emphasizes that “[Information society] assumes a growing importance on collective work and introduces a new dimension on the new model of modern societies”.
On the book it is admitted the existence of a “turbulence phenomenon” caused by the successive introduction of new technologies and acceleration of individual and collective time and it states that this acceleration “imposes adjustment on values and behaviours, due to obsolescence of earlier paradigms elaborated under a different technological base”. It is admitted that the rejection or delay of that adjustments will correspond to a “less economic growth and a decrease of well-being”.
On the preface of the book, the Minister of Science and Technology, Mariano Gago gives his vision somehow different on which the flow of evolution is fully controlled by individuals: “Technique doesn’t choose for us neither the values nor the actions. Our responsibility grows on each technological mutation. Information Technologies may be useful to free citizenship forces and to button solidarities to planetary scale. However they can also be used to control and to file more comfortably, to punish and to monitor the free thought, to wisely chase and to scientifically torture.”
And the Minister continues with a clear scholar vision: “We are not technicists. When we take as ours this general slogan, seductive and apparently neutral of the information society, we have taken from it the false neutrality and took, above all, party for citizenship, against exclusion; for knowledge, against manipulation of spirit; for freedom, against repression, especially against that technically comforted; for innovation, against monopolies”
About the role of technology on the future, the book states “the politicians have, at this moment, full consciousness that the future of nations will be conditioned by the way the new ICTs would be assimilated and by the success and speed of that absorption. In this context, it is fundamental a strategic reflection to chance the opportunities offered by new technologies on a way one can overpass the barriers to this chance”.
About the future, Mariano Gago emphasizes the human role “This is not about a technical challenge, but eminently a political and social one. This is not about tools, but values. The future is in the top of this action that can not and must not fail.”
Current state
On the green book It is recognized a delay of the current state of Portugal compared to the “Global Society based on information and knowledge.”
The “Diagnostic Report of Actual State” developed by UMIC (Unidade de Missão Inovação e Conhecimento) in February 2003 makes clear the little favourable position that Portugal is compared to the rest of Europe in several fields related to the information Society.
The fields subject to comparison on the report are: Internet, Public Administration and e-government, Digital Economy, ICT Qualifications, Health,
Values
The values on the basis of the model of the Portuguese Information Society, as seen by politicians, are stated both on the Green Book and on the last published Action Plan of the government.
Information Society for all
Is said on the green book that, “one determinant factor for the success of these transformations is its full and active social acceptance”. The info-exclusion is assumed to be one main concern. For that, “it is essential to promote de social cohesion and cultural diversity, equalization of conditions in diversity regional spaces encourage participation of citizens on the community life and offer one government, more opened and communicative, concerned on identifying problems and solutions of public interest.”
On the Action Plan is additionally stated the objective of generalize the access to Internet in Broadband.
Open Government, Quality and Efficiency on Public Services
As on the Action Plan, the objective is “to put the citizen and the companies on the centre of attentions” and the goal is to “improve the quality of the services and reinforce the means for active participation on the citizenship exercise.” The services include health, e-government and general public information. On the economic side it is a goal to “improve the efficiency, decrease expenses.”
Learning and Available Knowledge on Information Society
The Action Plan states the goal to “improve abilities and knowledge of the people through ICTs to: promote a Digital Culture; Improve the learning system on every education levels; to form individuals on ICTs”.
Richness of Balanced Opportunities for Commerce
The Green book states de importance of “a regulator role of the government to avoid unbalances and injustices that may happen on the free market function”.
It also refers the importance to develop “Richness in opportunities to citizens, companies”
Rich Contents
The Action Plan and refers the goal “promote one industry of rich contents technologically advanced, capable of digitalize existent information and produce new contents useful to citizens on the ambit of Information Society”.
Security, Protection and Rights of Individuals
About the security, protection and rights of the individuals, the Green Book refers “the necessity to be aware, by regulation, of the problems that may occur by the use of new technologies, namely personal data protection, legal security of databases, intellectual property protection, combat to human rights infringements and child abuse protection”.
Conclusions
Here I am supposed to give my personal opinion about Technology role on Information Society.
My position is not as radical as Postman (1992) about the current state of society as in his Technopoly vision. However, unfortunately I could say, I see technology has being definitely non-neutral. More I could say, I see some kind of gigantic force biased with technology that serves someone’s interests.
We have to possess some consciousness that usually we don’t have, perhaps for educational reasons, to see that agenda on technology that Postman refers to.
Life quality is decreasing and the scenario his worst on each successive generation. Human values are being virtualised on a society gradually more mediatic. Like Negroponte says we are being Digital, however while he sees something good on it, as in Utopia, I tend to see it more like a Dystopia.
About that tendency of multi-media we see on technology and those enchantments of innovations that attracts us, about the idea that we have necessities for consuming gigantic flows of information, about all of these images we consume everywhere, about all of it… I feel anxiety, not peace.
For the positive part of seeing these days of technology driving days I must be forced to agree with Francis Bacon on the The New Atlantis about some remarkable technology achievements where he sees the prolongation of life, the restitution of youth in some degree, the retardation of age, the mitigation of pain, as some good thing on those age’s technology wonders. (Bacon, 1626)
About this study it is absolutely incomplete. I didn’t research enough to include several other interpretations for Technology role on the information society. However it gave me more light and definitely contributed to open my view of Technology on these modern digital days.
Reference Notes
[1] The connection between Technology and Philosophy of Technology is commonly accepted on the literature. See URL “Philosophy of Technology” in URL http://polywog.navpoint.com/philosophy/technology/index.phtml
Here also is found information for the origin of the term given to Earns Kapp a German philosopher of the 19th century. See WWW document URL: http://www.regent.edu/acad/schcom/rojc/mdic/early.html
References
Printed material:
Postman, Neil (1992) “Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology”. New York: Alfred A. Knoff Inc.
Winner, Langdon (1977) “Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a theme in Political Thought”. Cambridge: The MIT Press
Online material:
Livro Verde para a sociedade da Informação em Portugal (1997): [WWW document] URL http://www.rafe.cv/download/livroverdePortugal.pdf
Plano de Acção para a Sociedade de Informação (2003): [WWW document] URL
http://www.umic.gov.pt/UMIC/CentrodeRecursos/Publicacoes/si_publicacao.htm
Chandler, Daniel (1995) “Technological or Media Determinism” [WWW document] URL http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tecdet.html
Cited: Postman, Neil (1979) "Teaching as a Conserving Activity" New York: Dell
Hamlett, Patrick (1997) "Does Technology Drive History?". College of Humanities and Social Sciences, North Carolina State University, [WWW document] URL http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/p/pwhmds/techhist.html
Cited: Smith, Merritt Roe, and Leo Marx (1994) Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press
Maines,David R. and Chen, Shing-Ling, (1996) “Information and Action: An
Introduction to Carl Couch’s Analysis of Information Technologies,” Pp. xi-xv in Carl J.Couch (1996), “Information Technologies and Social Orders”, Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter In [WWW document] URL http://www.inf-wiss.uni-konstanz.de/RIS/book01/Books01/06.html
Svatos, Michele (1997) “Don Ihde, Philosophy of Technology: An Introduction”, Iowa State University Phil. [WWW document] URL http://www.public.iastate.edu/~svatos/ptech/ihde.html
Vig, Norman J., and Kraft, Michael E., eds. (1988) “Technology and Politics”. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. In Questia Online Library URL http://www.questia.com
