Humans today spend as much time with machines as they do with other humans. These tools may connect one person to another, or improve efficiency of a task. Whatever be their purpose they are surely encroaching our senses ever more. This heightened human-machine vis-a-vis human-human interaction has acquired enough momentum where the concept of society is giving way to a techno-social system or a Technium.
The nag is that scientific inventions have become so complex and interwoven with our lives that humans have less and less sway over how they evolve. During one of my conversation with Prof. Markku Sopanen, we discussed about how new technological products are so sophisticated and specialized (S2 from now on) that even developers of a product do not know the details of different parts of the same chip. Now extend the thought to the customer..who is largely numb to the sophistication inside the devices they are interacting with. To be fair, the manufacturers do mention some specs on the salesbox. Add to this, the fact, that these S2 devices are all made by machines themselves. The sheer complexity of interactions between the various layers and loops of the technium gives it a degree of autonomy. As it evolves it develops its own dynamics.
Kevin Kelly, in his new book What Technology Wants explains, an autonomous system displays traits of self-repair, self-defence, self-maintainance, self-control and self-improvement. No current system has all these properties, he admits, but many technologies exhibit some of them. Aeroplane drones can self steer and stay aloft for hours, but cannot repair themselves. Communications systems can self-repair but cannot self-reproduce. Computer viruses can self-reproduce but cannot self-improve. As technologies multiply and become more adaptive, the technium is becoming increasingly autonomous.
Curiously, the flow of bits through the telephone network in the last decade became statistically similar to the fractal pattern found in self-organized system, this would suggest that it is developing a behaviour of its own.
Although the technium has neither an idea of self nor concious desires, it develops mechanical tendencies through its complex behaviour. Its millions of amplifying relationships and circuits of influence push the technium in certain direction. As frontier technologies increase in sophistication, these desires gain in both complexity and force. Moreover, these tendencies become increasingly independent of individual designers or users, who though themselves are self concious and aware cannot single handedly (or in small numbers) alter the path of the technium.
The personality types would become more technophiles or technophobes rather than introvert and extrovert in Society 2.0/Technium. Experts agree that the technium is spinning beyond human control if it hasnt already, what they may disagree upon is whether to modify it, embrace it or ignore it. There is more force for the technium with the rise of genomics, nanotechnology, robotics and informatics.
Further reading :
Books:
What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly
Autonomous Technology by Langdon Winner (Google reader)