On Understanding Power and Technology

Viewing a technology as a purely neutral object is ignoring the human intention designed into it, the meaning that humans give to the technology we interact with, and the incredible agency involved in a technologist’s work.

And since technology is not value neutral, to be a technologist is to be inherently opinionated about how the world ought to be. Each act of creation is a statement about one particular means to an end being the best possible means. As Saffron Huang writes, “[b]ringing something into existence is in fact endorsing that thing itself. As we hurtle al... See more

Postman believed that technological change tended to shape every aspect of the world around us, and that its danger was that it would set the boundaries for our thinking. The major risk Postman identified is that we might begin to accept technology as a part of nature, as though it were the inescapable way of things. We have to remember that these ... See more

So, of course, now it makes sense to investigate the nature of these digital innovations, how they form part of the architecture of our daily lives, how they come to market, who controls them and their heteroskedastic affects on different groups. We need to ask whether the interplay of these technologies with society and market forces has led to or... See more

The tendency to think of A.I. as a magical problem solver is indicative of a desire to avoid the hard work that building a better world requires. That hard work will involve things like addressing wealth inequality and taming capitalism. For technologists, the hardest work of all—the task that they most want to avoid—will be questioning the assumpt

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