The biggest lie tech people tell themselves — and the rest of us They see facial recognition, smart diapers, and surveillance devices as inevitable evolutions. They’re not
... Evolution is a terrible metaphor for technology Technologists’ desire to make a parallel to evolution is flawed at its very foundation. Evolution is driven by random mutation — mistakes, not plans. (And while some inventions may indeed be the result of mishaps, the decision of a company to patent, produce, and market those inventions is not.) Evolution doesn’t have meetings about the market, the environment, the customer base. Evolution doesn’t patent things or do focus groups. Evolution doesn’t spend millions of dollars lobbying Congress to ensure that its plans go unfettered.<https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajdellinger/2019/04/30/how-the-biggest-tech-companies-spent-half-a-billion-dollars-lobbying-congress/> In some situations, even if we can’t literally put a technological genie back in a bottle, we can artificially intervene to make sure the genie plays by specific rules. Evolution is driven by mistakes, not plans There are clear laws about what companies can and can’t do in the realm of biological weapons. The FDA ensures drugs are tested for efficacy and safety before they can be sold. The USDA ensures new food research is done with care. We don’t let anybody frack or drill for oil or build nuclear power plants wherever they like. We don’t let just anybody make and sell cars or airplanes or guns. So the assertion that technology companies can’t possibly be shaped or restrained with the public’s interest in mind is to argue that they are fundamentally different from any other industry. They’re not. ... https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/10/1/20887003/tech-technology-evolution-natural-inevitable-ethics
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