Technosolutionism
Governments and organizations are advocating for and funding technologies which aim to break down problems into neat chunks, measure them, and prescribe ‘targeted’ solutions. According to writer Evgeny Morozov, this ideology “holds that because there is no alternative (or time or funding), the best we can do is to apply digital plasters to the damage. Solutionists deploy technology to avoid politics; they advocate ‘post-ideological’ measures that keep the wheels of global capitalism turning.”
The catch is that, as much as we like to think of technology as neutral, objective or ‘post-ideological’, technology is inherently political. The ways that we design and deploy technology are ripe with assumptions, power dynamics and ideologies neatly hidden in lines of code.
As technology companies become increasingly involved in shaping our civilization, “[engineers] are being asked to take on tasks… that have to do with human and social engineering rather than technical engineering.” These tasks and the logic behind the resulting technological artifacts are kept behind closed doors in the name of ‘intellectual property’, and therefore sheltered from criticism. Nevertheless, these technologies are influenced by, and amplify the ideologies that create them.
We need to be “questioning of the very idea of using technology to solve a “problem” that technology itself is” Source
Tech For Good
In the early days of the internet, “there was the idea that the tech entrepreneur had a god-like power to shape reality,” according to Jason Lanier, one of its early engineers.
The internet, from its humble beginnings as a network for scientists to share data, was understood to have the capacity to revolutionise society. One of its creators, Tim Berners-Lee, wanted it to be an open and free platform, so that anyone could access it and build on top of it. “The spirit there was very decentralized. The individual was incredibly empowered. It was all based on there being no central authority that you had to go to to ask permission.”
It was these same ideas of openness, freedom and goodwill that led Google founders to keep their service free while adopting the advertising model we know today, along with the motto “don’t be evil”. Although Google officially abandoned that phrase in 2008, in the mission statements of many digital platforms you’ll still find lofty ideals like “bringing people closer together,” “creating a world where anyone can belong anywhere,” or being “Earth’s best employer.” (Yes, that last one is Amazon.)
Similarly idealistic goals have been set forth by proponents of “tech for good” in response to the ironically disastrous effects those very same platforms have had on the problems they claim to solve. At best, these statements serve as “more of a posture – one that merely signals good intentions.” At worst, they are a form of greenwashing that serves to further the interests and beliefs of the platform’s creators, while hiding rampant abuses of power.
*Every invocation of the idea fails to offer a clear solution to issues of job insecurity, surveillance, hate speech, and entrenched privilege. Indeed, it’s doomed to fail precisely because, by centering ‘tech’, it immediately assumes that these are problems that tech can solve.
This isn’t to say that every tech for good initiative is bad. There are many ways in which technology projects can be put to work in positive and transformative ways. Indeed, you might even say that many of the technologists who helped to lay the foundations of the internet as we know thought in precisely these terms. However, the concept of tech for good would have seemed weird to them: of course it’s for good, otherwise, what’s the point?* Richard Gall, Tech For Good Is A Con Trick
Is tech for good even possible when power agglomerates and rises to the top? Richard Gall, Tech For Good Is A Con Trick
There are ‘Tech for Good’ debates and conversations happening all the time, but these are often wholly separate from policy conversations: things like governance and questions of rights, as well as debates over who should have power to build for whom, and how we should manage all of our digital systems in pro-social, anti-racist, and net beneficial ways. Alix Dunn, Tech for good isn’t a thing
Dive Deeper
Topic relates to:
Data & Surveillance Capitalism Criticism of Market Societies
Further reading:
https://worldwise.substack.com/p/gates-climate-technosolutionism https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/09/evgeny-morozov-technology-solutionism-interview https://www.publicbooks.org/the-folly-of-technological-solutionism-an-interview-with-evgeny-morozov/