Context GDP and Per Capita GDP are two of the most basic and most widely used economic measures. These broad measures provide interesting and useful information about a nation’s economy as a

On Technological Determinism: A Typology, Scope Conditions, and a Mechanism

Author(s): Allan Dafoe

Source: Science, Technology, & Human Values , November 2015, Vol. 40, No. 6 (November 2015), pp. 1047-1076

Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.

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Article

On Technological Determinism:

A Typology, Scope Conditions, and a Mechanism

Science, Technology, & Human Values 2015, Vol. 40(6) 1047-1076

© The Author(s) 20 1 5 Reprints and permission:

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Allan Dafoe1

Abstract

"Technological determinism" is predominantly employed as a critic's term, used to dismiss certain classes of theoretical and empirical claims. Under- stood more productively as referring to claims that place a greater emphasis on the autonomous and social-shaping tendencies of technology, techno- logical determinism is a valuable and prominent perspective. This article will advance our understanding of technological determinism through four contributions. First, I clarify some debates about technological determinism through an examination of the meaning of technology. Second, I parse the family of claims related to technological determinism. Third, I note that constructive and determinist insights may each be valid given particular scope conditions, the most prominent of which is the scale of analysis. Finally, I propose a theoretical microfoundation for technological deter- minism – military-economic adaptationism – in which economic and military competition constrain sociotechnical evolution to deterministic paths. This

'Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

Corresponding Author: Allan Dafoe, Yale University, 1 15 Prospect Street, Rosenkranz Hall, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.

Email: [email protected]

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1048 Science, Technology, & Human Values 40(6)

theory is a special case of a general theory – sociotechnical selectionism – which can be regarded as also including (mild) constructivist theories as special cases. Greater understanding of, respect for, and engagement with technological determinism will enhance the study of technology and our ability to shape our sociotechnical systems.

Keywords technological determinism, constructivism, trends, momentum, unintended consequences, autonomy, competition, selectionism, levels of analysis, functionality, power

Who – If Anyone – Controls Technological Change? A central issue in the study of technology is the question of agency. To

what extent do we have control over the tools we use – and hence also our

systems of production, social relations, and worldview? To what extent are our technologies thrust upon us – by controlling elites, by path-dependent decisions from the past, or by some internal technological logic?

Prior to the 1980s, many scholars of technology took seriously the view that technological change could be, in some sense, an out-of-control history-shaping process (Winner 1977). To these scholars, often looking over large spans of time, technology seemed to develop autonomously, fol- lowing an internal technical logic, and profoundly shape society in ways that were not intended by anyone.

More recently, this view has been dismissed by many sociologists and historians of technology as "technological determinism." These scholars generally prefer constructivist approaches to the study of technology, employing descriptive narrative and emphasizing historical and social context, human agency, interpretive flexibility, and contingency. Con- structivist scholarship has been very productive, in general by providing a rich framework for the study of the social shaping of technology, and in particular by challenging technological determinism. Through many detailed studies of the design, interpretation, and use of technology (for a useful overview, see Hackett, Amsterdamska, and Wajcman 2008), con- structivist scholarship has convincingly shown the important role in the evolution of technology of different social groups, historical context, and varying perceptions of the meaning and purpose of a technology. In so doing, constructivist scholarship has shown the implausibility of simplis- tic technological determinisms.

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Dafoe 1 049

But the field of science and technology studies (STS) has gone much further, largely rejecting the many questions and conjectures that are cen- tral to technological determinism. Summarizing this rejection of techno- logical determinism, Ronald Kline (2001) writes that "historians and sociologists of technology have discredited the tenet of technological determinism, so much so that it has become a critic's term and a term of abuse in their academic circles"(p. 15497), and Michael Lynch (2008, 10) states that "technological determinism has been reduced to the status of a straw position in technology studies." To provide some sys- tematic evidence on the state of the literature, I reviewed sixty references, selecting the twenty references that ranked highest in a Google Scholar search for "technological determinism" within each of the following three leading STS journals ( Science , Technology , & Human Values ; Social Studies of Science^ Technology and Culture ); of the twenty-five articles that offered an explicit judgment of the merits of technological determinism, 76 percent of the references were critical (for data and cod- ing details, see http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/28473).

While most STS scholars will agree that, in addition to the social shaping of technology, there is an "influence of technology upon social relations" (Mackenzie and Wajcman 1999, 41), questions about the effects and auton- omy of technology are neglected. Important underexplored areas of inquiry include the study of the political effects of technology, the inertia of tech- nological systems, the existence of trends and an internal logic in technolo- gical developments, and the historical transformations associated with key technological innovations.1 Leonardi and Barley (2010), reflecting on the field of technology and organization, similarly argue that the field has swung strongly away from technological determinism, in so doing neglect- ing issues of "knateriality and power" (p. 42). The contemporary lack of interest in deterministic questions and propositions within STS is all the more concerning because most of the disciplines in social science, and busi- ness and the military, continue to take them seriously. In short, STS no lon- ger seriously engages with one of its founding debates.

A recent move within STS to take technological determinism "more seriously" involves studying beliefs about technological determinism using a constructivist lens (Wyatt 2008; Söderberg 2013). While these works do direct attention to technologically deterministic claims, they treat them as subjects of study to be explained , not as potentially insightful theoretical arguments that can explain.

I propose that "technological determinism" should be reclaimed from its use as a critic's term and straw position and should instead be employed to

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1050 Science , Technology, & Human Values 40(6)

(Mild) Social Constructivism (Soft) Technological Determinism

Radical

Social '* *'■ Technological Constructivism Determinism

Figure I . A continuum of scholarship, from social constructivism to technological determinism.

respectfully characterize works that are closer to the determinisi side of the continuum of scholarly claims (similar to the proposed usage in Smith and Marx 1994, xiii). Going too far in either direction leads to the generally implausible positions of hard technological determinism (Smith and Marx 1994, 2) or radical social constructivism (Sismondo 1993; see Figure 1). The question should not be a dichotomous one of whether technological determinism is right or wrong, but a set of questions of degree, scope, and context: to what extent, in what ways, and under what scope conditions are particular kinds of technology more autonomous and powerful in shaping society? The complement of this framing also clarifies questions about human agency: to what extent, in what ways, and under what scope condi- tions are particular groups of people able to shape their sociotechnical systems?

This article seeks to reclaim "technological determinism" as a legiti- mate intellectual position through the following contributions. The first section discusses the definition of technology, clarifying some debates about technological determinism. The second section outlines the rich family of ideas related to technological determinism. In it I clarify differ- ent aspects of technical determinism and how they logically relate to each other; I discuss the role of technological trends in deterministic thinking; and I note that deterministic claims are more prevalent in studies with macro levels of analysis and that contrary findings from micro levels of analysis do not necessarily invalidate macro-insights. The third section addresses a serious weakness in technologically determinisi accounts: the lack of a compelling causal microfoundation. This article outlines a the- ory of military-economic adaptationism in which military and economic competition can give rise to harder forms of technological determinism. In so doing, it shows how it is possible for both radical constructivism and hard determinism to be simultaneously true on different scales of analysis. At the micro level, social groups can have extreme flexibility in interpreting, using, and designing technology. At the macro level, how- ever, strong military and economic competition could lead to emergent

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Dafoe

patterns in which technology evolves as if according to an inner logic that determines society.

What Is Technology? Confusion about technological determinism is in part due to confusion about the meaning of the term technology. Technology can refer to vast sociotechnical systems, such as the Internet, as well as specific arti- facts, standards, routines, and beliefs that make up these systems, such as computers, the Internet protocol, e-mail routines, and beliefs about the reliability of online information. Leo Marx (1997, 982-83) argues that the term technology , by conflating specific artifacts and broad sociotechnical systems, induces erroneous deterministic thinking and that the abstract concept "is almost completely vacuous." Whenever possible, this ambiguity can be avoided through the use of more pre- cise terms. Artifact can stand for specific objects intended for a func- tion, such as machines, devices, and tools. Technique can refer to "softer" functional configurations, such as habits of mind, analytical methods, and behavioral routines. Institutions can refer to organiza- tional hierarchies, legal codes, and incentive structures. Sociotechnical systems can refer to the vast functional configurations of all these components. While I agree that these other terms can clarify thinking, I nevertheless believe the abstract term technology is useful. Technology , like its "immediate precursors – words like machine , invention, improvement, and … the mechanic (or useful . . . ) arts " (Marx 1997, 967, italics in orig- inal) is rooted in the metaphor of the machine and the application of sci- ence to commercial and military objectives. As such, technology highlights the functionality of sociotechnical configurations. This is apparent in present-day definitions of technology as "a manner of accom- plishing a task" (Merriam Webster 2005) and as "configurations that work " (Rip and Kemp 1998, 330). The defining characteristic of technol- ogy is its functionality, not its specific materiality. Technology , thus, (1) denotes those entities – artifacts, techniques, institutions, systems – that are or were functional and (2) emphasizes the functional dimension of those entities.

This understanding of technology helps to resolve a central confusion in debates over technological determinism. Critics of technological determinism often portray the debate as centered on the definition of technology as artifact. However, while some aspects of technological

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1052 Science, Technology, & Human Values 40(6)

determinism are about artifactual determinism, the core of the literature is more about kinds of functional determinism: the way that history often seems to follow inexorable functional logics that drive and are driven by technological change.

Technological Determinism The term technological determinism , as Ronald Kline (2001) points out, is presently employed to criticize the extreme position that (1) technol- ogy develops according to an "internal logic independent of social influ- ence" (p. 15495) and that (2) "technological change determines social change in a prescribed manner" (p. 15495). Exemplifying Kline's argu- ment, Bimber (1994) offers the extreme definition of technological determinism as the view that history is "determined by laws. . .rather than by human will" (p. 86) and that these laws involve physical arti- facts as a necessary component (p. 88). Technological determinism so defined does not allow the possibility of any human agency and thus does not refer to the vast majority of perspectives that takes the effects of technology seriously.

I propose defining technological determinism more moderately as approaches that emphasize (1) the autonomy of technological change and (2) the technological shaping of society. Following Smith and Marx (1994, 2), who offer a similar moderate definition, we can situate determi- nistic theories along a continuum, with harder determinists putting more emphasis on the autonomy and power of technology, and softer determi- nists allowing for more social control and context. This moderate defini- tion provides a terminological umbrella for a large set of respectable scholarship, spanning the disciplines that study technology.

In the following section, I analytically separate a number of distinct claims related to technological determinism (with distinct theories itali- cized). The family of claims include the views that: (1) functional entities (artifacts, techniques, institutions, and systems) exert an effect on the world independent of human choice ( technical determinism ); (2) there is a broad sequence and tempo of scientific and technological advance {technological trends) that seems to follow an internal logic , making technological change seem autonomous ; and (3) that people are insuffi- ciently conscious of their technological choices ( technological somnam- bulism) or have been co-opted ( the magnificent bribe), such that the social order is becoming more machine-like over time.

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Dafoe

Technical Determinism

The claim most often associated with technological determinism is that of artif actual determinism : the view that artifacts shape social relations. Technical determinism , on the other hand, denotes the broader view that technical entities, such as artifacts, routines, and the technical dimensions of institutions and systems, exert effects on the world. Harder variants claim that thes^ effects are more extensive and powerful. The form of technical determinism that leaves the greatest role for human agency is the idea of technological politics (Winner 1980, 1986): intentions can be inscribed into technologies, which then influence others. In this view, technological decisions "are similar to legislative acts or political foundings that establish a framework for public order that will endure over many generations" (p. 29). Examples include the con- struction of fences, speed bumps, bulletproof glass, surveillance technol- ogy, encryption algorithms, and the broad linear Parisian boulevards that facilitated the Suppression of riots (Lay 1992, 97). Prisons, schools, art studios, and other institutions all employ technology to evoke specific kinds of behavior, from compliance to creativity. Latour (1992) refers to technology as the "missing mass" of sociology, since it invisibly holds together the social order. Feenberg (2010, 18) refers to the way that tech- nology provides "material validation of the social order" as the "'bias' of technology." A handful of other scholars have contributed to the con- versation between ST S and the study of technological politics (Hamlett 2003; Wachelder 2003), though more is required given the importance of these questions. Two other technically deterministic theories are the ideas of technologi- cal momentum (Hughes 1983, 295) and technological frames (Bijker 1995). These ideas emphasize the constraints arising from established technologi- cal systems; these can be regarded as more deterministic than technological politics because the constraints need not have been designed by any partic- ular human or group. Hughes found that as systems mature they seem to gain inertia. This inertia follows the logic of sunk costs: assets have been bought, standards set, infrastructure built, employees trained, interactions routinized, and interests entrenched, all of which constrain subsequent deci- sions. Likewise, Bijker (1995, 282) rejects the idea that "social groups [can] fantasize whatever they want, without constraints." Instead, Bijker (1995, 264) argues that practices, shared meanings, and infrastructure produce technological frames which "constrain freedom of choice in designing new technologies."

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1054 Science , Technology, & Human Values 40(6)

Few scholars would deny the premise that there can be an "influence of technology upon social relations" (Mackenzie and Wajcman 1999, 41). This premise, however, implies the possibility of harder forms of technical determinism whenever technologies have unintended consequences. Due to the lack of foresight or concern by the designer, or the sheer unpredictability

of complex sociotechnical processes, unintended consequences can arise that fundamentally shape social relations.

Examples of unintended consequences abound in the history of tech- nology: the invention and deployment of the machine gun and barbed wire unexpectedly gave rise to a terrible form of warfare that was abhorred by all – even the generals and politicians responsible for con- tinuing the war (Ellis 1975). The decision by a few members of the Skolt Lapps of Finland to use snowmobiles in their herding practice began a process that undermined their traditional egalitarian culture (Pelto 1973). A report by the US National Security Council shares this view that "as technologies emerge, people will lack full awareness of their wider economic, environmental, cultural, legal, and moral impact

Trends- 2015 2000, 14). If technological change proceeds too quickly and extensively, "societies face the distinct possibility of going adrift in a vast sea of 'unintended consequences'" (Winner 1977, 89). Under this perspective, while people may control initial technological choices, if they are sufficiently ignorant of the consequences of their decisions society can be fundamentally shaped in ways that no one intended. Taken to the limit so that technical effects are powerful and conse-

quences unforeseeable, the simple premise that technology can shape social relations implies a hard technological determinism: a world where technol- ogy evolves in a seemingly autonomous and society-determining way. The difference between most mainstream STS theories and hard determinism is

therefore not fundamental, but a matter of degree that depends on how strongly technologies shape social relations and how foreseeable are the consequences of technology. The extent to which hard technological deter- minism has merit, therefore, is an empirical and context-specific question, not something that can be assumed, deduced, or casually generalized across empirical domains.

Trends in Technological Change

A second prominent theme of technological determinism is that there are trends in the patterns of sociotechnical evolution. Over the large sweep of time, the pool of artifacts seems to continually increase in diversity and

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Dafoe

number. New innovations arise that exceed the previous in their complexity,

power, and utility. To cite some specific trends, there seems to have been a persistent increase in the maximum levels of the: speed of transportation and communication, lethality of weapons, durability of materials, efficiency of engines, marginal productivity of labor, ability to store and reproduce information, height of buildings, and so forth. These "trends in the maxi- mum" are the easiest trends to define, though it seems likely that many other kinds of trends could be operationalized given closer study. The medievalist historian Joseph Stray er (1955, 224), summarizing the history of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, notes that "if there is steady progress anywhere, it is in the field of technology." Similarly, a number of anthropologists and archaeologists have identified a direction in the evo- lution of civilization toward increased social complexity. Robert Wright (2000, 16), summarizing this literature, writes that "archaeologists can't help but notice that, as a rule, the deeper you dig, the simpler the society whose remains you find." These trends need not extend monotonically – in one direction at all scales of analysis – for them to warrant being taken seriously. Some of these technological trends follow logically from the apparent cumulative nature of technological innovation (Heilbroner 1967): it is hard to imagine a society developing nuclear power before first harnessing simpler sources of power. Some technological trends are so predictable and persistent that they seem to follow an internal logic. Historian of computing Paul Ceruzzi (2005, 593) observes that an "internal logic is at work" in the evolution of some technologies. Specifically, over the past forty years, the "exponen- tial growth of chip density has hardly deviated from its slope," (p. 586) as described by Moore's Law. The belief in Moore's Law, Ceruzzi writes, is not "an indication of the social construction of computing [but] an indica- tion of the reality of technological determinism. Computing power must increase because it can" (p. 590). Ceruzzi concludes that historians of technology should "step back from a social constructionist view of tech- nology" and consider that, in at least some cases, "raw technological determinism is at work" (p. 593). Similarly, many early theorists observed the trend that society was becoming more rationalistic, technical, and materialistic. Max Weber (1978, lix) warned that "rational calculation . . . reduces every worker to a cog in [the bureaucratic] machine and, seeing himself in this light, he will merely ask how to transform himself from a little int

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