STS Chapter 8

• Our world is indeed entering a period of transformative modification
• Most people will be surprised by the measure and unavoidable step of development that we had not expected
• There are many inquiries regarding the positive and negative effects, limitations of developments, and the ethical dilemmas that we will face in the future
• To find the answer to these questions

  1. Understand and rationalize humanity

  2. Understand human nature and its condition

  3. Understand the ethics that will and should govern each application of technology to humanity
• Technology offers tremendous potential, and with these opportunities come tremendous new responsibilities
• Technology


  The practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area
• Technology is the external part of science, and to understand technology, academic or internal science shall be treated as a black box
• Importance of technology to Humanity

  • Impact on every aspect of our lives
  • Changes the way we live, communicate and interact
  • Changes in education, medicine, transportation, economy, communication, and politics
• Advantages of Technology


  • Life has become easy
  • Travelling has become faster
  • Communication becomes more comfortable, faster, and cheaper
  • Innovations in technology increased the standard of living
  • Man becomes advanced
  • The impossible has become possible
  • Made a lot of things easy to do and comfortable for men
• Disadvantages of Technology


  • Human had misused the technology and used in damaging purpose
  • Used for illegal things
  • Generating harmful consequences for children
  • Used for destructive purposes by terrorists
  • Many illnesses are created
  • Affected plants and other creatures
  • Natural beauty is decreasing
• One cannot live without these technological advancements, but there are certainly limitations to what humanity can apply it to almost everything they do
• Factors that define the limits of technology

  • Laws of Physics
  • Laws of Software
  • Challenge of Algorithms
  • Difficulty of Distribution
  • Problems of Design
  • Problems of Functionality
  • Importance of Organization
  • Impact of Economics
  • Influence of Politics
• Laws of Physics


  Software, Quantum effects, and thermodynamics play an essential role
• Laws of Software


  There are times we cannot do a given computation, cannot afford to do it, and sometimes, we do not know how to do it
• Challenge of Algorithms


  There are certain classes of problems that have theoretical limits of compressing an image, a waveform, video or some raw stream of bits, some degree of information loss, hairy mathematics, some trial and error, lack of perfect knowledge adds complexity and compromise to our systems
• Difficulty of Distribution


  Building distributed systems are only moderately harder than building a non-distributed one, but it is decidedly not because the reality of the real world intrudes
• Problems of Design


  The design of any relevant Web-centric system consists of tens of thousands of lines of custom code on top of hundreds of thousands of lines of middleware code on top of several million lines of operating system code
• Problems of Functionality


  Requirements, functionality, and non-functionality of a machine like multi-engine aircraft, a cellular phone, or an autonomous robot with limitations such as usability, survivability, and adaptability unrestrained potentially contradictory, eternal requirements are too complex to design
• Importance of Organization


  No one person can ever understand such a system altogether, it demands that we use a team of developers and ideally, as small a team as possible, but software systems that drive an entire enterprise, one typically must manage teams of teams, each of which may be geographically distributed from one another
• Impact of Economics


  Technological Advancement costs money, the performance of a project can be predicted according to the equations: Performance = f(Complexity, Process, Team, Tools)
• Influence of Politics


  Investment in software development is the key to success, the political organization can influence its progress and its limitations
• Humanity


  The human race or humaneness, the quality of life or state of being, attributes, and qualities of being a human being
• Humanity is highly dependent on technology, with the development and constant technological changes, humans change their way of life to improve living standards
• Humanity has come a long way from the cave, but how far can they still go? Is there a limit to technological progress? The answer is: As a part of these technological advancements, it hinges on the longevity of the human species
• To advance far ahead in science and technology and the wisdom to use these, human beings need time
• The history of life on Earth is a history of extinction, despite advancement, human beings are STILL quite vulnerable to both nature and themselves as human beings
• To measure how to advance human beings, it is relatively linked to human beings' ability to avoid extinction
• Human beings' capabilities in terms of technology, will depend on how they can improve the quality of life
• Today is the period he called "technological adolescence", human beings are still delivering technological advancement, and it all depends on how wisely they will use these "technological advancements" to reach into a mature human being with a reasonable chance of reaching and enjoying the quality of life until old age
• The two roads to take in humanity are ascension of all humankind, and the other is complete and total destruction
• US industry technological advancement has frequently been reinforced by congressional initiatives over the past 30 and more - direct measures that concern budget outlays and the provision of services government and indirect measures that include economic and legal changes
• An increase in economic growth in contributing to new goods, new services, new jobs, and new capital is due to technological advances
• The origins of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development-OECD is date back to 1960 when 18 European countries, the United States, and Canada merged an organization dedicated to economic development
• Scientific developments and technological changes are important drivers of current economic performance, creating, distributing, and exploiting knowledge has become a significant source of competitive advantage, wealth creation, and improvements in life quality
• The Philippines is taking action in reforming the technology market by focusing on 23 industries as priority areas
• The Philippines can follow the technological innovation strategies imposed by Japan and South Korea, with a synchronize and consistent overall industrial strategy, the Philippines can move up to economic reforms
• The government should also expand human resources, infrastructure, incentives, and research institutions to help this system grow