Human Ingenuity Doesn't Undermine Human Nature, It Advances It
Robots are having a bad month. So are other new technologies and the companies that develop them.
Last week the New Yorker had a cover depicting a world taken over by robots. Just a couple of days earlier, the New York Times Sunday magazine featured an article by author Noam Cohen, voicing criticisms of the technology industry. In it, he cited some worrying trends, such as the use of Facebook’s platform to influence the 2016 presidential election by stirring up racial anger.
Cohen describes Silicon Valley as a “wrecking ball” that could “smash the foundations of our society.” Seems like a strong condemnation of technologies that help tie our world more closely together. Like all companies, technology firms improve our lives in the course of seeking greater profit. It is, of course, bothersome that so many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs feel the need to cloak their financial aspirations in motivations about pursuing the public good. But pursue the public good they do, for whatever reason.
Nonetheless, it is easy to understand Cohen’s fears that new technologies will undermine our society. People have voiced that concern throughout history: We were warned that the creation of an alphabet and the emergence of literacy would dull our memories and end story telling. That numeracy would undermine our innate ability to calculate quantities in our head. That the printing press would provide an opportunity to spread myths and falsehoods.
All of these innovations were seen as wrecking balls that could “smash the foundations of our society.” And all of these concerns had some truth to them. But all of them were overtaken by the enormous benefits these new technologies provided us.
The truth is, human ingenuity does contain one fatal flaw – it is held by human beings. And human beings often use good things for bad purposes. As a consequence, there is a continuous tension between human ingenuity and human nature.
Human ingenuity is clearly cumulative. Every time someone invents a new technology, they make it easier for themselves or someone else to invent a follow-up technology, both because of what we learn from it and what it allows us to do. Invent movable type, and you make it possible for people to communicate and share ideas and information. Create an internet site, and hopefully it will generate, aggregate and disseminate accurate content, knowledge and innovative ideas. Every insight and innovation builds on its predecessors. As Sir Isaac Newton put it, his insights were derived by “standing on the shoulders of giants.”
But Newton also said he could “calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people.” This may be because, unlike human ingenuity, human nature does not seem to be cumulative, perhaps because it is largely rooted in our DNA and evolution is an inherently slow process.
The marked advances we have seen in human nature – reflected in declining violence, increased avenues for compassion (both through government and charitable vehicles), and notable advances in both societal institutions and equal rights – largely stem from progress made possible by human ingenuity. Invent the printing press, and people can become more familiar with new ideas and other cultures. Invent television, and we can see others across the globe with our own eyes. Spawn the internet, and we can track the challenges people face and the advances they make, and see our own opportunity to help them, in real time.
New technologies make it possible for us to view the world the way others do. And they create the wealth that allow us to act on these insights.
It was not always thus. In 1703, the most powerful wind force in English history, probably an offshoot of a hurricane, killed thousands and caused more destruction to England than any known storm before or since, sinking one-third of the British Navy fleet. Unlike natural disasters today, the “Great Wind” prompted little if any assistance from other countries. Most of England’s own neighbors probably did not immediately know about the hurricane’s impact. Today, we see the impact of hurricanes – and tsunamis, earthquakes, and other natural disasters – with our own eyes, as they happen.
Instead of seeking foreign tribute, we are more likely to engage in foreign aid. Instead of achieving our goals by making war, we are more likely to pursue them by seeking cooperation. The world is far from heaven on earth, but it is moving even farther from the Hobbesian description of life as “nasty, brutish and short.”
Human nature has advanced, largely because technological developments have made that possible by creating wealth, by linking us together, and by enhancing and speeding communications and transportation. By making the world a smaller place, human ingenuity pulls human nature forward.
The bad news is that human nature often drags human ingenuity back. Human ingenuity allows us to split the atom – and human nature uses the knowledge to spawn the most destructive weapons in history. Modernize industrial production, and people use the methodologies to pursue the Holocaust. Invent ships that can cross oceans, and they are used to transport slaves. Develop radio and other means of communications, and human beings use them to facilitate the slaughter of Tutsis in Rwanda.
The result is that we make progress, in the manner of some caterpillar, springing forward, retrenching, and then abruptly springing forward again. Humanity advances in fits and starts, largely because of the inherent tension between human ingenuity and human nature.
To slow the pace of technological change today, as Cohen advocates, would make no more sense than to stall the development of international shipping or industrial organization in the past. Perhaps the most important value that new technologies bring us is an ability to know each other better – and make human ingenuity serve the purpose of a constantly improving human nature.
