Since the Korean War, South Korea has experienced radical technological advancements, but the high-profile accidents that have occurred highlight the importance of ethical responsibility in technology. When considering the impact of technology on society, engineers and companies must prioritize public safety and social values rather than simply pursuing profit.
Since the Korean War, South Korea has undergone a radical modernization that is unprecedented in the world. Starting from nothing just a few decades ago, on a land ravaged by Japanese colonization and ethnic warfare, South Korea has undergone a major social transformation, starting with the development of light industry in the 1960s, followed by heavy and high-tech industries. This is an example of how technological advancement is closely linked to social development. As a result, Korea, which was one of the poorest countries in the world in 1950, has become the 13th most developed country in the world with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $1.5 trillion as of 2022, and its life expectancy has risen from about 50 years to 85 years for women.
However, rapid development has had a number of side effects. In particular, as technology becomes more sophisticated, accidents tend to get bigger. The 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the United States is a good example of this. One of the cooling circuits of two nuclear reactors failed to function properly for a minor reason, causing the core to heat up and partially melt. This resulted in a nuclear meltdown that prompted the state government to ban more than 1 million residents from leaving their homes and close schools and airports. The accident instantly rendered the nearly $2 billion nuclear plant unusable and cost more than $1 billion to clean up the contaminated radiation. It was a near-catastrophic event, with cancer rates and birth defects among the local population rising dramatically. These events instill a sense of insecurity that we don’t know when or where an accident could happen. So, does technology really improve society? Like a thorn in the side of a beautiful rose, the technology that brings us convenience and comfort can also have a scary side. Can these technologies be controlled by the humans who create and use them?
First, let’s define what technology is. In general, technology is often thought of as an applied science, meaning that it is the application of scientific knowledge to artifacts. According to this view, advances in science automatically lead to advances in technology, research drives technological development, and development drives production. While this is not incorrect, sometimes technology does give birth to science. For example, cytology, the study of the morphological and functional organization of cells, was only possible because of the development of microscopic technology that allowed us to observe cells. So, rather than debating whether science or technology preceded each other, we now see them as distinct entities, and technology, like science, is knowledge. In other words, technology has the characteristics of knowledge, and the creation and use of artifacts requires certain logic and knowledge. Science and technology interact and seem similar, but they have different characteristics. In general, science seeks intuitive understanding beyond cause and effect and emphasizes the abstract, while technology focuses on practicality and utility. As a result, scientists seek to know, while technologists seek to do.
So how does technology relate to our society? The first view is that technology does not have a social or political orientation in and of itself, so the misuse of technology is not the responsibility of scientists and technologists, but of the people who use it. In the extreme example of the atomic bomb that ended World War II, the scientists and technologists were driven to create the bomb by a policy called the Manhattan Project, and the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was made by politicians, not them. Today, however, the general view is that technology is not value-neutral. One of the reasons for this is that technologists’ designs are often imprinted with social values, either intentionally or unintentionally. For example, when American architect Robert Moses designed Jones Beach Park, he intentionally made the bridge over the existing access road lower than the height of a bus. This prevented buses, which were predominantly African-American, from entering the park, making it accessible only to middle-class and upper-middle-class whites with cars. This reflects the racism of American society at the time when designing the park, and shows how technology can reflect social values.
In the second perspective, American technology historian Thomas Hughes offers another view of the interaction between technology and society. Technologies can exist as individual entities, but sometimes they form complexes called “technological systems”. This means that as technology evolves, previously unrelated technologies are connected like a network to form a system. For example, during the Industrial Revolution, steam engines were initially used to pump water out of mines to extract more coal. But as coal production increased, factories began to use coal and steam engines as power sources instead of traditional power sources, and railroads were created to transport the coal produced. In this way, the seemingly unrelated steam engine, mining technology, factories, and railroads were networked together to form a technological system. This example shows that technology can influence society, and society can influence technology.
Furthermore, technological systems are reluctant to change their direction of development because of the many social interests already invested in them. This is called “inertia” in technology. A system with inertia cannot be reversed without an enormous force. For example, the car you drive every day may seem like a simple piece of technology, but it’s actually a component of an automotive system. The automobile system is a complex technical system that involves not only car manufacturing technology, but also roads, urban issues, land development plans, traffic signals, parking systems, and many other factors. Although problems such as traffic accidents are occurring and damages are increasing, alternative transportation methods have not developed due to the enormous inertia of the automobile system.
Therefore, as we have seen, technology can reflect social values, both intentionally and unconsciously, and technology and society develop in interaction with each other. In my opinion, the role of engineers in the production of technology is of paramount importance. Engineers are experts in solving complex and difficult technical problems, and they shouldn’t just solve problems, they should also be socially responsible. In order to work ethically with technical systems, engineers must be able to understand the social context of the problem and challenge it when necessary, not just solve it. Engineers are often contracted by companies or research organizations to solve technical problems. Companies tend to be profit-driven, and it’s easy for engineers to follow suit. Because engineers have first-hand knowledge of what a company is trying to produce, they are in a position to point out its faults. Engineers must be able to make ethical judgments to prevent companies from making unethical choices that harm public safety because they are too driven by profit.
Society should train engineers to use their knowledge conscientiously and help them make independent judgments. However, in the current society, engineers tend to be driven by profit and practicality. For example, the Daegu subway fire in South Korea in 2003 was a major accident that occurred when a man set fire to the subway in an attempt to commit suicide. While the incident was partly caused by poor judgment on the part of the train conductor, it was fundamentally caused by the fact that the train was made of materials that were prone to catching fire. In my opinion, the engineers involved in the design of the subway should have considered fire prevention in advance. Of course, engineers didn’t make all the decisions about the subway design, and the entrepreneurs and bureaucrats involved probably played an important role as well. However, the fact that they had knowledge of fire prevention from foreign precedents and failed to fully incorporate it shows a lack of ethical judgment.
In addition, engineers often fail to make ethical judgments because they are driven by corporate pragmatism. For example, the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion was caused by the malfunction of an O-ring, one of the rocket’s components. A day before launch, some engineers recommended that the company reconsider the launch because the resilience of the O-ring could be compromised by launching at low temperatures, but the company pushed ahead with the launch for profit. The Challenger exploded a minute after launch, killing all seven people on board.
This case illustrates that technical judgment involves ethical judgment, and that ethical judgment requires specialized knowledge that only scientists and engineers can provide. However, modern society overlooks the responsibilities of engineers. This is because it is inherent in the idea that technology is value-neutral and that all choices should be made by managers. If an engineer conflicts with a company on ethical grounds, the company often decides that the engineer is no longer needed and fires him or her, so engineers often comply with the demands of the company. Therefore, society needs to create institutional mechanisms for engineers to make ethical judgments.
In conclusion, technology should be used as a tool to make human life more convenient and enriching, and should not be the goal of society. However, technology is not an easy tool to handle, and society must have clear goals to prevent it from becoming a slave to it. We shouldn’t expect technology to create a happy society on its own without any intervention. Rather, the humans who produce and use technology must understand its social implications and use ethical judgment to use it as a tool for social progress.
