Society or Technology? Who Leads? (Reading Response)

Instead of writing about the candidates and their usage of tech in the elections I am going to respond to our assigned readings regarding the relationship between society and technology, specifically related to Iran.

Professor Yaros asked an important question in class this past Thursday: Does society guide technology or does technology guide society? According to our readings there is no clear-cut answer—and I agree. I see this question as one seeking to address the origins of innovation. And yes, while human creation is innovation there is more to the question than just what begets what; what also must be considered are the guiding principles—the ethos (the spirit/essence/attitude of a society or culture)--of the technology. What may navigate the manner in which technologies are used in United States will inherently differ from the way in which they are utilized in China or Greece or Iran. Even within the Western world there is no uniform ethos—everyone's got an opinion.

Not only are there geographic/cultural differences. There are also differences in how technology was viewed in terms of time period. Today the "guardians" of technology are quite different from who they were in the 19th century. Today's tech world is very, very user-generated/user-dependent. According to "When Old Technologies Were New" it was the "electrical professionals" (scientists, electrical engineers, etc.) who led the way in the early days of technology. Their job was to "engineer, promote, improve, maintain and repair the merging technical infrastructure” (Marvin 9). Most significant was their societal standing. These were cultural elites who were determining the direction of technology. Today this situation is not vastly different—mostly well-educated, upper-middle class tech developers create websites; the socio-economic gaps are unconscionable to ignore. But as was explained in class there is no technology gap, but rather a participation gap. Anyone with a library card can access and alter content on the internet. With this widening of the content-generating audience the question of whether society leads technology sort of becomes clearer. In order to better discuss this matter I want to take a short look at the use of tech post-election Iran.

Without ruining any of my future posts/explanations of the situation in Iran, the world's knowledge of that situation is largely based on user-created content. Yes, the actual construction of websites facebook and twitter required professionals but the people of Iran guided the usage of the technology. Once it was in their hands they dictated its usage. The people's ability to publicize the post-election events were dependent on the technologies available, but the guiding decisions as to how those technologies used and what they contained were entirely human.

The question posed for this assignment is a moral question in addition to being a tech question. Ethicists and academics will (if they haven’t already) struggle with this one for years to come. Essentially this is a shinier version of the chicken or the egg conundrum but today it is ultimately the user that guides the technology. At least until A.I. really takes over. . .