Shaping of technology through the will and purpose of mankind

Technology is not an autonomous force but a display of human will and purpose -yet it is increasingly being viewed as a means (technology, efficiency, growth) to achieve well-being, sustainability, and utopia.

Technology as a Means to Reaching Utopia

Technology has evolved for thousands of years, but especially over the past 200 years, and since the introduction of the first simple machines and computers, it has greatly impacted mankind's way of living, views on well-being, ecological and planetary environmental conditions, and expectations for current and future life. Although controversial, it is widely believed, that technology has led society closer to a state of utopia, as it massively improves many aspects of our lives by providing highly increased efficiency and productivity, instant access to information, and great advancements in healthcare, education, and daily convenience. It has increased scientific discovery, enabled instantaneous global communication, and even enabled advanced exploration of outer space. Although these aspects of technology can assist in reaching utopia, as they all have the potential to shape our lives in ways that we generally consider to be for the greater good, such as better understanding of truth, and of one another and the universe around us, it generally functions as a tool that amplifies our human behavior and its consequences. As human behavior is regarded as not always in favor of the greater good, or in other words, non-perfect, our use of technology will also be so, as seen by the constant evolution of destructive technologies, such as weapons (although destruction often is seen as a necessity in utopian ideas). Technology can, however, serve as a means to better understand what is truthfully good, and thus eventually lead us closer to utopia.

The Perfect Purpose of Mankind and the Existence of Utopia

Perfect Purpose might not have a single, ultimate definition, as humans have individual views on both what purpose is and what perfect really means. We regard perfect as something that ultimately serves the goodness of the whole (greater good), and that is without imperfection. Plato described that perfect doesn't exist in the physical world, but rather as perfect forms in the Realm of Ideas, representing true, ideal concepts, that we can only aspire to, such as the imperfect circle drawn by a person being an imitation of the idea of the perfect circle. There are thus certain concepts that most of mankind agree upon as being ideal, but there are also many concepts of the ideal that vary among individuals and cultures. Perfection and utopia alike can additionally be viewed as something without any suffering and error, but at the same time, philosophies such as Yin Yang describes how contrast in good and evil is a necessity for well-being. The bible describes how God appeals to humanity though our own ideas of "ideal" and "perfect", as we cannot fully comprehend absolute perfection and truth. This raises the question of whether utopia is a place where we live in divine and absolute ideal conditions, or rather in ideal conditions within the our own regarded capacity of human nature. If utopia is seen as a place where destruction and suffering still exists, but only in the necessary amount, we might be able to point toward one or a few contemporary societies that already have achieved utopia, while other societies are lacking behind, as perfection can be defined as "as good as it possibly can be", certain societies are perfect and in a utopian state, even if not without fault, as these faults are simply the conditions of reality, and thus inevitable. If we, however, regard utopia as an absolutely ideal society, we will see that the human nature, full of mistakes that, intentionally or not, cause suffering instead of good, cannot achieve utopia, but only ever strive towards it.

The Knowledge Required for Utopia

As humans we have certain amounts of energy that we can spend every day. This is our life currency. To reach utopia, one must understand what is perfect, and only spend their energy on actions that drive perfection, as utopia is a perfect society. Thus, utopia might always be something to strive towards but never reach, as many argue it is impossible for someone's every action to be perfect. One reason for this might be that we are born with only some knowledge, and we can only discover so much truth in our lifetime.

The Power of Technology

The new Possibilities of Technology

With the immense capabilities of modern technology, it becomes possible, in the modern world, to overcome natural boundaries, which other animals, and earlier humans could not overcome. With modern technology, we can now survive otherwise deadly diseases and epidemics, we can communicate with one-another regardless of where we are, and we have the capability to reshape landscapes and ecosystems in unprecedented ways. We hold the abilities that earlier was considered reserved by gods. One might argue, that it is our purpose to reach a god-like state of existence, as it appears to be in mankind's nature to always innovate and expand, and thus move closed to a god-like state where we are all-knowing and capable of anything. But with the rapid innovation of powerful technologies, there comes a need for a rapid evolution of the understanding of the morally and ethically right uses of these technologies. Mankind holds the power to destroy large parts of global ecosystems and even themselves, as well as the power to change the environmental conditions of the Earth with technologies such as nuclear weapons. This ability is regarded in many beliefs as god-like, as we largely exceed the natural capabilities that evolution as given us and other animals alike.

Global Imbalance of Tecnological Development

It is evident today that mankind's implementation of modern technology has had massive impacts on the natural environment, causing effects such as climate change and oversaturated biogeochemical flows. Many technologically advanced societies struggle with sustainability, as modern technology in many regards is inherently unsustainable, as it partially relies on non-renewable energy sources and finite natural resources. The natural order established seen in ecosystems no longer exists with mankind, and this causes an imbalance as we produce toxic waste through our consumption that cannot (or can only very slowly) decompose naturally. In natural ecosystems, non-decomposable waste does not exist to an extend that is known to cause rapid environmental changes.

The Limits to Technological Growth

The 1972 report, "The Limits to Growth" discusses the systems for technological growth as well as the limitations if this growth. It describes how exponential industrial growth strains finite resources, leading to the eventual collapse of society. It simulates the consequences of interactions between the Earth and human systems. This knowledge is being taken ever more seriously by, and workflows such as the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (UNs 17 SDGs) are designed to guide innovation and human behavior toward a globally sustainable state of living, where sudden collapses will not occur.

Mankinds Shaping of Technology

Technology

The term, technology, is a combination of the Greek technē, "art, craft," with logos, "word, speech". Technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry. Today, technology is wide spread, and used by individuals on a daily basis, as well as being the core of industries such as, mechanical-, medical-, communications-, electronic-, and industrial- and manufacturing industries.

Technology Shaped through the Will and Purpose of Mankind

Technology has been created and used by mankind ever since the stone age (up until ~4000 BC), and is ever evolving. For technological innovation to occur, three conditions must almost always be fulfilled: there needs to exist a social need for the technology, such as the need for fire to warm people, the social resources to actually create the technology need to be available, such as enough innovators and craftsmen, and there needs to be a sympathetic social ethos; the environment needs to be receptive to new ideas, to encourage the fostering of innovation. The will of mankind thus directly impacts how and in which direction innovation occurs. If there is a social need to cross a large body of water, mankind will build bridges or boats, but it requires the innovative and physical capacity to actually manifest and materialize the idea, and if there is a religious or superstitious belief that the water is dangerous and should not be crossed, the sympathetic ethos does not exists. This is seen historically though events such as witch hunting, when ignorance regarding the effects of herbs as a medical remedy led to fear of the use of said remedies, and thus resulted in the killing of the people advocating the use of herbs. Even with a social need and social resources, the sympathetic social ethos is lacking and thus puts a halt to innovation.

Technology might be able to serve as a medium for achieving purpose, as much technology undoubtedly benefits humanity in many aspects. The perfect purpose, although abstract, requires certain knowledge and resources which can be assisted by technology, such as cars allowing us to move greater distances to reach places that might lead us to purpose, and the internet assisting in providing knowledge required to fulfill our purpose.

The first Industrial Revolution is one case of how the conditions for innovation were present and nurtured, allowing for rapid and drastic change. The industrial revolution caused major societal and environmental changes.

How Technology Shapes Itself

The growth of one industry creates feedback loops, due to interdependencies on other industries. Every industry has a primary goal, which is usually to deliver a product or a service as a means to satisfy a human need or desire, but to achieve this, the industry has secondary needs from other industries. These interdependencies between industries creates a complex technological ecosystem, often driven by feedback loops, where the initial primary human goal gets lost among secondary industrial needs for the systems. As an example, humans have a need for electricity and heat for a community to stay warm and to keep certain technologies such as lights running. In order to get coal for a power plant that can generate this electricity and heat, mining equipment, transportation vehicles, factories, and accommodation for workers is needed. To create all of this equipment, buildings, etc., the mining industry is dependent on other industries, such as the metal industry, which, in turn, needs coal to power its factories, creating the feedback loop. Coal is needed for the metal industry, and metal is needed for the coal industry - each of these industries now need to support each other, and thus, as one industry grows, the other grows with it, and the demand from and for both industries mutually increases. Amidst these interdependencies, the primary goal of delivering electricity and heat to the community to meet a human need or desire becomes often overshadowed by the industrial need to satisfy interdependent industrial demands. Thus, technology evolves beyond what we initially intend it to, when we set a need for a technological product or service, causing self-reinforcing growth.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can in in several ways shape itself autonomously. When a large learning model (LLM) generates an answer to a prompt, the answer is not directly overseen by any human being, and the answer may differ depending on factors such as previous prompts and recent AI training. On a more holistic scope, AI also has the potential to train other better AIs, creating a technological singularity, where the knowledge of AI surpasses the human comprehension.

The Rebound Effect

The first industrial revolution causes major changes in the way we live, such as urbanization and partial automation of previously manual processes, and some of these changes were unexpected, or caused unexpected and negative effects, demonstrating that technology is a powerful but also unpredictable tool that requires experience and careful consideration to be used for good. The industrialization was expected to make processes more efficient and automated, but it turned out to also create a new demand that was so high, that the overall manual work required to produce goods increased. The price of growth-oriented technological advancement and increased efficiency, is increased overall recourse and energy consumption due to increasing availability of technology and therefor a wider spread of the use of technology. This contradicts the initial motivation of reducing the resource and energy consumption required for technology as a means to achieve sustainable consumption, and a "rebound effect" is thus occurring. This effect can be observed in many industries today, such as the mobile phone market. Initially, mobile phones were intended only as a communications tool for work purposes, but as the production became cheaper and more efficient, an extensive user base and coincidentally demand emerged, which sparked global competitions and seeded numerous phone companies and related industries, such as other technologies compatible with modern smartphones.

Sustanable Development Goals (SDGs)

United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (UNs 17 SDGs) illustrate how mankind comes together to shape technology in a way that creates the best conditions for human thriving. This illustrates mankind's will to achieve technological advancements that might first show benefits far into the future. If part of our purpose is to ensure survival and avoid extinction, taming technological innovation and ensuring a sustainable development of technologies is a crucial step; not only will this improve our survival rate, but the SDGs also aspire to achieve peace and prosperity for all, which aligns with the purpose to reach utopia.

The Paradox of the Technological Road to Sustainability

As mankind strive toward making modern society sustainable, we increasingly rely on technological innovation as a means to an end. This approach is in a way a paradox, as technological development is tied to the modern global instabilities (global warming, pollution, rapid depletion of recourses), as modern technology in most cases is created upon non-renewable and depletable energy sources and materials. Technology has granted mankind great benefits in health, well-being, knowledge, and many other aspects of life, but the growing impacts of the planetary boundaries indicate that this growth- and efficiency oriented approach to technology is unsustainable, and if this reliance on technology as a means to solving sustainability is continued, more planetary boundaries will exceed their tipping point.