Is technology good or bad?

  1. Brainstorm Game. In groups, write down as many ideas as you can that support each claim below (5 minutes per claim). Try to come up with "strong" evidence and evidence you think no other groups will think of.
    • Claim #1: Technology is good.
    • Claim #2: Technology is bad.
  2. Read Blown to Bits pages 13-17 (Good and Ill, Promise and Peril).
    • Revisit one of the computing innovations you examined earlier in this lab. How is your innovation an example of the authors' claim that "any technology can be used for good or ill"?
  1. Read Blown to Bits pages 4-13 (The Koans of Bits) about one of the following seven koans (truths) about bits. Gather with others who read the same section and prepare a short presentation answering the question: What are some of the social implications of your koan?
    • Koan 1: It's All Just Bits
    • Koan 2: Perfection Is Normal
    • Koan 3: There Is Want in the Midst of Plenty
    • Koan 4: Processing Is Power
    • Koan 5: More of the Same Can Be a Whole New Thing
    • Koan 6: Nothing Goes Away
    • Koan 7: Bits Move Faster Than Thought
Some of you will be the technology builders of the future. All of you will be voters. You are not helpless in a world driven by technology! Instead of "technology is good" or "technology is bad," we hope you'll think, for each future technology, "how should this technology be designed and used to keep its benefits and still avoid its possible harms?" People make the decisions that make a technology good or bad.