How do we evaluate the benefits and costs of technologies? Neil Postman spent a lifetime wrestling with such questions. In a talk given in 1998, he considered five things we need to know about technological change. Postman's enduring influence and relevance are marked by the fact that these five things featured in a column in The Washington Post, "Is the Internet Evil?" by Christine Emba, published in 2018.
Below, I summarise the five ideas from Postman's talk and provide questions (in italics) we should ask about any technology, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI).
1. All technological change is a trade-off.
"the greater the wonders of a technology, the greater will be its negative consequences"
Don't just ask the question "What will a new technology do?" Also ask, "What will a new technology undo?"
"a sophisticated perspective on technological change includes one’s being skeptical of Utopian and Messianic visions drawn by those who have no sense of history or of the precarious balances on which culture depends."
Through adoption of the technology, what will we lose, individually and as a society?
2. The advantages and disadvantages of a new technology are never distributed evenly among the population.
Who will benefit? Who will be harmed?
Winners will try to persuade losers that they will benefit as well.
Benefits and harms can relate to employment, finances, social status, health, and political power.
3. Embedded in every technology are powerful ideas.
"These ideas are often hidden from our view because they are of a somewhat abstract nature. But this should not be taken to mean that they do not have practical consequences."
"The telegraphic person values speed, not introspection. The television person values immediacy, not history... the computer person values information, not knowledge, certainly not wisdom."
What ideas are embedded in the technology?
How does it make us use our minds and bodies?
How does it affect our personal relationships and social cohesion?
4. Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. It changes everything.
"The consequences of technological change are always vast, often unpredictable and largely irreversible."
The entrepreneurs who started the television industry "did not mean to turn political discourse into a form of entertainment."
The consequences can be social, economic, political, environmental, religious, and health-related.
What are the unintended consequences of the technology?
5. When a technology becomes mythic, it is always dangerous because it is then accepted as it is, and is therefore not easily susceptible to modification or control.
"...our enthusiasm for technology can turn into a form of idolatry and our belief in its beneficence can be a false absolute. The best way to view technology is as a strange intruder, to remember that technology is not part of God’s plan but a product of human creativity and hubris, and that its capacity for good or evil rests entirely on human awareness of what it does for us and to us."
How does the technology lead to idolatry? Do people worship it, its creators, or its owners?
Finally,
Do we use the technology or does the technology use us? In other words, are we will to shape our lives to fit the requirements of the technology, rahter than have our values shape our use of the technology?
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