Images of the future technological shape of societies are legion. However, equally legion are the failures to realize the projected futures of technologies.   Radical innovation is accompanied by claims about future states of the world where particular technologies are envisaged as key determinants of social, economic and cultural life. Digital technologies, for example, are allied with claims about the ‘end of geography’ and ‘the death of distance’ – the coming of the ‘Zero-friction society’.   Radically different images, utopian and nightmarish, have been offered about ‘a coming era of nanotechnology’ (Horner, 2005).  Such speculations, such images of future development, seem to play an important role in early stages of the cycle of research and development. Promises are made, expectations are raised; such promising seems to be a vital lubricant in innovation processes (Geels and Smit, 2000).

The argument of this paper is about the ethics of promising in the context of our profound ignorance of the course of future events. There clearly is a role for a sociological explanation of the problem of promises and expectations about the future benefits of technologies especially when such promising and expecting results in failure. The problem addressed in this sociological context is largely empirical that is to do with how and why such phenomena arise and why indeed failure is so characteristic of technological prophecy. However, the other non-sociological sense in which we may consider this question is entirely normative. Promising is a moral concept and to make a false promise is, of course, to break a moral rule. In other words we may want to argue that ‘the problem of failed technology futures’ is to do with this being a problem we can just well do without.

Geels and Smit (2000) have provided some cogent sociological insights as to the reasons why images of future developments generally turn out to be delusive. They refer to the ways in which ‘potholes on the road to the future’ disable or divert technological developments. These include, for example, ‘over estimation of the speed of societal embedding of new technology’, ‘focus on current technological trajectories’ and ‘the potential of new technologies is phrased in terms of substitution of old technology’. These processes are illustrated by the failed technological images associated with the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on traffic and transportation. In particular failure of foresight was evident in the hyped expectations for teleconferencing as a replacement for face-to-face meetings; the claims for the impact on transportation of the replacement of information based physical goods (e.g. books, newspapers, letters, etc.); and finally the claims for teleworking as a dominant mode of work which would subvert the need to travel.

Geels and Smit offer two interpretations of the lessons from failed technology futures. In the first interpretation the focus is on simplistic assumptions about the relationship between technology and society made by those making predictions: innovators, forecasters, futurists, consultants, politicians etc. The alternative interpretation focuses on the idea that promises and expectations about technological trajectories are performative or ideological. Promises about possible worlds are part of a process in which ‘technological characteristics, applications and user groups become more specifically defined and aligned’ (Geels and Smit 2000, p150). The functionality of promising in agenda setting seems to provide a justification for the fact that in general such promising turns out to be false (‘initial promises in future expectations are too high and have to be scaled down in later periods’).

Images of technology futures then are almost synonymous with ‘futurehype’ (Dublin, 1990; Sherden, 1998; Seidensticker, 2006).   When technologies become embedded in society they take different trajectories than those envisaged by either developers, regulators, or investors. They stall; they accelerate; they evince unanticipated properties; and more often than not are implicated in completely unforeseen change. Flyvbjerg, Bruzelius, and Rothengatter (2006, p.3) have referred, for example, to ‘the performance paradox’. Large scale infrastructural projects begin by being promoted as   efficient and cost effective vehicles for economic growth but subsequently turn out to have ‘…strikingly poor performance records in terms of economy, environment and public support’. Early promises of step changes in performance and the enhancement of the general good turn to dust and ashes – although political considerations frequently prevent such admissions.  If the attempt to provide a positive explanation of hyped expectations rests upon the idea of ‘promise-requirement cycles’ then equally significant is the phenomenon of ‘promise-disappointment cycles’. Technology hype may be functional in terms of mobilising resources and promoting innovation but equally runs the risk of generating disappointment. Brown, Rip and Van Lente (2003) point out the potential costs in misallocation of resources, misplaced investment and the lost of reputation.

But it is surely fallacious to argue from the fact of ‘the social function of promises and expectations in technological developments’ to their moral justification in cases where such promising is ill-founded. And it is part of the argument of this paper that such promising is more or less always ill-founded. The challenge of radical skepticism is that true images of the future simply cannot be constructed (Collingridge, 1980; Tetlock, 2005, p.25). The problems we have to deal with in terms, in particular of radically new technologies, I will argue, fall into Rittel and Webber’s (1973) category of ‘wicked’ problems as opposed to ‘tame’ problems. ‘Tame’ problems are tractable, can be clearly stated and have well defined goals which can be achieved. ‘Wicked’ problems are characteristically policy problems which cannot be definitely described or solved.  In a pluralistic society they are about moral goods which are always contested such as ‘the public good’ and the definition of equity. ‘Wicked’ problems are problems with features such as complex cause and effect relationships, including human interactions and decisions. They are also characterised by intrinsically incomplete information because, by definition, they are about future states of affairs which have not, and cannot be observed. They are not ‘wicked’ problems necessarily in any moral sense. But as Rittel and Webber argue it may be morally objectionable to treat a ‘wicked’ problem as though it was a ‘tame’ partly because, I will argue, this logically, would involve making false promises.

References

BROWN, N., RIP, A. and VAN LENTE, H., 2003. Expectations in and about science and technology.   A background paper for the ‘expectations’ workshop of 13 – 14 June 2003, University of Utrecht. [Unpublished].

COLLINGRIDGE, D., 1980. The social control of technology.   Pinter, London.

DUBLIN, M., 1990. Futurehype: the tyranny of prophecy. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin.

FLYVBJERG, B., BRUZELIUS, N. and ROTHENGATTER, W., 2006. Mega projects and risk: an anatomy of ambition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

HORNER. D.S., 2005. Anticipating ethical challenges: Is there a coming era of nanotechnology? Ethics and Information Technology, 7, pp.127 – 138.

GEELS, F.W. and SMIT, W. A., 2000. Lessons from failed technology futures: potholes in the road to the future. In: N. Brown, B. Rappert, and A. Webster, eds. Contested Futures: a sociology of prospective techno-science. Aldershot: Ashgate. Pp. 129 – 155.

RITTEL, H.W.J. and WEBBER, M.M., 1973. Dilemmas in a general theory of planning.   Policy Sciences, 4, pp. 155 – 169.

SEIDENSTICKER, B., 2006. Futurehype: the myths of technology change. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

SHERDEN, W.A., 1998. The fortune sellers: the big business of buying and selling predictions. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

TETLOCK, P.E., 2005. Expert political judgement. Princeton: Princeton University Press.