"Many technologies, such as modern medical and communication technologies, may make tasks easier to perform or improve overall quality of life. Technological advances can also result in negative consequences, leading to debates over their true benefit. For instance, many technologies that have increased the efficiency of warfare and the financial market exacerbate human suffering and worsen income inequality.
Some technological innovations can improve community well-being, facilitate stronger social relationships, or increase productivity. However, the benefits of a new technology are not always distributed evenly throughout society. The wealthiest members of society may have easier access to new technology, offering them an advantage over those who cannot afford it. Technology can lead to economic disruptions and job displacement to which not everyone can easily adapt."
Read the full article, Technology and Society in the Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection.
Topic Ideas for Positive and Negative Effects of Technology
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America Identified: Biometric Technology and Society
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The use of biometric technology for identification has gone from Orwellian fantasy to everyday reality. This technology, which verifies or recognizes a person's identity based on physiological, anatomical, or behavioral patterns (including fingerprints, retina, handwriting, and keystrokes) has been deployed for such purposes as combating welfare fraud, screening airplane passengers, and identifying terrorists. The accompanying controversy has pitted those who praise the technology's accuracy and efficiency against advocates for privacy and civil liberties. In America Identified, Lisa Nelson investigates the complex public responses to biometric technology. She uses societal perceptions of this particular identification technology to explore the values, beliefs, and ideologies that influence public acceptance of technology. Drawing on her own extensive research with focus groups and a national survey, Nelson finds that considerations of privacy, anonymity, trust and confidence in institutions, and the legitimacy of paternalistic government interventions are extremely important to users and potential users of the technology. She examines the long history of government systems of identification and the controversies they have inspired; the effect of the information technology revolution and the events of September 11, 2001; the normative value of privacy (as opposed to its merely legal definition); the place of surveillance technologies in a civil society; trust in government and distrust in the expanded role of government; and the balance between the need for government to act to prevent harm and the possible threat to liberty in government's actions.
Internet and the Law
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The world of Internet law is constantly changing and is difficult to follow, even for those for whom doing so is a full-time job. This updated, everything-you-need-to-know reference removes the uncertainty. * Explains complex legal and technical concepts clearly and understandably through entries that range from 500 to 5,000 words * Covers a wide range of topics, including censorship, copyright, domain name disputes, file-sharing, hacking, patents, spam, malware, international law, tax issues, trademarks, and viruses * Features an introductory guide to the U.S. legal system, including how to find, read, and understand sources of law * Includes cases, statutes, and international treaties relevant to the law of information technology and the Internet
Living with the Genie
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"A group of remarkably penetrating, frank, and expert scientists, techno-wizards, activists, and writers raise provocative questions about what is gained and what is lost in a world enthralled by technology in this wonderfully soulful forum on life in the 'Wired World.'" -BOOKLIST Biotechnology, Cloning, Robotics, Nanotechnology... At a time when scientific and technological breakthroughs keep our eyes focused on the latest software upgrades or the newest cell-phone wizardry, a group of today's most innovative thinkers are looking beyond the horizon to explore both the promise and the peril of our technological future. Human ingenuity has granted us a world of unprecedented personal power -- enabling us to communicate instantaneously with anyone anywhere on the globe, to transport ourselves in both real and virtual worlds to distant places with ease, to fill our bellies with engineered commodities once available to only a privileged elite. Through our technologies, we have sought to free ourselves from the shackles of nature and become its master. Yet science and technology continually transform our experience and society in ways that often seem to be beyond our control. Today, different areas of research and innovation are advancing synergistically, multiplying the rate and magnitude of technological and societal change, with consequences that no one can predict. Living with the Genie explores the origins, nature, and meaning of such change, and our capacity to govern it. As the power of technology continues to accelerate, who, this book asks, will be the master of whom? In Living with the Genie, leading writers and thinkers come together to confront thisquestion from many perspectives, including: Richard Powers's whimsical investigation of the limits of artificial intelligence; Philip Kitcher's confrontation of the moral implications of science; Richard Rhodes's exploration of the role of technology in reducing violence; Shiv Visvanathan's analysis of technology's genocidal potential; Lori Andrews's insights into the quest for human genetic enhancement; Alan Lightman's reflections on how technology changes the experience of our humanness. These and ten other provocative essays open the door to a new dialogue on how, in the quest for human mastery, technology may be changing what it means to be human, in ways we scarcely comprehend.
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