Technology is Natural

Technology is advancing quickly, and it’s natural that people might find it alarming; there is the popular opinion that technology takes away from reality, that it disrupts and destroys the natural environment, that people are dangerously captivated by the inhuman strength, speed, and efficiency that technology provides. This viewpoint is true to an extent, and it can be seen in the replacement of forests by factories, and the teenage culture of social media and cellular phones. However, there is no denying that technology is a large part of the progress that has been made in society, and in a way, technology, along with plants and animals and human beings, is a natural phenomenon.

One of the biggest concerns about technology is that people have become too dependent on it. In her article “Robot Apocalypse,” Odelia Kaly talks about the overwhelming prevalence of technology in people’s lives, and she claims that with all this technology completing simple tasks for us, we are not able to grow or learn how to complete these tasks on our own. In her view, we are trading our “autonomy for the sake of convenience,” and this will make us “perpetually ignorant, starkly immature, irrevocably incompetent.”

A fallacy in Kaly’s claim is that in order to develop this technology in the first place, people must have some knowledge of the mechanisms involved. Technology was developed with the goal to improve and accelerate things, and when people utilize it, there is a certain awareness that is required in order to make sense it; people drive cars because they know it is faster than walking or biking, and people use calculators because they know it is quicker and often more accurate than using pure brain power, which comes along with human error. Essentially, it’s impossible to be ignorant when we use technology because we must keep in mind what we are trying to accomplish with it, and how we are using it to complete the task.

There is also the reasonable concern that with the onslaught of technological innovations, people will forget the old ways. However, this doesn’t mean that people will completely forget how to do things on their own. Kaly uses the example of the self-driving automobile to support her claim that people will forget; she says that she doesn’t want to rely on a self-driving car, and then not be able to complete errands because it breaks down and she hadn’t learned how to drive on her own. There are many flaws in this example; in a society with common sense, it would still be required to pass the driving test no matter what type of vehicle it was. Furthermore, there are alternatives to driving, such as taking the bus or taxi, or walking—and it’s highly unlikely that people will ever forget to walk on their own. This is only one of the many examples that depict the fact that although technology is so widely used because of its convenience, people are intelligent enough to have alternate solutions. Human beings have adapted to a variety of environments and phenomena over hundreds of years, and we will continue to adapt to the technology that is being produced.

Kaly also claims that technology is moving so fast that soon only the engineers and scientists will know how to use any of it. However, although the engineers and scientists will probably have the most knowledge of the mechanisms of the technology, there will also always be consumers who purchase the technology because they need it and know how to utilize it–people wouldn’t buy technology if they had no idea how to utilize it or had no need or desire for it. Furthermore, if technology is being developed, whether it is with the purpose of making a profit or making a difference in the world, manufacturers would naturally make it possible for all potential consumers to be able to utilize the device, either by making the technology simple and efficient enough to use, or by providing instructions.

It’s true that over the decades, technology has completely transformed our world, and seeing the huge differences between 50 years ago and today may be overwhelming, almost frightening. However, we are human beings, a part of the natural world, and in relation, our achievements in technology can also be seen as natural. In this sense, the technology that seems so unreal and extra-dimensional is in fact just a natural part of the evolutionary process that has been going on for millions of years.

Kaly, Odelia. “Robot Apocalypse.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 26 Sept. 2013. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.