SCIENCE ,TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY

MODULE 9: WHEN TECHNOLOGY AND HUMANITY CROSS

1st Semester
A.Y. 2021-2022
Course Code: SCITECH

Outline:
 Advantages, Disadvantages, and Limitations of Technology
 Humanity
 Policies and Technological Advancement
 Ethical Dilemmas

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this chapter, students should be able to:
1. rationalize the advantages, disadvantages, and limitation of applying technology to
humanity.
2. Identify and examine international/local government policies and human rights that
protect the well-being of the person in the face of new technologies; and
3. Discuss some examples of ethical dilemmas and conflicts wherein technology affects
humanity in terms of moral issues and social conflicts.
Content

“It has become appallingly obvious that or technology has exceeded our humanity”
-Albert Einstein

What is technology? What is humanity? Our world is truly entering a period of

transformative modification that most people will be surprised by the measure and
unavoidable step of developments that we merely had not expected. There are so many
inquiries regarding the positive and negative effects, limitations of developments and the
ethical dilemmas thaw we will face in the future.

In order to find the answer to these questions, we have to be able to understand and
rationalize what is humanity, the human nature, and its condition, the ethics that will and
should govern each application of technology to humanity. It also requires an understanding
that these technological advances offer tremendous potential, and with these technological
advances offer tremendous potential, and with these opportunities come tremendous new
responsibilities.

Technology, a word with Greek roots, is defined as, “the practical application of
knowledge especially in a particular area” by Merriam-Webster. Technology is a word used to
define or portray the progressions, abilities, creations, happenings, interpretations, and
knowledge of a singular group of persons and as humans we execute certain functions for man
and society.
Technology is the external part of science and to understand technology, academic or
internal science shall be treated like a black box. The inner workings are no importance at the
moment for as long as they are responding to the needs of technology.
What is primary purpose of technology to humanity?
This chapter will enumerate multiple advancement in technology and an assessment of
its potential impacts and its implications to humanity this will serve as an Assessment guide in
our decision-making that will change, shape, and transform the future’s human nature in
adapting ever changing evolution of technological advances.

Advantages, Disadvantages, and Limitations of Technology

Importance of Technology to Humanity

To learn the importance of technology in our everyday lives, it shows that technology
has profound impact on every aspect of lives. The way we live, communicate, and interact
changes through technology in the different fields of education, medicine, transportation,
economy, communications, and politics. This chapter will provide you a clear picture of this
impact and highlight the negative and positive aspects as well as its limitations.

Advantages of Technology
1. Life has become easy through science and technology.
2. Travelling has become faster than before.
3. Communication becomes easier, faster and cheaper.
4. Innovations in technology increased the standard living.
5. Using various technology, man become advanced.
6. The impossible have become possible due to the progress in science and technology.
7. Science and technology made a lot of things easy to do and comfortable for man.

Disadvantages of Technology

1. Human had misused the technology and used in damaging purpose.

2. By the use of technology, man is doing illegal things.

3. New technology like mobile are generating bad consequences on children.

4. By means of modern technology, terrorists use it for destructive purpose.

5. Many illness are created due to the development of atomic energy and atom bomb.

6. Modern technology like nuclear energy have not only affected man but it also affected plants and
other creatures.

7. Natural beauty is decreasing due to the development of modern technology.

Limitations of Technology to Humanity

According to Booch (2003), Technology has many advantages to humanity. One cannot live without
these advancements but there are certain limitations as to what humanity can apply it to almost
everything they do. Technology is the application of the laws of the theory in science, to discuss its
limitations, one need to answer these questions: Is there a specific limitation in these Technological
Advancement? Or can Humanity limit the use of these technology? These are the factors that define the
limits of technology:

1. The laws of physics

2. The laws of software

3. The challenge of algorithms

4. The difficulty of distribution

5. The problems of design

6. The problems of functionality

7. The importance of organization

8. The impact of economics

9. The influence of politics

The Laws of Physics
Software, Quantum effects, and Thermodynamic plays an important role when it comes to
the law of physics and technology. Software is a flexible medium. Specifically, the speed of light is a
given, and that fact has practical implications for throughout systems. Quantum effects have
theoretical and practical limits to information capacity: you cannot store more memory than there
are numbers of elementary particles in the universe. Thermodynamic effects happen when the
containers that will dissipate heat, that limits the use of technology.

The Laws of Software and Algorithms

Fundamental laws of software: An example of software limitations is when there is a given
computation, there are times we can't do it, and there are times we can't afford to do it, and
sometimes we just don't know how to do it (these categories and their examples come from David
Harel's delightful book, Computers, Ltd.).Limitations for algorithms is that there are also certain
classes of problems that are on a reasonable algorithm: data compression and photorealistic which
renders two such problems like theoretical limits of compressing an image, a waveform, video, or
some raw stream of bits, some degree of information loss, hairy mathematics, some trial and error,
lack of perfect knowledge adds complexity and compromise to our systems.

The Difficulty of Distribution

Leslie Lamport an American computer scientist who observed, "A distributed system is one
in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know 'existed can render your computer
unusable." Building distributed systems is only moderately harder than building a non-distributed
one, but it is decidedly not, because the reality of the real world intrudes. Peter Deutsch is an
American politician who noted that there are eight fallacies of distributed computing: we'd like to
believe that these are all true, but they are definitely not.
The Problems of Design
The design of any relevant Web-centric system consists of tens of thousands of lines of
custom code on top of hundreds of thousands of lines of middleware code on top of several million
lines of operating system code. William Occam, a 14th-century logician and Franciscan friar stated,
“Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily." Isaac Newton an English physicist &
mathematician projected Occam's work into physics by noting, "We are to admit no more causes of
natural things than such are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances." Put in
contemporary terms, physicists often observe, “When you have two competing theories which
make exactly the same predictions, the one that is simpler is the better." Finally, Albert Einstein was
a German-born theoretical physicist declared that "Everything should be made as simple as
possible, but not simpler."

The Problems of Functionality

Brooks writes: To consider the requirements, functionality, and non-functionality of a
machine like multi-engine aircraft, a cellular phone, or an autonomous robot, has these limitations
such as usability, survivability, and adaptability has these unrestrained, potentially contradictory,
external requirements are too complexity to design.

The Importance of Organization

According to Booch (2003), No one person can ever understand such a system completely. It
demands that we use a team of developers, and ideally, as small a team as possible but software
systems that drive an entire enterprise, one typically must manage teams of teams, each of which
may be geographically distributed from one another. More developers mean more complex
communication and hence more difficult coordination, particularly if the team is geographically
dispersed. With a team of developers, the key management challenge is always to maintain a unity
and integrity of design.
The Impact of Economics
Technological Advancement costs money. According to Barry Boehm (1981), in his classic
work on: Software Engineering Economics, based upon 20 years of empirical evidence, concludes
that the performance of a project can be predicted according to the following equation:

Performance = (Complexity**Process) * Team * Tools

Where:
Performance means effort or time
Complexity means volume of human-generated code
Process means maturity of process and notation
Team means skill set, experience, and motivation
Tools means software tools automation

From this equation, we can observe that the complexity of a system can either be amplified
by a bad process or dampened by a good process and that the nature of a team and its tools are
equal contributors to the performance of a project.

The Influence of Politics

Investment in software development is the key to success, the political organization can
influence its progress and its limitations. Great things could have provided if the influence in politics
are on a positive side.

HUMANITY
Humanity is the human race, which includes everybody on earth. It is also a term for the
qualities that make us human, such as the capacity to love, to sympathize, to be creative, and not to
be a robot or alien.
Humanity is from the Latin word "humanitas" which means "human nature, kindness."
Humanity comprises all the humans, also refer to the kind of emotions humans frequently feel for
each other. But when people talk about humanity, it is talking about people as a whole. When
people do wrong things, it challenges your faith in humanity. When people request for money to
help feed hungry children, they are appealing to the sense of humanity.
The human race or the humaneness, the quality of life or state of being, its attributes and
qualities of being a human being. Humankind is highly dependent on technology. With the
development and constant technological changes, humans change their way of life to improve
standards in life.
In this chapter, we can see how humanity changed due to technological advancement, in
terms of medical and health care, communication, agriculture, and education. Today, humanity is
advanced. Humans have come a long way from the cave but how far can they still go? Is there a
limit to technological progress? What does this mean for humanity's distant future? The answer to
that is: As part of these technological advancement, it hinges on the longevity of human species. To
advance far ahead in science and technology and the wisdom to use these, human beings need
time.
The history of life on earth is a history of extinction. Despite that there is advancement,
human beings are STILL quite vulnerable to both nature and to themselves as human beings. To
measure how advance the human beings, it is relatively linked to the ability of the human being to
avoid extinction. According to Sagan, (2004) today is a period where he called it "technological
adolescence". Human beings are still delivering technological advancement and it all depends on
how wisely they will use these "technological advancement", to reach into a mature human being
with a reasonable chance of reaching and enjoy the quality of life until old age. Sagan also stated
that he is worried that human being will likely to mature fast enough to escape the destruction by
the own hands of human beings.
The capabilities of human beings in terms of technology will depend on how they can
improve the quality of life. Nobody can say for sure how will it affect the. humanity but with its
benefits - it does look hopeful, and when the human beings got to that state of advancement, there
are still quite a lot left to invent.

Life of humanity has become easy through technology and still progressing through continuous
invention, thus improving the quality of life, and surprising themselves in ways that they can never
imagine before.
 The two roads to take in humanity are ascension of all mankind and the other is a complete
and total destruction.

POLICIES AND TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT

Unites States of America
According to the US, Industrial Competitiveness, and Technological Advancement article in
2012: U.S industry technological advancement frequently has been reinforced by congressional
initiatives over the past 30 and more. Direct measures that concern budget outlays and the
provision of services by government and indirect measures that include financial incentives and
legal changes.
However many of these efforts have been revisited over the past several congresses.
Congressional legislation seems to have preferred indirect strategies such as tax policies,
intellectual property right protection, and antitrust laws to promote technological advancement
and government support for basic research over direct federal funding for private sector technology
commercialization initiatives. From: Industrial Competitiveness and Technological Advancement
Debate over Government Policy, page 2, by Wendy H. Schacht, December 3, 2012.
Increase in economic growth in the contribution to the creation of new goods, new services,
new jobs, and new capital is because of the advances in technology. Technology application can
improve productivity and quality of products. The development and use of technology also plays a
vital role in determining patterns of international trade by affecting the comparative advantages of
industrial sectors. Since technological progress is not necessarily determined by economic
conditions but can be influenced by advances in science. The organization and management of
firms, and government activity can have effects on trade independent of changes in macroeconomic
factors. New technologies also help reward for possible disadvantages in the cost of capital and
labor handled by firms.
Canada, USA, North, and South America to Europe and Asia-Pacific
The origins of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD' is date back
to 1960, when 18 European countries, United States, and Canada merged to create an organization
dedicated to economic development.
Today there are 35 countries that are members around the world, from North and South
America to Europe and Asia-Pacific. They include many of the world's most advanced countries
as well the emerging economies like Mexico, Chile, and Turkey.
Scientific developments and technological changes are important drivers of current
economic performance. The ability to create, distribute, and exploit. knowledge has become a
big source of competitive advantage, wealth creation and improvements in the quality of life.
Some features of this transformation are the growing impact of information and
communications technologies (ICT) on the economy and on society; the rapid application of
new scientific advances in new products and processes; a high rate of innovation across OECD
countries; a change to more knowledge-intensive industries and services; and rising skill
requirements.

Philippines
According to the Research and Development and Technology in the Philippines,
Industrial strategy: The technology market is facing crisis since the economic environment of
the developing countries are opposing technology based institutions. Thus, the Philippines is
taking actions in reforming the technology market by focusing on 23 industries as priority areas.
The Philippines can follow the technological innovation strategies imposed by Japan and
South Korea. With synchronize and consistent overall industrial strategy, the Philippines can
move up to economic reforms. Government should also focus on expansion of manpower,
infrastructure, incentives, and research institutions to assist the growth of this system.
ETHICAL DILEMMAS
The control over nature and the control of other people by the use of technology is
completely another story. Science and technology as well as research and development enjoy
and must continue to enjoy autonomy from the state and society. They may draw inspiration
from them, but they are not necessarily determined and directed by them. However, the
application, use and distribution of technology require ethical standards and even legal
provisions set by the local and international government
Technology permeates every aspect of human life and activity. Inevitably, ethics will also
evolve into a burning, un-ignorable issue for every individual and organization. At present, we
do not have common global ethics to technological advancement to discuss different issues, let
alone agreement or accepted legal rights and responsibilities.
The most important question of the century is: What will be our ethics be? Some of the
vexing worries about the coming age of mechanically – enhanced thought is: Are there "win-
win ways to gain the advantages without sacrificing our humanity? Can we bio-minds teach
newer kind of ethics? Is it time to regulate mass technology application? Do we need to
mainstream in our media, our schools, our locals, and international government to simply face
the numerous ethical, economic, social, and biological issues in application of technology?
The ethical dilemmas and policy issues for 2015 (presented in no particular order) are:
1. Real-time satellite surveillance video
2. Astronaut bioethics (of colonizing Mars)
3. Wearable technology
4. State sponsored hacktivism and "soft war
5. Enhanced pathogens
6. Non-lethal weapons
7. Robot swarms
8. Artificial life forms
9. Resilient social-ecological systems
10. Brain-to-brain interfaces
Real-Time Satellite Surveillance Video
What if Google Earth offered you real-time images instead of a snapshot 1-3 years old?
Companies such as Planet Labs, Skybox Imaging (recently purchased by Google), have launched
lots of satellites in the last year with the purpose of recording the status of the entire earth in
real time. The satellites themselves are getting cheaper, smaller and more sophisticated (with
resolutions up to 1 foot) than before. Commercial satellite companies make this data available
to the corporations (or, potentially, private citizens with enough cash), letting customers to see
useful images of areas handling with natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies, but also
the data on the comings and goings of private citizens.
How do we choose what should be observed and how frequent? Should we use this
information to solve criminalities? What is the possible for misuse by corporations,
governments, police departments, private citizens, or terrorists and other "bad actors"?

Astronaut Bioethics (Of Colonizing Mars)

The colonization of Mars and plans for long-term space missions are already ongoing.
On December 5, NASA launched the Orion spacecraft and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
declared it "Day One of the Mars era." The company Mars One (along with Lockheed Martin
and Surrey Satellite Technology) is preparing to launch a robotic mission to Mars in 2018, with
succeeding humans in 2025. The 418 men and 287 women from around the world are presently
competing for the four spots on the first one-way human settlement mission. But as we watch
with interest as this clarifies, we might ask ourselves the following:
Is it moral to expose people to unknown levels of human separation and physical danger
(including exposure to radiation) for such a purpose? Will these pioneers lack privacy for the
rest of their lives so that we might watch what happens? is it moral to consider a birth of child
in space or on Mars? And, if so, who protects the rights of a child not born on Earth and who
did not consent to the risks? If we say no to children in space, does that mean we sterilize all
astronauts who volunteer for the mission? Given the potential dangers of setting up a new
colony strictly lacking in resources, how would sick colonists be cared for? And beyond
bioethics, we might ask how an off- Earth colony would be administered.

Wearable Technology
We are presently involved to (literally and figuratively) multiple technologies that
monitor our behaviors. The development of dozens of bracelets and clip on devices that
monitor steps taken, activity levels, heart rate, etc., not to mention the advent of organic
electronics that can be layered, printed, painted, or grown on human skin has led by the fitness
tracking craze. Google is partnering with Novartis to create a contact lens that monitors blood
sugar levels in diabetics and leads the information to healthcare providers. Wearables have the
potential to teach us, protect our health, as well as violate our privacy in any amount of ways.

State-Sponsored Hacktivism and 'Soft War'

"Soft war" is a concept used to explain rights and duties of insurgents (and even terrorists)
during armed struggle. Soft war incorporates tactics other than armed force to achieve political
ends. Cyber war and hacktivism could be tools of soft war, through certain ways by states in
inter-state conflict, as opposed to isolated individuals or groups (like "Anonymous"). We
already live in a state of low-intensity cyber conflict.
How do we fight back if these activities become more aggressive, damaging
infrastructure? Docs a nation have a right to defend itself against, or retaliate for, a cyber-
attack, and if so, under what situations? What if the aggressors are non-state actors? If a group
of Chinese hackers launched an attack on the US, does that give the US government the right to
react against the Chinese government? In a soft war, what are the circumstances of self-
defense? May that self- defense be preventative? Who can be attacked in a cyber-war? We've
already perceived operations that hack into corporations and steal private citizens' data. What's
to stop attackers from hacking into our personal wearable devices? Are private citizens attacked
by cyber warriors just another form of collateral damage?
Enhanced Pathogens
White House suspended research on October 17, 2014 that would enhance the
pathogenicity of viruses such as influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and
Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) (often referred to as gain-of-function (GOF research).
Gain-of-function research, in itself, is not detrimental; in fact, it is used to provide vital
understandings into viruses and how to treat them. But when it is used to increase mammalian
transmissibility and virulence, the altered viruses pose serious security and biosafety risks.

Non-Lethal Weapons
Primarily it may seem ridiculous that kinds of weapons that have been around since
WWI and not designed to kill could be an evolving ethical or policy dilemma. Considering the
recent development and production of non-lethal weapons such as laser missiles, blinding
weapons, pain rays, sonic weapons, electric weapons, heat rays, disabling malodor ants, as well
as the use of gases and sprays in both the military and domestic police forces (which are often
the beneficiaries of older military equipment). These weapons may not kill then again, there
have been fatalities from non-lethal weapons), but they can cause serious pain, physical
injuries, and long term health costs (the latter has not been fully investigated).

Robot Swarms
Harvard University researchers newly created a group of 1000 robots, capable of
communicating with each other to perform simple tasks such as ordering themselves into
shapes and patterns. No human intervention is required in these "kilobots" beyond the original
set of instructions and work together to complete tasks. These tiny bots are based on the group
behavior of insects also can be used to perform environmental cleanups or answer to disasters
where humans fear to tread. The concept of driverless cars also relies on this system, where the
cars themselves would communicate with each other to obey traffic laws and transport people
safely to their destinations.
 Should we be worried about the ethical and policy consequences of letting robots work
collected without human interference? if a robot malfunctions and causes harm what will
happen? Who would be blamed for such an accident? What if tiny swarms of robots could be
set up to spy or sabotage?

Artificial Life Forms

Research on artificial life forms is a range of synthetic biology focused on custom-
building life forms to address specific purposes. Announced by Craig Venter and colleagues the
first synthetic life form in 2010, made from a present organism by introducing synthetic DNA.
Synthetic life allows scientists to study the origins of life by building it rather than breaking it
down, but this technique blurs the line between life, and machines, and scientists foresee the
ability to program organisms. The ethical and policy issues surrounding innovations in synthetic
biology renew concerns raised previously with other biological breakthroughs and includes
safety issues and risk factors connected with releasing artificial life forms into the environment.
Making artificial life forms has been deemed "playing God" because it allows individuals
to create life that does not exist naturally. Gene patents have been a concern for several years
now and synthetic organisms suggest a new dimension of this policy issue. While customized
organisms may one day cure cancer, they may also be used as biological weapons.

Resilient Social-Ecological Systems

Resilient social and ecological systems is what we need to build. Tolerantly being pushed
to an extreme while maintaining their functionality either by returning to the earlier state or by
operating in a new state. Resilient systems endure external pressures such caused by climate
change, natural disasters, and economic globalization. A resilient electrical system is able to
stand extreme weather events or regain functionality quickly afterwards is an example. A
resilient ecosystem can maintain a complex web of life when one or more organism is over
exploited. The system is stressed by climate change.
 To what way is it the responsibility of the federal government to assure that civil
infrastructure is resilient to environmental changes? When individuals act in their self-interest,
there is the unique possibility that their individual actions fail to maintain infrastructure and
processes that are essential for all of society. This can lead to what Garret Hardin in 1968 called
the "tragedy of the commons." in which many individuals ranking rational decisions based on
their own interest undermine the collective's best and long-term interests. To what extent is it
the responsibility of the federal government to enact regulations that can prevent a "tragedy of
the commons"?

Brain-to-Brain Interfaces
It's no Vulcan mind meld, but brain-to-brain interfaces (BBI) have been achieved,
allowing for direct communication from one brain to another without speech. The interactions
can be between humans or between humans and animals. In 2014, University of Washington
researchers performed a BBI experiment that allowed a person command over another person
about half a mile away, the goal being the simple task of moving their hand (communication so
far has been one - way in that one person sends the commands and the other receives them).
Using an electroencephalography (EEG) machine that detects brain activity in the sender and a
transcranial magnetic stimulation coil that controls movement in the receiver we've achieved a
BBI twice - this year scientists also transmitted words from brain-to-brain across 5,000 miles.
The ethical issues are countless. What kind of neuro security can we put in place to
protect individuals from having accidental information shared or removed from their brains
(especially by hackers)? If two individuals share an idea, who is entitled to claim ownership:
Who is responsible for the actions devoted by the recipient of a thought if a separate thinker is
dictating the actions?
LEARNING TASK

MODULE 9 SEATWORK

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