Is Technology Neutral?
The Impact of Technology on Society
Technologies are inexorably impacting our societies. The benefits they bring are numerous, improving health, quality of life, and the dissemination of information, while increasing efficiency and productivity. However, their impacts can also be detrimental, increasing social and economic inequalities, deteriorating health through excessive use of digital technologies, and contributing to climate change. Each technical innovation has a complex of impacts of an economic, ecological, social, organizational, cultural, and political nature. These consequences can be of different scales and perceived on distant horizons. Some are insignificant, others dramatic.
While technology has shaped our societies and lifestyles for decades, can it be considered a neutral force? The notion of "affordance" suggests that the harmful impacts of technology on society are often attributable to its implementation rather than its intrinsic nature. Screens, for example, can damage individuals' physical and mental health if misused. However, reasonable use can lead to new and beneficial knowledge.
The Neutrality Debate in Tech Ethics
Several prominent figures in the tech world defend the inherent neutrality of technology. According to John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the morality of technology is determined by the uses to which it is put. He argued that information and communication technologies should be understood as instruments with multiple utilizations rather than as active entities influencing society. Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, also claims that technology benefits are good or bad depending on its use. Developing a technology can be beneficial if its creating processes are strictly focused on the users' needs.
However, the consensus of technology ethics thinkers somewhat contradicts these claims. As early as the middle of the 20th century, Jacques Ellul demonstrated, in his work on the concept of the "ambivalence of technology", that technology itself has effects independently of its uses. Thus, it is morally wrong to separate the criminal usages of artificial intelligence from those aimed at curing cancer. Ellul reaffirms the first law of his American contemporary Melvin Kranzberg: "Technology is neither good, nor bad, nor neutral." In this, Ellul and Kranzberg invite us to consider the consequences of each technological advance with clarity and caution.
Unpredictable Consequences…
Moreover, the apprehension of the effects of technology remains, according to Ellul, a significant challenge. He divides these effects into three categories: intended, foreseeable, and unforeseeable. As the recent emergence of facial recognition in France has shown, some impacts are difficult to predict. Beyond the question of prediction, Ellul argues that the more a field of technology progresses, "the more inextricable the relationship of 'good' and 'bad' becomes, the more impossible the choice, and the tenser the situation, i.e., the less we can escape the ambivalent effects of the system." With these observations, the neutrality of technology seems to be an illusion…
Facing the Complexity
So, should we resign ourselves to the complexity of the problem? In his 1980 article "Do Artefacts Have Politics", Langdon Winner argues that artifacts have a strong political dimension. It may be that within a particular technological complex - a communications or transportation system, for example - some attributes are malleable and others inflexible. In collaboration with social actors who can influence the designs and dispositions of technologies, it then becomes possible to more or less distort the consequences for our societies. Conversely, the immutable properties of certain types of technology are maintained by institutions and powers of authority.
Embracing Responsibility in a Technological World
Jacques Ellul is more pessimistic about the future and calls for self-restraint. Some of the harmful effects are beyond any sustainable control. Ellul warns of the need for caution and responsibility in developing and using new technologies. We require awareness of technology's challenges and limits and appropriate regulation to protect the environment and individuals. In short, technological innovation must be regulated to prevent it from becoming a vector of destruction.
“All human happiness has to be paid for, and one must always ask oneself what price one will pay.”
Jacques Ellul