Can Technology be Good or Bad?

In module 5 we talked about some of the big-picture, foundational philosophies used by FinTech innovators to support and justify their work. For example, we talked about whether FinTech should aim to create a decentralized, more democratized finance industry, or whether FinTech innovations would further entrench traditional sources of financial power.  

In here, we focused on control and power – particularly who controls banking, currency, and our identity – with a specific focus on how to ensure FinTech innovations provide greater financial inclusion. We will end by considering the speed of these innovations, particularly in the developing world, noting that in some less developed countries, FinTech has already advanced considerably beyond what is available in developed countries.  

First, we want to start with a question: can technology be good or bad, or is technology always neutral?  

Let’s look at this using a specific example. Take a moment and think about one specific form of technological advancement: nuclear power. What are your immediate feelings about nuclear power? Is it good, bad, or just neutral?  

On the one hand, nuclear power is among the cleanest, most efficient sources of energy ever discovered or utilized by mankind. Using material only about the size of a small cube, like a Rubik’s cube, you could generate enough electricity to power an entire city for decades, if not centuries. France derives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. As a result, France has cleaner and cheaper electricity than just about any country in the world. France even exports enough excess electricity to generate over 3 billion Euros per year.  

And yet in countries around the world, nuclear power is one of the least popular forms of electricity generation. When I asked the question, some of you may have immediately thought of disasters like those that occurred in 2011 in Fukushima, Japan, or in 1986 in Chornobyl, Ukraine.  

Or maybe you didn’t even think about nuclear power in terms of electricity generation at all. Maybe you immediately thought about its even more destructive use: nuclear weapons.  

There is no denying the potential of nuclear power for both good and bad. But the question remains: is nuclear power itself good or bad? Can technology ever be inherently good or evil? Or is technology always inherently neutral?  

One common debate that has occurred in countries like the United States around this question concerns guns. Typically the question is asked this way: do guns kill people, or do people kill people? And while this may seem like a silly debate to many of you, the underlying philosophical question has been at the heart of technological advancements for millennia.  

As an example of how long humans have been asking this question, let’s consider a term that you may have heard before: Luddite. Have you heard the term Luddite before? The first time David Lee called someone a Luddite was David Bishop – the term means someone resistant to adopting new technology.  

The term Luddite is thrown around a lot in tech circles, but do you know the origins of that word? The Luddites were actually a secret oath-based society from 19th-century England. They were worried that their jobs were going to be taken by machines, particularly in the textile industry, and so some believe that the Luddites went around breaking machines to ensure they wouldn’t take over their jobs. For many Luddites, the machines themselves were the enemies. Damage to machines was so prevalent that in 1812 the British government even created a law that made “machine breaking” a capital crime.  

OK, let’s bring this back to the FinTech world. We have discussed the challenges and benefits of several FinTech innovations, such as the blockchain and facial recognition software. We have discussed multiple cases where blockchain-based technologies have been used for illegal behaviour. But should that mean that blockchain itself is bad, and should therefore be made illegal? Or were the people who utilized the technology for illegal purposes the real perpetrators?  

Or concerning AI, should we be more concerned about the underlying technology that makes AI possible, or should we focus our attention on who has the ability to control the use of the technology? On that particular question, even Stephen Hawking, who has famously warned about the dangers of AI, noted that the short-term concerns about AI depend more on who controls the technology rather than the AI technology itself. 

Whether you believe that technology can be inherently good or bad, or whether it is inherently amoral and neutral, there is no denying that technology has initiated massive social changes over the past two centuries. The theory of technological determinism considers how technology has impacted human action, culture, and thought, and argues that technological advancements have been the primary source for social change.  

One element of technological determinism is an ideology called technological utopianism, which is the belief that science and technology will bring about a utopia where scarcity, suffering, and even death can be overcome.  

As we stated in the very first chapter of this book, we currently stand at the precipice of change. And we as humanity have some really important decisions to make. Will we utilize the power inherent in FinTech innovations to build the type of utopian society that science fiction has imagined for us, or will we use these innovations to divide, control, and disempower?  

Although this book may seem somewhat pessimistic or cynical at times, the reality is that we are extremely optimistic about the future. And we truly believe in the power of FinTech to bring humanity together.  

So for the remainder of this chapter, we are going to consider some of the ways people are creating FinTech solutions and building FinTech-based business models solely for the benefit of society.