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1.Technopanics throughout history –

Innovations have been taking place from generation to generation, each new discovery in history met with fears and skepticism towards newer innovations and what they will replace. Technological innovations are no different in how they are judged and suspected of relinquishing older methods for the proposed, new technology. However, it is important to see with each generation and piece of time, new technology has been created and proposed to the public with initial suspicion and skepticism. Each new era holding considerable amounts of skepticism and doubt, yet through the centuries we have seen an increase in many aspects of life from transportation, ease of daily routine, easy access of information, more reliable health services, and many more as a direct result of technological innovations. Adam Thierer, a specialist in innovation, economics, entrepreneurialism, and the use of the internet entails in his quote, “technological progress is best viewed as “a fragile and vulnerable plant” that “is highly sensitive to the social and economic environment and can easily be arrested by relatively small external changes.” (Thierer), that it is extremely important to underline the importance of entrepreneurial innovations regarding technology in order to further better the world and create a unification between technology and humans that will benefit humans from the work that can be done with present and future technology. This is extremely pertinent due to the mindset of tech critics who undermine and attempt to impede further advancement due to suspicion and a poor risk-reward assessment of the current, as well as future benefits of technology. Collectively, we can see that through history regarding technoscares, a common pattern occurs in which society is very critical at first to new advancements due to fear or lack of knowledge. This can be detrimental to the advancement and open-minded attitudes towards encouragement of new technology. However, the connections that can be made through technoscares historically showing that many innovations regarded today as essential or extremely useful such as the printing press, or books being utilized as a standard in schools, reveal the ability to create new ways of reading, studying, and promoting education and many other aspects of life that would not be here if skepticism trumped innovation. We can also see the connection by combining and using newer technology to connect civilization and empower them with abilities and lifestyles that never would have been possible before.

2.The Future of the body-

Many new technological advancements have been created in order to help harness, improve, and restore previously lost body functions through the combination of technology and the medical field. Many historical events, such as the civil war, have led to the demand towards improvement of previously outdated and expensive medical repairs such as the prosthetic leg. The American Civil War raged from 1861 to 1865, and the demand for prosthetics rose astronomically. “This need ushered in an era of rapid growth in prosthetic leg technology in the United States with over 80 patents for prosthetic legs filed between 1861 and 1873.” (Amputee) This is a common example towards the advancements of technology allowing medical repairs to become more effective and cheaper for the patient. Recent technological advancements have even taken prosthetics to a new level, allowing for the combination of neurological signals to be met with robotic responses in a prosthetic in order to achieve motor function capability. (Gohd) This shows direct correlation with technological advancements meeting, and in some cases, exceeding what was previously possible for humans to achieve with a physical disability. There can be direct ties shown to previous technoscares that show skeptical concerns with these types of advancements, however research teams are working very consistently in order to collect data from patient’s and create an object that will help enhance humans using new technologic innovations. This can be seen in the combination between bionic eyes, as well as prosthetic eyes. Research scientists and medical practitioners have learned ways to create a new “prosthetic” eye that allows for actual vision replacement, rather than for aesthetical looks. This can be shown by bionic eye implants where bionic eyes are compared to traditional prosthetic eyes, “Bionic eye implants, on the other hand, work inside the existing eye structures or in the brain. They are designed to achieve functional vision goals — as opposed to physical, cosmetic ones.” (Hellem) This allows for the ability to grow and conceive new ideas using newer technology that has never been done before. By combining the open-minded aspects of upcoming innovations regarding technology, we can look through the past and focus on future enhancements that will restore many aspects of life to disabled or limited individuals, creating new hope and possibilities for human enhancements with the use of technology.

3.Intelligent systems-

By combining many new technologies with growing ambition for efficiency and accuracy, there have been many advancements regarding intelligent systems, from AI to home and hospital systems. Intelligent systems can be in many various forms, some of the most popular are throughout the Artificial Intelligence area where robots are being engineered to perceive and think more “human-like”, in order to accomplish very difficult tasks with the same goal alignment of humans. However, intelligent systems go vast beyond, and have different meanings than just artificial intelligence. Recently, hospitals have been engineered and created to be “intelligent hospitals”. While the hospital itself is not “intelligent”, it does not think or make sole decisions without human input, rather the ability, transfer, and delivery of information is much more efficient. Paul Frisch explains in his article about recent “intelligent” hospitals regarding the speed and delivery of information, “Such a high-performance wireless network enables enhanced information exchange and real-time communications for the many various users.” (Frisch) This “intelligent” hospital makes it possible to deliver and analyze data at extremely fast and accurate speeds. They accomplish this by sharing data from multiple systems and devices, while using a Wi-Fi-based time synchronization and Environment of Care compliance system using Network Time Protocol. This guarantees that all clocks, systems, and medical devices are synchronized throughout the entire hospital to provide an accurate aggregation of data. (Frisch) This creates more availability for bedside care, as well as fast, transferable data from hospitals, clinics, and physicians. A similar avenue to the intelligent hospital systems involves intelligent home systems. Intelligent home systems bring together various daily tasks including light timing, oven and cook timing, tv control, and blinds/shades control, together in one by the connection to the internet. With these connections, many things can be managed and timed all at once in order to create efficient and fast-reacting houses. We can already see many of these features today, whether it be a house pre-built with all the above possibilities, or if a few pieces such as a time and temperature controlling thermostat are purchased and utilized in order to create a more “intelligent” home. This integration of systems across medical, research, security, and personal fields are a direct result of optimization and efficiency that allow for many new possibilities regarding technology.

4. Making and things-

The ability for self-production in the world has never been so accessible, cheap, and reliable as it is today. Many devices and operations have been created that allow production not only to be scaled to tremendous amounts, but also for smaller creations in one’s home. The ability to manufacture and produce also has brought along a very important aspect of creation, which is specialization. Specialization allows for effort to be directed towards one avenue, creating higher quality goods, usually for a cheaper price. This direction allows for the vast increase in production, as well as savings, throughout the world due to specializing in a few areas and having those areas compete at the highest degree possible for the consumer. Historically, through the inventions of many machines and ideas such as the printing press, books, the automobile, etc., many different aspects of life have been improved as a direct result. This can be shown as a direct result of the world poverty rates, “More and more world regions industrialized and thereby increased productivity which made it possible to lift more people out of poverty: In 1950 two-thirds of the world were living in extreme poverty; in 1981 it was still 42%. In 2015 – the last year for which we currently have data – the share of the world population in extreme poverty has fallen below 10%.” (Roser) Max Roser mentions in his article, “The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it”, that due to the industrial revolution and technological advancements, many aspects of life have vastly improved due to the creation of jobs, lower prices as result of increased efficiency, as well as higher quality items due to increased specialization. This can also be seen in more modern and still up-coming inventions including the 3D printer. The 3D printer allows for various crucial items to be constructed in high quality with affordable rates, allowing for widespread global connectivity and availability for necessities that previously were either too expensive or low quality to be considered an option. Further advancements regarding more renewable and powerful energy sources such as nuclear power are still being worked on to this day, in order to decrease the amount of pollution as well as create more sustainable and effective power sources for the world. Through technological innovations, ideas have been spread and connected that crossover from entertainment to medical or daily use based on the possibility to create and construct new technology that can benefit individuals around the globe.

5. Cyborgs and bioart-

Advancements allowing for the alteration of human bodies have been in the making for centuries. Prosthetics have dated back as far as 1295 B.C. (amputee) The ability for technology and innovation to create alternatives for repairing disabilities or missing limbs has been essential when looking towards the newest advancements for human technology. Many objects have been created including bionic eyes, exo skeletons, nerve-responding prosthetics, and more in order to help achieve full capabilities for any human suffering from physical limitations. The increased research of the body and what is capable regarding alterations have increased dramatically over the years, allowing for newer and more capable innovations to continue to be developed. These experiments and attempts to create alternatives have also not wholly been intended. Alexander Fleming, a painter who regularly used petri dishes and bacteria as his canvas unintentionally discovered the effects of penicillin’s capability to fight bacteria. (science) Similarly, “In 1938, photographer Edward Steichen used a chemical to genetically alter and produce interesting variations in flowering delphiniums.” (science) This eventually led to the discovery of the chemical, colchicine which revolutionized the ability to create selective traits for crops that would increase yield and become favorable for planting and harvesting. This integration between biology and art, combined with biology and robotics can be seen vastly increasing and having multiple benefits for the user as a result. New creations such as RFID’s, radio frequency identification chips, allow for user to send radio waves in order to complete tasks that normally would require a human present and pressing a button or issuing a command in person. This can also allow for increased amounts of security and personal use, such as the ability to implant a chip containing driver’s license information, credit card information, as well as passport information that while, still has many risks involved due to privacy and hacking, will allow for ease of access in many daily parts of life and micro-management of personal belongings. Alongside personal and casual inventions, there have been testing and use of exoskeletons which can be used for military purposes, or even day to day work involving construction or product installation, allowing for an extra set of strong and reliable hands to be used on the job. Altogether, the collaboration of these many kinds of technologies have all been a result of the time-tested ability to innovate and create more efficient means of completing a goal. Whether it be through intelligent systems, the creation of more effective and available machinery or items, the mass production of food and goods, the discovery of new medicines, the altering of favorable genes, or the creation of bionic humans working together with specified robotic integration, each has been possible due to technological innovation and the future only holds more to offer when focusing on improvement through technology.

References:

https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts

https://slate.com/technology/2010/02/a-history-of-media-technology-scares-from-the-printing-press-to-facebook.html

https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts

https://www.britannica.com/technology/history-of-technology/The-20th-century

https://pulse.embs.org/november-2014/intelligent-hospital/

https://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/bionic-eyes.htm

https://becominghuman.ai/chirons-will-lead-us-out-of-the-ai-technopanic-and-you-can-be-a-chiron-8a470fa6566a

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tech-panic-dnschanger_b_1680018

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamthierer/2012/03/04/the-six-things-that-drive-technopanics/#454b83470b0c

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110119/05022912725/fifteenth-century-technopanic-about-horrors-printing-press.shtml

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