IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2013 - 24

undesirable effects are realized,
it may be difficult or even impossible to alleviate them. Consider
the bow and arrow. That technology allowed humans to hunt fast
running animals from a distance,
and it made a huge difference in
the efficiency of food production.

the system. Yet, that increases the
risk of a major disruption in operations whenever there is a failure
anywhere in the system, since the
failure propagates throughout the
network when there is no slack
in the system to absorb it. That's
why a rain storm in Chicago can

Risks are almost never seriously
discussed when new technologies
are being developed and
considered for adoption.
Yet, it also made warfare between
human groups more distant and
more deadly, and it created the possibility of an overwhelming and
conclusive first strike, by a large
number of bowmen from a distance, precluding the possibility
of retaliation. Before this technology, such a first strike was impossible, since you had to approach the
enemy, and pass through its sentries and lookouts. Of course, once
the technology was invented, you
could not avoid it, because it gave
such an overwhelming short-term
advantage in food production and
warfare, no matter how big the risk
was to all involved in terms of the
bloodiness of warfare and the danger of first strike in the long run.
You had to acquire and deploy the
technology. Later in technological
evolution, nuclear weapons created
the same risk of an overwhelming
first strike from a distance, possibly eliminating complete nations,
which did not exist before. These
new risks are impossible to quantify or even identify at the time of
technology development [20].
Propensity to take risk rises if
you can pass the risk on to others, while you continue to benefit
from the efficiencies. For example,
airlines design their schedule to
be very efficient to minimize fuel
use and the idle time of personnel. So there is very little slack in
24

result in cancellation of flights
from New York to Miami, by disrupting the flow of planes and
personnel throughout the system.
Airlines take too much of this type
of risk, because the cost of disruption in the schedule is largely paid
by the passengers, not the airline.
Airlines simply cancel the flights
and rebook the passengers on
other flights. The loss of time and
the experience of inconvenience
by passengers do not fully factor
into airlines' design algorithms,
because it is not their cost [3].
A similar issue arises in banking
which leads to excessive risk taking
and periodic financial crises. With
every loan, there is a risk of default
by the borrower. The banks tend to
take too much of that risk, when
they can pass it on to others, like
government guarantees, securities created from the loans and
sold to investors, insurance instruments that protect the banks from
that risk, and government bailouts if the defaults threaten the
banks' solvency. The existence of
opportunities to unload risk onto
others creates incentives to take
excessive risk, and leads to periodic
crises when somebody else ends up
paying for the excessive risk taken
by a bank [16], [27].
risks rise even more when
communication and transportation
technologies create connections

that spread new technologies globally. In this highly connected environment, any new technology that
provides a short-term advantage is
adopted universally, since when the
markets are global, fierce competition punishes anyone who fails to
adopt. Global markets are very efficient since they take advantage of
resources and competitive advantages throughout the world; yet
they also create new risks, because
of homogeneity, since any failure
will also be global. Consider the
case of the lowly potato. It was discovered in America, and brought
back to Europe. It had a number
of advantages over other staple
crops. It survived the harsh winters
better; and it required less maintenance. So, the poorer peasant
communities of Northern Europe
increasingly relied on potato as
the main staple. Then in 1845,
the infamous potato beetle struck
and devastated the potato crop for
several years in a row. Since the
population depended on potato for
its survival to such a great extent,
large scale famine followed in
poorer peasant communities such
as Ireland [7].
A more global risk exists in
modern infectious disease epidemics. As human societies all adopt the
same lifestyles because of global
communication technologies, and
get closely connected through
transportation technologies, any
disease epidemic spreads throughout the world within days. Any
organism that finds a way to exploit
a weakness in our lifestyle is likely
to affect all humans and create a
global crisis, as in global flu epidemics, when in the past such
crises remained as isolated local
problems.

Rate of Change
Technologies
introduce
risk;
constant change in technologies introduces constantly rising
risk; accelerating technological
change introduces accelerating
rise in risk. As we celebrate our

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SuMMEr 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2013