Technology is a Net Good

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The Bad

During the pandemic I kept my phone in airplane mode, for no particular reason other than I was mostly in a place where there was wifi, and my phone worked with wifi calling as many modern cell providers operate. Why? Two reasons: cell signal is one of the largest battery drains in a cell phone, and my data plan was on a per GB basis. Not long before I had read an article about not owning a cell phone by Steve Hilton who was a former advisor to the British prime minister. After the pandemic I slowly transitioned back to enabling cellular, but in the last couple of years I’ve been mostly in airplane mode again, for different reasons.

It’s been useful to watch technological transitions. I have no idea how college courses were selected before the Internet, but I understand sending instant messages to your dormmate across the hall. Like most people, I take for granted the convenience of automatic ACH, but also know what it was like to mail checks.

For a while it looked like technology was improving in every way imaginable. Overtly, you’d have instantaneous information about the world around you in your hand. Behind the scenes, engineers, dentists, doctors all were using constantly improving digital tooling which directly impacted your quality of life without you realizing it.

More frequently I am seeing captchas, which are luckily often automated from Cloudflare. But seconds of my time disappear, and that adds up. AI can apparently do captchas, so what’s the point really? If browsing an article, just put nonsense text a few paragraphs in until an algorithm doesn’t suspect you are a bot, then update the text through XHR. Band-aid solutions are detrimental to UX.

Then there are forms. Like the classic pizza ordering situation, many multi-step online forms are more problematic than a traditional form. If it takes longer using an online form than a traditional form, something is wrong! Stripe used to ask merely three pieces of information: card number, cvc, and zip code and your payment would just work. More frequently this is no longer the case. It started around 2017. I tried to donate to Watsi and it failed. I later saw John Collison and the Watsi co-founder on Twitter championing a new anti-fraud system that prevented “tens of millions” of unauthorized payments. Some kid didn’t get eye surgery because of overzealous backend “AI.”

Companies have increasingly become disrespectful of their customers. A few years ago there was some controversy over a diary app for women’s health. The company claimed they don’t sell user information. But this company, like many nowadays, hide in the fine print, “may be used for research,” which is code for selling your data to any institution that claims they want it for research. A dentist swabbing your mouth? Full body scan? Same language. Home supply stores, hotels, car washes, malls all record your license plate and, who knows, probably sell it. Facial recognition. Why? Because they can, and because no one is stopping them.

Around 2024, Japan Airlines started using facial recognition without consent. When I asked a flight attendant, who presumably was earning her masters in computer science, she told me as a matter of fact and final authority, “data is deleted within 5 minutes.” After a poor experience I flew Delta this year, and they, too, were forcing facial recognition. I counted, on average, 8 seconds for facial recognition, while my manual check was less than 5.¹ Even if it were faster, how am I supposed to know what they are doing with my data?²

Yet, the problem is that people like the Japan Airlines flight attendant do not understand how technology works.³ A few years ago, I was in line at Whole Foods and the person in front of me was upset and asked the woman at the register to tell management that the palm readers aren’t welcome. When it was my turn, we had a friendly conversation about that, and she said, “facial recognition is out there, like your phone” referring to Apple’s FaceID. Apple’s implementation is not like what the airlines are doing, or any number of creepy facial recognition companies are doing. If you went to Apple headquarters, they would not know who you are via their security system based on your iPhone FaceID.

What’s coming in terms of physical surveillance must be stopped through both legislation and market forces, or else we risk living in a society where everyone is wearing a de facto ankle monitor.⁴ We’ve seen both of these recently with license plate readers: several jurisdictions have proposed legislation and influencers have put pressure on Big Box stores.

What interests me is how we have tolerated all of the digital abuse all along. That we are ok with ads that appear to be timed just as you are about to click on a search result on sites like Amazon and Duckduckgo baffles me. There are a million examples such as cars and TVs exploiting your behavior to make a few bucks. A lot of this is behind the scenes, but as companies like BMW get greedy and run ads on every car console, the pushback begins.

The Good

After what looks like a hellscape of negatives against technology, how can it be a “net good?” Net good means the baseline quality of life is higher than it was even 10 years ago, and quality of life keeps getting better. Nevertheless, I believe the issues outlined are hurdles that need to be overcome. In successful societies, these issues will all be worked out. One has to recognize that we are in the middle of a multi-year or decades-long process to do so. From that lens, of course technology is a net good.

It seems widely accepted that new technology has improved quality of life for centuries, but the pace has accelerated in recent decades. Books allowed access to information, the industrial revolution yielded countless advancements in infrastructure, and home appliances like the washing machine and refrigerator saved hours of time and enabled food security. Computers with dynamic spreadsheets, Internet, mobile, all advantages.

We’ve seen several breakthroughs in math, both proving and disproving conjectures. Mathematicians are using LLMs as tools because one person cannot possibly make sense of all mathematical research in the world.⁵ New information in math directly yields advancements, with one obvious instance being the Theory of Relativity enabling anything associated with space (read: most modern technology, including GPS). New pharmaceutical therapies are being developed as we speak thanks to advancements in software, hardware, and process. Two years ago, the Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded because of a program that predicts protein shapes, notably increasing the output of scientists in that domain. There are plenty of behind-the-scenes advancements like new turbines for power generation or cooling systems using magnets instead of chemicals.

The bad won’t get fixed on its own. When your data is sold, the damage has been done. We are seeing market developments here, however. Slate auto doesn’t sell the data in your car because it’s physically impossible. Rivian now allows you to disable your eSim. I emailed the CEO and requested this last year. Whether or not that email had an effect isn’t important. If enough people do that same thing to the CEOs of Hyundai, LG, Bosch, Nissan, et. al., we might make a dent. At the moment, company executives think there is no effect if they sell your data. Well, maybe show them that there is. Figuring out how to resolve blocked fraud charges that prevented a necessary surgery is more challenging, but surmountable.⁶

Some solutions to problems aren’t widely adopted or known. For example, I’m able to use wifi for calls and texts, so I only need to use cell phone towers sparingly. No tracking over here.

Ultimately, we will see a lot of great technologies developed. In the meantime, undesirable technology must be weeded out with strong policy. This is tough because tech companies with significant cash flow are able to shape policy through lobbying. With hardly any pushback from constituents, national, state, and local representatives may end up shaping it against the interest of the people, whether they realize it or not. We are fortunate that the Supreme Court has been shaping policy to favor the people⁷, but Justice Alito (and Justice Scalia before him) is correct that Congress should take the lead of responsibility, not the Supreme Court.⁸

Conclusion

Technology has yielded signs of discontent among both those in tech and the population at large. I’ve read many threads from technical people who have a variety of reactions when news implicates a technology or company. They are concerned, worried, and, worst of all, indifferent. The recent backlash against license plate readers offers some hope. In Carpenter v. United States⁹ Justice Roberts wrote for the majority:

At any rate, the rule the Court adopts “must take account of more sophisticated systems that are already in use or in development.” Kyllo, 533 U. S., at 36. While the records in this case reflect the state of technology at the start of the decade, the accuracy of CSLI is rapidly approaching GPS-level precision.

Technology is absolutely improving the lives of everyone, and it is a net good despite a bumpy transition to a world that utilizes technology in so many ways. As we go through the transition, we need to pay attention¹⁰, stay vigilant, and be proactive with representatives at different levels of government in order to properly shape policy. The municipality, state, country with the most sound technology policy will flourish, while the states that are mired in lobbying and interests against the people will wane.