Technology Assessment

The Temporal Structure of Technology Assessment

TA has a temporal structure. It is future oriented in that it develops various scenarios of a possible future state of the world depending on the implementation or nonimplementation of new technologies. This future orientation has its roots in the experiences of previous decades. The realization of the horrifically destructive potential of atomic energy as seen in World War II by the dropping of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the still imminent danger of the annihilation of the entire planet as the result of a nuclear war has made most people aware of the fact that technical knowledge is more than just theoretical. Technical knowledge put into practice is ambivalent. Like the atomic bomb, it can be used to wipe out hundreds of thousands of people in one fell swoop. Likewise, even if it is used for peaceful purposes, it can get out of control as shown by the example of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown.

[Page 1221]On the other hand, this technology could help reduce carbon dioxide emissions and thereby slow down global warming, which is itself largely the result of technological developments. These technological developments have improved our daily lives in many ways: For example, new technologies in modern medicine have, on the one hand, significantly increased our life expectancy but on the other are also partly responsible for the dramatic growth of the world population. When we consider the modernization of agriculture, we see a similar tension: On the one hand, it has helped prevent countless famines, but on the other, it has caused serious damage to the environment. Looking at modern information technology, the same can be said: It has made daily life much easier, but not without new demands and dangers, for example, to the private sphere. The rapid improvements in transportation from the car to the airplane are no different, because together with the World Wide Web they have given rise to globalization as we know it today with its opportunities and risks.

Against this very background, philosophers such as Martin Heidegger have already warned against an ambiguous understanding of technology and have called for a new attitude toward technological possibilities. TA has made it its task to consider prospective technological possibilities as a transdisciplinary collaboration. These considerations are directed at prospective consequences: TA does not want to put all technological possibilities under general suspicion. Instead, it is about trying to make sure that the future is still worth living in for the projected 9 billion people who will inhabit it in 2050 and that global catastrophes that could result from the misuse of technology are avoided.

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