Value Beyond Instrumentalization — Letters to a Young Technologist

I don’t believe that policy tweaks, regulations, shifting economic models, or newer technologies built on the same assumptions will solve the most fundamental challenges posed by our technological milieu. Such measures may have their role to play, no doubt. But I would characterize these measures as grand but ultimately inadequate gestures that app... See more

Technology is not neutral. These tools, processes and systems favour some paths and necessarily disfavour others. The technology-maker decides what to value and endorse, helping to perpetuate some moral slant or system. Even if two technologies have the same ends, differing paths can generate divergent consequences — Facebook and Instagram might ha... See more

And since technology is not value neutral, to be a technologist is to be inherently opinionated about how the world ought to be. Each act of creation is a statement about one particular means to an end being the best possible means. As Saffron Huang writes, “[b]ringing something into existence is in fact endorsing that thing itself. As we hurtle al... See more