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Society & Technology: Evaluation
In my last article I explored how societies become aware of new technologies, how they initially react and the period of time that varies around technology awareness. We are in this phase now with Generative AI (like Claude and ChatGPT). In this article, I will look at how we then evaluate technologies. This is the phase before we adapt a technology.
By understanding these phases, we can take a more critical and nuanced look at the major new technologies currently entering into broader society and impacting our sociocultural systems. To see beyond the hype and, hopefully, be a little more pragmatic.
Some new technologies move very quickly through the phases of awareness, evaluation and adaptation. The smartphone is an example, taking less than a decade to move through these phases and become widely adopted and now being adapted, by society. This is rare, but then the iPhone had the Blackberry which laid the ground for it and combined technologies already in widespread use and cultural acceptance.
Technologies, like culture and societies, are not fixed, they are ever changing and evolving. Technologies are not neutral, nor are they deterministic. Once they move into the awareness and evaluation phases, they tend to start reflecting the values, traditions, interests, economics and power relations.
