Unintended Consequences and Tech
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This document discusses unintended consequences that can arise from new technologies. It notes that unintended consequences occur because of ignorance of potential effects, errors in problem analysis, focus on immediate interests over long-term impacts, and values that require or prohibit certain actions. The document provides examples of recent technologies that led to unintended consequences, such as social media increasing isolation. It considers potential unintended consequences of autonomous vehicles, such as increased vehicle miles leading to more accidents overall. The document urges considering how changes might cause further changes, being careful with large-scale projects, mapping out impacted systems, and expecting surprises.
Unintended Consequences and Tech
- 1. Unintended Consequences & Tech: Why Things Often Don’t Go The Way We Plan Paul Orlando @porlando https://UnintendedConsequenc.es/
- 2. Why am I interested in Unintended Consequences?
- 4. I gained encouragement when my writing was covered in publications including these.
- 5. “Causes of Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action” (Robert Merton) - Ignorance of potential effects - Errors in problem analysis - Immediate interests over the long-term - Basic values require/prohibit certain actions - Self-defeating prophecies
- 6. Event Goal Outcome A or A B A A A Category Unexpected Benefit Unexpected Drawback Perverse Result B Unintended Consequences Categories
- 14. How do you judge those examples? - Impact you personally feel? - Weight the overall group impact? - Let the market decide? - Regulate to slow down the change? - Compensate those negatively affected? - Unavoidable part of progress? - How do you measure risk?
- 15. Projecting Some New Examples
- 16. monthlyfatalities Current State of US Road Fatalities 3,000 per month
- 17. monthlyfatalities Autonomous Cars Widespread “Best” Case of US Road Fatalities Something way less than 3,000 per month… 30 per month???
- 18. Thought experiment… What would it take to increase the fatality rate in the current human-driver world? … Lobby to make cars less safe? Reduce the driving age to 5? Encourage drinking? I don’t think it’s possible.
- 19. monthlyfatalities Autonomous Cars Widespread Large Hack or Bug With Quick Resolution, Impact on US Road Fatalities Still overall better? Swaps certainty for uncertainty?
- 20. monthlyfatalities Autonomous Cars Widespread - No bugs, No hacks - Alternate Case of US Road Fatalities Lower accident rate per million miles driven, But many more miles driven, so accident rate remains high… Lost organ donors…?
- 24. Emergence Occurs where parts of a system interact to form something different from what each part contributes independently. Compare: - Hydrogen & oxygen atoms combine to form water (different in combination than individual atoms), - Water molecules combine to form drops (different from individual molecules with properties like surface tension), - Drops of water combine to form rivers and oceans (different again with their currents and waves).
- 25. Where might we now be exposed to unintended consequences? - Universal Basic Income - Education: funding, STEM, student loans - Media disinformation and misinformation - Cannabis legalization - Autonomous vehicles - Changes in diet and lifespan Can we develop antidotes to these effects?
- 26. What you can do… Consider what changes a change might beget. Be careful with top-down, large-scale projects. Try to map out the system you will impact. Expect to be surprised.
- 27. Unintended Consequences: Why Things Often Don’t Go The Way We Plan Paul Orlando @porlando https://UnintendedConsequenc.es/