IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2013 - 26

this environment, there is very little
time to adjust to the new technologies and adapt social norms and
institutions to the changes, raising
the risk of repetitive and sequential
compound effects.
Consider the cell phone. The
major advantage of the cell phone
was its portability, and hence using
them in cars was the most popular
early application. Soon after, texting came along, before the social
norms could adjust to the voice
calls from a car; and texting from
a car immediately became the new
norm. Now, texting while driving is a major threat to the lives of
motorists, because it requires taking your eyes off the road and looking at a screen. If texting had been
invented before voice calls on cell
phones, it is unlikely that it would
have gained support as a car activity. Such sequence effects are very
common when various versions of a
technology are introduced in rapid
succession, with no opportunity to
adjust to each separately [28], [29].
An interesting example is fighter
planes. This technology created
a decisive advantage in a variety
of wars from WWII and Vietnam
in the 20th century to the Iraq and
Libyan wars more recently. Consequently, there is a never-ending
race to improve fighter plan speed
and maneuverability, ahead of
adversaries. But the increasing
complexity and accuracy of air
wars are creating unexpected risks.
Starting with World War II, air
power consistently expanded the
definition of the battlefield, first to
include industrial sites that support
the war effort, then infrastructure
like highways and bridges that may
be used for military purposes, and
eventually to include all economic
and civilian targets that support the
war effort. However, such increasing expansion of the definition of
battlefield upends centuries of rules
of war, eliminates the distinctions
between civilian and military, and
leads to the wholesale destruction
of complete cities as in the bombing
26

of Dresden and the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima in WW2, and
the decimation of forests in Vietnam. Consequently, it increasingly
eliminates the distinction between
military operation and terrorism,
by targeting civilians.
The latest entry into this arena is
unmanned drones. Drones increase
confusion further by targeting the
enemy's civilian leadership, often
in their homes, along with their
families. Drones also are controlled from distant civilian areas,
basically making the whole world
a battle field. Arms races create
unending and continuously compounding risks [22].
Finally, and probably the least
intuitive risk from technological
change is the political turmoil it
creates. New technologies do not
impact everyone the same way -
technology is not like a gentle rain
that falls on all equally, as Buddha suggested in the parable of the
medicinal herbs. It is more like a
thunderstorm that benefits some but
devastates others. A fast changing
technological environment mobilizes all segments of the society
politically, to gain economic advantages over others, by deploying the
new technologies that serve their
economic interests, and by preventing the deployment of technologies
that threatens their interests. Political players may accomplish this by
encouraging and pushing the adoption of self-serving technologies,
but discouraging or even legally
banning threatening technologies.
Such political activity is costly to
society, and may even lead to loselose situations despite costly efforts
by all sides. The primary reason
to take the political risk of loselose outcomes is because adversarial systems do not always lead
to optimum solutions. In an effort
to create the maximum advantage
for themselves, political groups
often take extreme positions for
negotiation, but then they are
locked into those extreme positions
when they declare them as moral

principles, and find themselves
in unending political struggles,
unable to compromise on their
moral positions. Even when one
group wins the debate temporarily,
they are rarely satisfied, because
the extreme positions they took
were not the optimum and stable
outcome in the first place. This is
why any victory stimulates even
more extreme opposition from the
losers of the debate, and changing
technology disrupts any victory
and creates new political struggles
and opportunities in quick succession [6].
Consider birth control and
abortion technologies. They created wonderful opportunities to
control the timing of parenthood,
and to build professional careers
unencumbered by the responsibilities of parenthood. But in the
process, they disrupted the dominance of marriage as the defining
institution of modern life, with one
partner as a full-time homemaker.
They gave an advantage to professional women over homemakers,
who could now delay childbirth
and focus on their careers. That
advantage soon turned into an
expectation, as men overwhelmingly preferred to marry women
who could make a living in the job
market, instead of relying on their
husbands for support. That attack
on homemaking as a job created
a vicious political struggle with
extreme positions taken on either
side, when there are many easy and
obvious compromises available.
Even if abortion was completely
outlawed, as some advocate, the
proponents would probably still
not be satisfied, as it would not be
a very desirable society, and those
who are terribly disadvantaged
by that development would react
forcefully and even violently.
More importantly, as the birth
control and abortion technologies
change, the struggle is renewed
with new parameters and arguments, new moral principles
and new extreme positions. The

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