Matt Ridley, in his book "How Innovation Works", highlights an important historical fact. Every technology, be that in the ancient times or the contemporary, has been opposed by the society in its initial phase of adoption. Such opposition usually comes from vested interest groups who feel the new technology as a threat to their incumbent business. Sometimes, criticisms also come from influential groups who have no direct relevance to the technology being tested. One example Ridley gives is the genetically modified crops, which is being opposed by the rich nations that are already food surplus. Genetically modified crops could result in better yield, both in terms of quality and volume, which could be a great boon to starving population worldwide. Ridley gives countless examples of perceived threats of new technologies that were rejected by the test of time, ranging from the claimed health hazards of coffee to the fear of mass unemployment due to automation.
The apparent conclusion of these observations is that the trials of any new innovation should always be welcome. This conclusion is incorrect. We can bluntly dismiss this argument just by noting that induction does not apply in the context here; at the best the conclusion can be probabilistic. That is, we could conclude that the perceived threats of any new technology is more likely to be non-existent. There are several subtle mistakes, however, in the argument that the perceived threats of new technologies are always non-existent.
We should note that the technologies that have ruled-out the perceived threats are successful technologies. The examples given in favor of perceived-threat arguments are examples successful technologies. There were several technologies that had failed in the past, and their perceived threats were real. An example is the end of the "airship era" after the Hindenburg disaster of 1937.
Aggregated statistics do not correctly assess the adverse effects of a technology, specifically when its comes to people's livelihood. Consider, for example, the question of mass unemployment after automation. While it may be true that the surplus labor created by automation in any sector, in the long run, will move to some new sector, increasing the net productivity of the economy. Sadly, the productivity statistics hides all the agonies and pains of the people who were forced to change their jobs, assuming they got new jobs, in their middle or near-to-retirement age.
Even the argument that surplus labor created by automation gets employed in some other sector has been contended by scholars. At least, such a shift of labor may not be universal. Smritikumar Sarkar, in his book "Technology and Rural Change in Eastern India 1830 - 1980", gives an example of how a large population was unemployed by the introduction steam-engine based rice mills in West Bengal. A large number of farmers used to work in human-muscle based rice mills, which were later replaced by steam-engines. Pro-technologists argued that the unemployed people eventually shifted towards the business of transporting the rice produces from the mills to the railway stations. Sarkar provides data to disprove this claim. He shows that the number of bullock-carts did not increase after the introduction of steam-engine based mills, implying that the unemployed labor force did not move to the transportation business. Nobody knows what happened to the unemployed unfortunates.
Ridley describes that technology evolves in a trial-and-error basis. While that might be true, the error-cost for some technology could be too heavy to pay. A technology needs to be doubted, and scientifically verified, before it is introduced to the masses. This is what we need to do with medicines, isn't it so?
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