IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2021 - 5

that get discussions going on unintended
consequences.
* SSIT conferences could host pre-organized, multi-paper
sessions that dive deeply into particular
examples of unintended consequences; and
then take these shows on the road to other IEEE
societies' technical conferences, either virtually
or in person.
* This magazine could ask authors to include a
" takeaways for practice " section in articles on
unintended consequences.
* IEEE TransacTIons on TEchnology and socIETy
could solicit articles that not only problematize
practice but also prescribe constructive solutions
to the problem of unintended consequences.
SSIT does not currently have an education committee,
but we should create one to help package
our wonderful contributions into convenient forms.
We could introduce user-friendly versions of systematic
frameworks for constructively investigating
whether specific innovations will have unintended
consequences. For example:
* Are there relevant historical analogies from which
we can learn? What are the limits of analogizing?
* How do our understandings of economic, social,
and political system dynamics help us predict
the systemic effects of widespread deployment
of an innovation?
* How does a fine-grained appreciation of the
dynamics of social practices suggest how to
unbundle social meanings and human competencies
from old technologies and successfully
rebundle them with new technologies?
* What can we learn from engaging in reflective
engineering practice? How can we remember to
look back and assess our own work periodically?
* Are there usable frameworks for moral reasoning
about professional practice?
each of these frameworks has a literature and
is share-able and useful. Each allows practitioners
to act constructively and not merely feel guilty for
unleashing unintended consequences on the world.
Let us empower creative technologists to think
through the potential positive and negative effects of
their innovations.

 References
[1] R. K. Merton, " The unanticipated consequences of
purposive social action,'' Amer. Sociol. Rev., vol. 1,
no. 6, pp. 894-904, Dec. 1936. [Online]. Available:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2084615
[2] J. Luft and H. Ingham, " The Johari window, a graphic
model of interpersonal awareness,'' in Proc. Western
Training Lab. Group Develop., Univ. California, Los
Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 1955.
[3] M. G. Morgan and M. Henrion, Uncertainty: A Guide
to Dealing With Uncertainty in Quantitative Risk and
Policy Analysis. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ.
Press, 1990, p. 56.
[4] A. Stirling, " Keep it complex,'' Nature, vol. 468,
pp. 1029-1031, 2010, doi: 10.1038/4681029a.
[5] N. Nohria and H. Taneja, " Managing the unintended
consequences of your innovations,'' Harvard Business
Rev., Jan. 19, 2021. [Online]. Available at: https://hbr.
org/2021/01/managing-the-unintended-consequencesof-your-innovations
[6]
IEEE Committee on Social Implications of Technology
Newsletter, document, Dec. 1972, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 1.
Accessed: Apr. 14, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://
technologyandsociety.org/member-resources/csitnewsletters/
[7]
R. Pringle, K. Michael, and M. G. Michael, " Unintended
consequences of living with AI: The paradox of
technological potential? Part II [guest editorial],''
IEEE Technol. Soc. Mag., vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 17-21,
Dec. 2016.
Clinton J. Andrews is the President of the IEEE
Society on Social Implications of Technology. He is
a Professor and the Associate Dean for Research
with the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and
Public Policy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ,
USA. Contact him at c.j.andrews@ieee.org.
June 2021
5

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2084615 https://hbr.org/2021/01/managing-the-unintended-consequences-of-your-innovations https://hbr.org/2021/01/managing-the-unintended-consequences-of-your-innovations https://hbr.org/2021/01/managing-the-unintended-consequences-of-your-innovations https://www.technologyandsociety.org/member-resources/csit-newsletters/ https://www.technologyandsociety.org/member-resources/csit-newsletters/ https://www.technologyandsociety.org/member-resources/csit-newsletters/

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2021

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