Robots. Drones. AI. Whenever a new technology creeps into the public consciousness, we can’t resist considering its potential in extremes: smart city tech will either be a clean, convenient utopia or a centrally controlled dystopia. The positive vision is often pushed by venture-capital investors, startup marketing teams and over-eager journalists, while the nightmare view is heralded by activists, regulators, overly cynical journalists – as well as in science fiction shows such as Black Mirror, created by Charlie Brooker.
The reality for most technologies is somewhere in between those extremes, and largely dependent less on the innovation itself than how we humans choose to make use of it. Self-driving cars should reduce accidents, but could require pedestrians to be sequestered away from roads. AI may help cure cancer, but it could also exacerbate inequity. Robots reduce the human cost of industrial accidents, but may spark mass unemployment. Facebook lets you share baby photos to far-flung relations, but is contributing to the downfall of democracy – okay, maybe that last one is a bad example.
It’s a cliché that technology is just a tool, but there’s no question that a hammer is less frightening when it’s tapping in a nail to hang a family photo than when it’s
