IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2017 - 14

with family and friends around the
world, Ruttan's remarks also suggest
that it is important to recognize how
those services might also be bound
up in larger institutional structures
with far less socially benign ambi-
tions. An earlier, and more public,
proclamation of the problematic
implications of these types of rela-
tionships appeared in U.S. Presi-
dent Eisenhower's 1961 Farewell
Address, where he made reference
to the informal alliance between the
military and defense industries. As
he warned, "we must guard against
the acquisition of unwarranted influ-
ence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military-industrial complex"
[2]. The call Eisenhower makes to his
listeners - to resist the expansion
of the military's "unwarranted influ-
ence" in society - helpfully sets up
the key concepts that this article will
explore, namely the ethical quan-
daries raised by twentieth-century
military, industrial, and commercial
technologies, and the approaches
we might take to engage responsibly
with these issues.

Wiener's Warnings
Eisenhower, a former World War II
Army General, was certainly not the
first public figure whose experiences
during the war prompted reflection
on the ethical problems inherent
in the military's increasing (yet not
always recognized) sphere of influ-
ence, and the responsibilities of
citizens to respond to and resist that
trend. Several years earlier, Norbert
Wiener - the M.I.T. mathematician
to whom this special issue is dedicat-
ed - had staked out similar ground
in the context of scientific contribu-
tions to military projects. As part of
his wartime research, Wiener had
developed a prototype for an auto-
matic anti-aircraft gun. However, in
a January 1947 letter to the Atlantic
Monthly, which was published as "A
Scientist Rebels," he proclaimed:

14

"The policy of the government
itself during and after the war,
say in the bombing of Hiroshi-
ma and Nagasaki, has made
clear that to provide scientific
information is not a necessar-
ily innocent act, and may entail
the gravest consequences. One
therefore cannot escape recon-
sidering the established custom
of the scientist to give informa-
tion to every person who may
inquire of him. The experie-
ce of the scientists who have
worked on the atomic bomb
has indicated that in any inves-
tigation of this kind the scientist
ends with the responsibility for
having put unlimited powers in
the hands of the people whom
he is least inclined to trust with
their use. It is perfectly clear
also that to disseminate infor-
mation about a weapon in the
present state of our civilization
is to make it practically certain
that the weapon will be used.
... If therefore I do not desire
to participate in the bombing
or poisoning of defenseless
peoples-and I most certainly
do not-I must take a serious
responsibility as to those to
whom I disclose my scientific
ideas" [3, p. 46].

understand that the consequences
of this "new world" and its "new pos-
sibilities" extend, for Wiener, beyond
the arena of combat into the realm of
everyday life for ordinary citizens. He
recalls that during the war, he "had
already begun to reflect on the rela-
tion between the high-speed com-
puting machine and the automatic
factory," and had surmised that "the
automatic factory was not far off."
In light of this state of affairs, Wie-
ner muses, "I wondered whether
I had not got into a moral situation
in which my first duty might be to
speak to others concerning material
which could be socially harmful" [4,
p.  295]. A few pages later, he pro-
claims: "I thus decided that I would
have to turn from a position of the
greatest secrecy to a position of the
greatest publicity, and bring to the
attention of all the possibilities and
dangers of the new developments"
[4, p. 308]. In these passages, we can
see that Wiener - as a well-informed
scientist - considered it not merely
optional, but rather ethically imperative to speak out about how new tech-
nological developments that were
quietly advancing in industrial and
military fields might have disastrous
consequences for society at large.

Wiener devotes a full chapter of
his 1956 autobiography to a discus-
sion of these ideas, explaining in
detail the development of his per-
spective on the Manhattan Project
and his approach to ethics in post-
war life and society. He states that
"the most important thing about the
atomic bomb was, in my opinion,
not the termination of a specific
war without undue casualties on
our part, but the fact that we were
now confronted with a new world
and new possibilities with which we
should have to live ever after" [4, p.
299]. As his argument unfolds, we

Wiener's dedication to following
through on this choice to call public
attention to the potential dangers of
technological development is evident
not only in documents like "A Scien-
tist Rebels" (as we've noted above),
with its overt critique of the military,
but also in his 1949 letter to Walter
Reuther, the head of the American
Auto Workers Union. In that corre-
spondence, Wiener warned of the
potential for "large scale industrial
unemployment" in the face of auto-
mation [5]. Throughout the later
years of his life, Wiener had much
to say about the ethical obligations

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

Large-Scale Industrial Unemployment in the Face of Automation

∕

June 2017



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