For some time now I am pretty uneasy about a phenomenon that I would like to call “techno positivism”.

People seem to have a naif believe that digital technology (from now on technology) will solve all our problems. Of course there are numerous examples of where technology acutally helped us a big deal. Bad at spelling? Automatic spell check to the rescue. Too much accidents on the road? Just install an auto pilot for cars. A certain amount of people don’t pay for there public transport ticket? Set up digitally controlled perimeters around all public transport entries and have people check in with a chipcard. Need more overall control of the masses? Invent Cyberdine…

The challenge I see in this trend is that most of the technological solutions nowadays are not drawn up by people with in depth technological knowledge and experience. Few would see a problem in that. And I can understand since I learned (from working at a consultancy firm) that management does not need to have in depth knowledge of the issue they’re deciding on, as long as they have good advisors.

Technology is inhuman

But the big difference between decisions and planning on a social level and the same on a technological level is that technology is inhuman. Where most social decisions can be brought back to some sort of situation that one has experienced herself. This is not possible with technological decisions. Since technology is an invention of a distinct group of humans. It is not something that we inherently know of. It is not something, like talking, walking, loving, thinking, etc. that comes to us naturally. Or even something that we come into contact with so often and naturally that we make it our own.

The construction of technology is something that has to be learned. It is something that takes effort and interest to get a grips of. And only when you actually get your hands dirty with constructing your first technological entity, then, and only then, will you understand what dependencies, abstractness, challenges and unexpectedness it comprehends. Only then will you be able to start wrapping your head around it.

Technology is pure creation

At the same time this hands on experience should install the notion that what you are doing is pure creation. Making something out of nothing. All that the existence of technology brings is the possibility of creating things that are not there (yet). It is in it’s purest form where we humans, take over from evolution. And no matter how small or big the technological creation is that you embark on, this realization is nescassary to start getting a grips on what unexpected consequences you might set in motion.

I would even be so bold as to state my believe that for people who have never touched code it is not possible to understand the matter. Schema’s and abstract explanations will never be able to incept the understanding of the nature of technology as writing code yourself will. Therefore understanding the possible implications of technology is almost but impossible for such a person.

Technology is magic

One of the big problems with technology is that of  sir Arthur C Clarke’s third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic“. With this law also comes the assumption that technology is flawless. How else can it be? Have you ever seen a magic trick go wrong? Seen the maid actually being cut in half? Seen the elephant not disappear in front of the crowd’s eyes? You will probably have to answer with ‘no’. Because magic is flawless. And because of the phenomenon of Clarke’s third law this property of flawlessness is also contributed to technology by those who are no ‘code magician’ themselves.

But, you see, the big difference with a magic trick is, that technology is not rehearsed. It evolves as it is being used. It is created while it grows. It is learned while it creates. There is no magician who is in full control of ‘the trick’. It is a pure, unlearned, uncontrolled , unrehearsed form of creation. Of evolution.

The human flapping his wings

There is, however, another part to this difference. In the case of technology ‘the trick’ is never created and performed by just one individual. His part is always part of a bigger whole. Most of the whole unknown to the rest of the whole. In effect technology is a fractal. It is a chaotic system and we humans are the butterflies.

The problems that we are trying to solve with technology are real problems. And the technology we are trying to create for solving them are real solutions. But these solutions are still human created solutions. Humans who make mistakes. Humans who perform ‘the trick’ for the first time, unrehearsed, unpracticed, unpredictable.

Technology projects run out of time, out of budget and cause bigger issues then they were supposed to solve because we are fooling ourselves that we know ‘the trick’. Or at least the ones that are doing the actual creation must know ‘the trick’. But when the ones, who do not know what it actually is to perform ‘the trick’, to create magic, are the ones that make the plans and the goals for what ‘the trick’ should magically do, then the distance between reality and magic is too far. The magic is being steered by a naive kid who thinks the magic can solve all its problems. Flawlessly….

Conclusion

I guess my reason for writing this article is to point out a couple of things:

• technology is not magic
• technology is manmade, and thus never flawless
• you need to have created technology to understand technology
• technology does not solve our problems without creating new ones
• technology creation is a chaotic system, and we are the butterflies…