IS THE ADVANCE OF TECHNOLOGY (& SCIENCE) A DANGER TO US?

Technology - together with its enabling parent science - has given us much that is positive. But will it ultimately destroy us?

I am a scientist and I believe that technology has solved many of the world’s problems. I don’t think that scientists have either questionable motives or are ethically responsible for the wrongs of today. But are we ignoring the potential long-term ill effects of the technology that science enables?

On the positive side of the argument, there is no doubt that science & technology has given us better lives. But the positives and negatives are asymmetric in nature: we may gain extra short term earthly comfort, health and wealth, but in the long term we risk destruction by technological weapons (e.g. nuclear war, artificial disease through biological weapons), global warming and species replacement by AI. When I say asymmetric, I am referring to incremental gains in our own short term, as compared to the long term danger of extinction. Take one example: we use petrol in cars to get from A to B more quickly, and coal fired power stations to keep warm. Thus, science provides us with more comfortable lives. But as a result in the long term we face horrible life threatening rising seas and environmental destruction because of climate change.

Here are other examples:

• Plastic products such as food packaging - only available through science & technology - is potentially wrecking the environment through the resulting micro plastic contamination. Global plastic production increased from approximately 1.5 million tons in the 1950s to 390.7 million tons in 2021. Significant levels of microplastics have been found in vegetables that we eat. We have no idea of the potential long term effects on our health.
• Technology has enabled us to conquer our environment, but in doing so we have been so successful that we have killed off other animals to extinction. A good example is modern fishing which has enabled us to be so efficient at catching vast quantities (e.g. 5.2million tonnes of tuna per year) that we have driven species to near collapse. The technology was not in place 200 years ago because fishing in offshore seas was dangerous until we had modern trawlers, and we had no radar to locate shoals.
• Robots could help us enormously by providing cheap personal care and surgically assisted medical operations, and AI can discover new antibiotics. However, it could also be used to produce robot armies, attack drones and biological weapons.
• Nuclear power may be the answer to our energy needs, but nuclear weapons could destroy us (if 100 warheads are detonated, a nuclear winter will wipe out humankind).

In each of the above cases there is a short term benefit at the expense of an even greater long term risk.

There are numerous videos illustrating the potential problems: e.g. problems with social media.

THE CASE FOR SCIENCE

Please watch the following short video on the positives for science:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCZO4A-P2og

Personally I don’t think that science per se is unethical, nor do I think the conclusions of science e.g evolution, are questionable. In the video, Lewis Wolpert talks about the ethical objections to stem cell research. Wolpert points out that science itself is not in and of itself unethical, it is that the use of that knowledge could be unethical (e.g. science is not responsible for the decision to modify stem cells, only the knowledge of how it could be done.) Whilst there are reasonable ethical objections to some science research, it is the technology that is enabled by science that we can concentrate on in this discussion.

Certainly science & technology has done much good in our lives, not least improved health, and achieved less suffering in the world in many different ways. Scientific knowledge has encouraged us to shed superstition and question the authority of kings: it has enabled and gone hand in hand with social change (the French revolution was a revolution of Enlightenment). Rather than science itself, I think that it is the (mis)use of science through technology that is debatable.

QUESTIONS
Do you agree with Lewis Wolpert in the video that science is separable from technology?
Has science (perhaps unwittingly) allowed capitalism to develop and exploit technology for profit, rather than problem solving?
As a species, do you agree that we have evolved to look for short term gains - e.g. the acquisition of food, the gain of status through ownership of land - but we are not evolved to look at long term species survival, only the survival of the individual or tribe? Does this make the advantages versus disadvantages of technology asymmetrical?
To what extent will science & technology provide answers to the future problems we face?