Technology is a broad concept with many applications, from the most sublime such as planetary science to the mundane such as changing gear in your car or brushing your teeth. What all these technologies have in common is their intervening power: they change the way we do things – whether by helping us to achieve a more efficient outcome or by opening up new possibilities and challenges.
In some cases, it’s impossible to tell what a technology will do until we’ve started using it. This is particularly true for digital technologies, which are so easy to edit – and which have already shown how difficult it will be to enforce copyright law.
But even in cases where we can see what technology will do, it’s not always clear how it will affect our world. Technologists have often criticized what they see as a new wave of Luddites, people who are trying to slow or stop the development of new technologies. This article takes a critical look at this debate, and asks whether the same traditional drivers of policy outcomes still sufficiently explain what happens when we create, deploy or use new technology.
Much of the time, when we talk about technology we mean gadgets – mobile phones, computers, the internet, HiFi’s, cars, drones and robotic grass cutters. But there is a whole world of other technological processes going on around us all the time, some visible and others less so, from the industrial automation of production to the use of artificial intelligence to find job applicants. This article shines a light on these invisible but nevertheless powerful forces that are transforming the modern workplace.