Will Technology Save The World.. ?
Huan Vo
Technology is moving faster than the speed of life, leaving behind a trail of promises, but unfortunately, it won’t save the world, according to Dr. Kentaro Toyama, a researcher in the School of Information at University of California, Berkeley.
Toyama recently held a forum at Phoenix College, where he pointed out the false promises of technology, with “technology only magnifies human intent and capacity” being his main argument.
Toyama said technology promises to level the playing field, making access to information possible for everybody, but it’s the people who determine what will come out of it.
“Though there is a level playing field, it’s not like Microsoft will just grab anyone off the street to work for them,” Toyama said. “You still need education to use technology.”
If intent or capacity, or both, is lacking, technology is nothing but a luxury toy that people don’t even know how to play with.
From 2005 to 2009, Toyama was an assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India, which he co-founded in 2005. He said during that time, he saw many examples of schools buying computers to educate the kids, because they thought computers could make the kids smarter. As time went on, the computers ended up on the street, since no one at the school really understood how to use them.
“We expect the tools (technology) to solve the problem,” Jonathan Trottier, acting manager of technical services at Southern and Dobson campus of MCC, said, “but we don’t show anybody how to use the tools.”
Going on with his speech, Toyama said that in order to get the most out of technology, everyone should be on the producing side of technology rather than the consuming side.
For the last six years, Apple has made leaps and bounds in technology when developing the iPhone and iPad. As of late, AMD set a world record for producing the fastest computer chip in the world.
But not everyone has the capacity to produce technology, and that can wider the gap between the poor and the rich, as the rich have the capacity, which is something that the poor don’t have.
Holding the same belief is Paul Harasha, sociology professor at MCC, who is skeptical about technology.
“Technology should be used to address that gap, and I think it’s widening it,” he said.
“They (the poor) don’t understand enough about the technology. They may have access to the tool (technology) sometimes, but they are not given the training on how to use the tool, so therefore they can’t leverage the tool to make money or to be on the producing side. That’s a real problem,” Trottier said. “Now how does that get dealt with? Wow.”
Though Toyama couldn’t give a solid answer, he said that it’s the government’s role to help educate the poor and narrow the gap.
Try as he might, Trottier couldn’t point out a successful technology company that was founded by someone who was poor or without education, or with the help of a government.
“I still would tend to believe it’s the entrepreneurial factor, along with a vision for technology, that breathes success,” Trottier said.
“We, as a society, should try to figure out a better way how to use it (technology),” Harasha said. “We shouldn’t use it just because we can do it.”
The final comment Toyama made was that technology won’t save the world, which Trottier agrees with.
“Technology is just a tool, not a savior,” he said. “I don’t think it can pull people out of poverty. I don’t think it can improve people’s lives largely … There are bigger issues to figure out than how technology is going to save this culture or this world and doing what it wants to do. So unfortunately, technology won’t save the world.”
Harasha doesn’t think technology will save the world either, but he’s optimistic that Generation Y will figure out how to use technology beautifully.
“Idealistic as it sounds, technology is meant for us to bring peace and justice,” Harasha said. “We’re not there yet, but we will.”
