A newsletter by 2100, designed to help organizations steer the commercialization of emerging technologies towards positive outcomes.
The development of technologies is currently outpacing our ability to foresee, understand, and mitigate their negative implications. In the stead of promised techno-utopias we are often left grappling with the undesired, unintended consequences of entrenched technologies. This problem is not new. As Aldous Huxley wrote in 1958:
“We mustn’t be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology. This has happened again and again in history with technology’s advance… people have found themselves in situations which they didn’t foresee and doing all sorts of things they didn’t want to do.”
Instead of fixing with hindsight, let’s design with foresight.
Via the 2100 Newsletter, Chris Neels shares occasional writings intended to help you more contemplatively design technologies before their effects become known. These writings draw from research in responsible innovation, science and technology studies (STS), anthropology, sociology, philosophy, management, and design.