[PhilNote: this is an opinion piece]
Sheila Jasanoff is professor of science and technology studies at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Technology doesn’t rule us. We direct it, but often by inaction.
...The story of the internet shows that modern societies are often better at imagining the upsides of technology than its downsides.
...In his famous poem “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost reflects on how the human mind constructs narratives of inevitability. We come to a fork in the road, we choose a path, and then as memory plays its tricks we come to see that choice as shaping all that came after. Faced with mounting problems of inequality, diminishing resources, and a looming climate calamity, we must learn to recognize the flaws in such linear storytelling, and to imagine the future along as-yet-untraveled pathways of change.
See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/30/1026329/dangerous-technology-driven-future-technological-determinism/