Contents

Introduction  1

I VISIONS OF A TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE   7

1 The Machine Stops   11

E. M. Forster

2 The Prolongation of Life   33

Francis Fukuyama

3 Reproductive Ectogenesis: The Third Era of Human Reproduction

and Some Moral Consequences   45
Stellan Welin

4 Eight Great Technologies   55

David Willetts

5 Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us   67

Bill Joy

6 Sultana’s Dream   87
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

II THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY   95

7 Do Machines Make History?   99

Robert L. Heilbroner

8 The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts   109

Trevor J. Pinch and Wiebe Bijker

9 Technological Momentum   137

Thomas P. Hughes

10 Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few

Mundane Artifacts   147
Bruno Latour

11 Gender: The Missing Factor in STS   173

Eulalia Pérez Sedeño
vi Contents

III TECHNOLOGY AND VALUES   185

12 Do Artifacts Have Politics?   189

Langdon Winner

13 Control: Human and Nonhuman Robots   205

George Ritzer

14 White  229
Richard Dyer

15 Manufacturing Gender in Commercial and Military Cockpit Design   237

Rachel N. Weber

16 Amish Technology: Reinforcing Values and Building Community   247

Jameson M. Wetmore

17 Preserving Traditional Knowledge: Initiatives in India   267

Rupak Chakravarty

18 Equity in Forecasting Climate: Can Science Save the World’s Poor?   275
Maria Carmen Lemos and Lisa Dilling

IV THE COMPLEX NATURE OF SOCIOTECHNICAL SYSTEMS   287

19 Sociotechnical Complexity: Redesigning a Shielding Wall   291

Dominique Vinck

20 Fukushima and the Inevitability of Accidents   303

Charles Perrow

21 Nature as Infrastructure: Making and Managing the Panama

Canal Watershed   311
Ashley Carse

22 Conceptions of Control and IT Artefacts: An Institutional Account

of the Amazon Rainforest Monitoring System   335
Raoni Guerra Lucas Rajão and Niall Hayes

23 Franken-­Algorithms: The Deadly Consequences

of Unpredictable Code   357
Andrew Smith

24 The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food   367

Michael Moss

25 The Gender Binary Will Not Be Deprogrammed: Ten Years of Coding

Gender on Facebook   379
Rena Bivens

26 Audible Citizenship and Audiomobility: Race, Technology,

and CB Radio   397
Art M. Blake
Contents vii

27 Drones for the Good: Technological Innovations, Social Movements,

and the State   413
Austin Choi-­Fitzpatrick

V TWENTY-­FIRST-­CENTURY CHALLENGES AND STRATEGIES   429

28 Engineering the Brain: Ethical Issues and the Introduction

of Neural Devices   433
Eran Klein, Tim Brown, Matthew Sample, Anjali R. Truitt, and Sara Goering

29 Cyber (In)security: Threat Assessment in the Cyber Domain   449

George Lucas

30 Geoengineering as Collective Experimentation   463

Jack Stilgoe

31 Seven Principles for Equitable Adaptation   483

Alice Kaswan

32 Socio-­Energy Systems Design: A Policy Framework

for Energy Transitions   501
Clark A. Miller, Jennifer Richter, and Jason O’Leary

33 Debugging Bias: Busting the Myth of Neutral Technology   527

Felicia L. Montalvo

34 When Winning Is Losing: Why the Nation That Invented the Computer
Lost Its Lead   531
Mar Hicks

35 Shaping Technology for the “Good Life”: The Technological Imperative

versus the Social Imperative   543
Gary Chapman

36 Not Just One Future   555

David E. Nye

Index  567
Introduction

Technology is a powerful component of the modern world. Its influence can be clearly
seen in the fact that many of the iconic accomplishments of modern societies are techno-
logical in nature. For instance, the twentieth century was marked by the construction of
the Panama Canal; the invention and widespread adoption of the automobile, airplane,
radio, and television; the moon landing; the development of the atomic bomb; and
the development of computers and information technologies. Technologies have at least
partly empowered even recent, seemingly nontechnological achievements made around
the world. For instance, birth control pills helped enable women’s liberation, and the
invention of the Internet spurred the emergence of new democracies across the globe.
Technology has been an important factor shaping the character of human societies and
individual lives for millennia, but in looking back over the last century, it is evident that
the power of technology to change the way we live is undeniable and awe inspiring.
Technologies not only have contributed to broad social and political change but
have permeated almost every dimension of daily life in industrialized societies. Refrig-
erators, coffee makers, and microwave ovens make certain foods easy for us to obtain
and others more difficult. Washing machines, pharmaceuticals, electric toothbrushes,
and exercise equipment all shape our health and hygiene. The clothes we wear, the
banks we put our money into, and the jobs we hold are all impacted or even made
possible by global systems that exist only because of the complex technological sys-
tems they’re built on. We maintain our personal as well as our working relationships
through a global communications network. We entertain ourselves by means of digital
technologies in which the quality of audio and images improves year after year. In
short, a wide range of technologies are now an essential part of our work, play, educa-
tion, health, finances, child-­rearing, and even reproduction.
Modern societies have embraced technologies for a variety of reasons, but broadly
speaking, new technologies offer new opportunities and the promise of improved lives.
Technologies have been used to solve problems that have plagued humanity for centu-
ries, eradicating diseases, harnessing new energy resources, and providing rapid trans-
portation. Developers of technology have also pointed out needs we never knew we had
to justify the creation of new devices, including eliminating bad breath, providing the
convenience of shopping at home, and offering new forms of entertainment such as
interactive games.
While technologies have helped us create a truly amazing world, it is clear that
numerous problems remain. Our goal is and should be to make the world a better place
for ourselves, for those around us, and for those who will come after us. To achieve this
better future, we will need to direct technology toward the values we want to promote.
2 Introduction

If new technologies solve problems and make our lives better, then we might expect
continuous technological development to bring constant improvements in human
lives. Visions and predictions of the future are often based on the idea that new tech-
nologies will bring about social change—­that in and of themselves, technologies create
the future. But we must be careful not to confuse technological change with social and
human progress. We may be better off in some ways and worse off in others as a result
of adopting certain technologies.
Technologies rarely, if ever, change the world in a clear, singular way. When we
integrate them into our society, they often have far-­rippling effects that are not always
positive. Economies have been built on the wealth and benefits generated from manu-
facturing, but many manufacturing techniques degrade our environment and living
conditions through the pollutants they produce. Social media has allowed us to share
our views with people on the other side of the planet but may also make the mea-
sured, thoughtful discourse necessary for democracy more difficult. In addition to what
some deem “side effects,” new technologies can also lead to (desirable or undesirable)
shifts in power from one group to another. For example, the computational power of
large mainframes has enabled the growth of huge organizations, making it harder and
harder for small companies to compete. In some cases, the impacts of new technologies
have become perceptible soon after development—­like the atomic bombs dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With other technologies, the implications have manifested
more slowly—­such as damage to the environment from chemical pesticides and fertil-
izers generated and accumulated over the past few centuries.
What exactly counts as a “negative implication” of a technology is up for debate as
well because technologies affect different groups of people differently. The benefits may
go to some segments of a population while the burdens are borne by other groups. This
is the case, for example, with toxic waste disposal plants, which are generally located
in poor nonwhite communities, putting those who live nearby at increased health risk
while citizens living farther away reap the benefits. Technologies can reinforce prevail-
ing inequalities, but they can also disrupt status quo arrangements. Think here of how
new online news services have put print newspapers out of business or consider how
the threat from autonomous vehicles may disempower those who drive vehicles for a
living. Thus, while technology must be part of the solution in making a better world,
we must also be mindful that simply “adding” technology would not necessarily create
a world we want to live in.
The good news is that technology doesn’t just happen. It doesn’t just come out
of nowhere. A wide range of social forces create and shape technologies. We all make
decisions that shape or direct the development and use of technologies. For instance,
venture capitalists and government officials decide in which areas of science and engi-
neering to invest their resources. Corporate executives choose the types of products
they will bring to market. Engineers design technologies with certain features and
applications. Marketers evaluate how technologies may best be presented to the public.
Regulators specify standards to help ensure that industries develop products that are
safe and efficient. Advocates working with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
encourage the development of alternative technologies that corporations may have
overlooked, as well as voice concerns about technologies they believe governments
should regulate. Finally, every individual decides whether, where, when, and how to
use new technologies at home, in public places, and at work.
The fact that technologies don’t just “happen” to society but are the result of
social shaping means that influencing and even steering the trajectory of technological
Introduction 3

developments is possible, albeit not easy. The challenge is daunting because so many
different actors and factors can affect the development of technology. Often, decisions
are difficult to make because they involve competing values. For instance, those who
want to save the world through clean energy have come face-­to-­face with those whose
lives and fortunes have been invested in older energy systems—­including everyone
from big oil companies to Native American tribes with economies based on their coal
reserves. In this situation, not everyone can get what they want. The competing values
must be resolved. Usually those with power, money, and prestige are in the best posi-
tion to resolve issues like this in their favor. Thus, too often, new technologies make
the world a better place for the “haves” rather than the “have nots,” worsening the
inequities that already exist.
When it comes to the future, the fact that human decisions influence technologi-
cal development is liberating. It means that no vision of the future is inevitable. The
actions of today influence outcomes that will constitute the shape of the future. This
book has been designed with the idea that readers, like the authors, want the future
to be a good place for humanity. We want the future to be better than the present.
Among other things this means that we want future technologies to constitute human
lives, organizations, governments, and economies in ways that fulfill human needs and
enhance human well-­being—­and do so for all. Such a goal is, we acknowledge, idealis-
tic, but we believe the alternative is unacceptable.
In order to influence the development of technology in whatever way—­large or
small—­it is essential to understand the relationships between technology and society.
This book is designed to do just that. Although there are limits to what individuals
can do to influence the direction of technological development, the idea of the book
is to provide an understanding of how technology and society intertwine that will be
helpful to anyone whose decisions affect the future. Whether you are a consumer of
technology, a user of technology, a policy-­maker, a constituent, an engineer, or a busi-
ness leader, if you want to direct technology in the most beneficial ways, you need to
understand how people shape technology and how technology shapes people. While
we are constantly surrounded by devices and tools and often know how they work
mechanically, we don’t always know where they came from and what it takes to make
them work, and we generally don’t think much about the social effects they can have.
We need an understanding of how machines, devices, and techniques are interwoven
with people, institutions, goals, and values if we are going to work for better futures.
A fundamental way this book seeks to further this concept is by rethinking the
very idea of technology. The book argues, implicitly as well as explicitly, that technol-
ogy does not just comprise material objects—­or artifacts. Technology neither exists nor
has meaning without the human activities of which it is a part. Similarly, many social
practices would be impossible or incomprehensible without material objects. As such,
to understand the ways in which technology permeates and constitutes our everyday
lives, we have to examine material objects together with the social practices and social
relationships that make such material objects possible and useful. This book and most
of the authors in it approach technologies as sociotechnical systems, rather than indi-
vidual devices or machines.
For example, to understand how technologies develop and change over time, it is
important to examine the ways that human decision-­making influences design. One
of the most prominent and influential technologies of the twentieth (and probably the
twenty-­first) century—­the automobile—­has been subject to countless forces seeking to
shape its design. Engineers, designers, policy-­makers, consumer advocacy groups, and
4 Introduction

consumers themselves have all had an impact on automotive design, with the hopes of
promoting their specific goals. Everything from the tail fins of the 1950s to the catalytic
converters of the 1970s was a result of the values of a different social group or groups
to shape the cars ultimately offered to the public. If you don’t consider the social and
political forces that inspire it, automobile design probably won’t make much sense.
The intertwining of human behavior and technological operations can also be
thought of in terms of how things work. Technological devices only work through a
combination of human behavior and machine behavior. Even something as simple
and seemingly autonomous as a thermostat yields useful results only when the right
human and machine inputs have been entered into the system. Although the thermo-
stat receives temperature input and automatically responds by altering the functioning
of the furnace and air conditioner, it must be built and installed by a human, and a
human needs to set the temperature.
To provide an understanding of technology as a sociotechnical system, the book
begins by presenting a selection of visions of the future. Each vision recognizes a con-
nection between technology and society, but each vision and connection is distinc-
tive. The selections raise many questions about the future we might be headed for, the
opportunities for change created by new and evolving technologies, the processes by
which technologies affect and constitute aspects of human societies and modes of life,
and the importance of playing an active role in shaping our collective future.
Although we have suggested that the relationship between technology and society
is so interwoven that the two are inseparable, the relationship need not, by any means,
be a black box. In the last half century in particular, a new field of study known as
STS (science and technology studies or science, technology, and society) sprang up as
scholars began theorizing about the social aspects of science and technology. In the
second section, we present several of the major theories that have been put forward,
contested, and used. We offer these theories and the associated concepts as tools to aid
in understanding technology’s role in the past, present, and future.
One of the most important aspects of this relationship centers around human and
social values and how they are embedded in technological choices. Values shape and
are shaped by technology. The readings in the third section illustrate this point by
focusing on a particular value in a particular context and time period. These selec-
tions suggest the importance of recognizing values in technological decision-­making
for the future and offer examples of how one might promote specific values through
technology.
In trying to get a handle on how values shape and are shaped by technological
decisions, we have intentionally selected readings that illustrate how race and gender
are entangled with technology. The absence of race and gender from early theorizing in
technology has begun to be remedied through research documenting just how subtly
and complexly race and gender come into play in technological design and decision-­
making. To promote continuing work in this area, race and/or gender are addressed in
every section of the book.
None of the theories about the technology-­society relationship claims that the
relationship is simple. The readings in the fourth section identify and illustrate the
interesting and sometimes subtle complexities. These readings show that we (individu-
ally and collectively: e.g., as countries, cultures, or organizations) must think carefully
about the technological choices we make.
We end the book with a set of readings that focus on sociotechnical challenges we
currently face. How can we fulfill energy needs without destroying the environment or
Introduction 5

worsening social inequities? In seeking security, how should we respond to and distin-
guish cybercrime and cyber acts of warfare? How will we understand what it means to
be a person when scientists can tinker with the brain to affect attitudes and behavior?
How can privacy be protected while at the same time achieving security, connected-
ness, and efficiency? These are challenges both in the short and long term, and they
are unquestionably daunting. It is impossible to posit every challenge we face in a sin-
gle section, but the readings provide examples of people struggling to address hugely
important issues, and some even identify plausible strategies and solutions. These arti-
cles serve as a model for how to approach complicated sociotechnical systems with an
eye toward making a difference. If we care about the future, we cannot just sit back and
watch. We must face the issues, try to determine what has created the situation, and
work to steer in a direction that will bring about a better sociotechnical future.
The ultimate intent of this book is to equip readers to be agents of change in our
sociotechnical future. It offers a way to think about technology and society that can
lead to improved technologies and a society better equipped to determine future out-
comes. Whether you are an engineer, a policy-­maker, a tinkerer, or simply a concerned
citizen, you are more likely to make a difference if you understand the complexities of
technological decisions. Such a journey will certainly not be easy, but this book will
encourage and guide in that endeavor.