A forensics of wishing: technology assessment in the age of technoscience

Abstract

If one considers the Collingridge dilemma to be a dilemma awaiting a solution, one has implicitly abandoned a genuinely historical conception of the future and adopted instead a notion of the future as an object of technical design, the realisation of technical possibility or as wish-fulfilment. The definition of technology assessment (TA) as a successful response to the Collingridge dilemma renders it a technoscience that shares with all the others the conceit of being able, supposedly, to shape the future. An alternative way of pursuing TA begins with an analysis of our age of technoscience, including its impoverished conception of the future. A critical appreciation of this conception gives rise to a forensics of wishing.

Climate geoengineering: issues of path‐dependence and socio‐technical lock‐in

“…75 As a result of this awareness of the social character of technology, the plurality of potential directions of 'progress' and the profound implications for society and democracy of the choosing of particular development paths over others, there has been a turn to greater transparency and relexivity in processes of TA as evidenced by the development of approaches such as 'real time TA', 70 'constructive TA', 76 and 'participatory TA'. 77 An important component of these approaches is the need for assessment to be engaged at an 'upstream' moment 69,75 rather than simply considering downstream 'impacts', and to examine the different kinds of visions of the future embedded in particular ideas about emerging technologies, an endeavor sometimes referred to as vision or expectation assessment, 78,79 or the 'forensics of wishing'. 69 …”

“…77 An important component of these approaches is the need for assessment to be engaged at an 'upstream' moment 69,75 rather than simply considering downstream 'impacts', and to examine the different kinds of visions of the future embedded in particular ideas about emerging technologies, an endeavor sometimes referred to as vision or expectation assessment, 78,79 or the 'forensics of wishing'. 69 …”

The hermeneutic side of responsible research and innovation

“…prognostic) orientation: The prognostic imagination of future technology and its consequences are supposed to produce a reliable basis for optimizing decisions, such as in questions of regulating or expanding an infrastructure. Experience and theoretical analyses have shown, however, that as a rule this path to studying the consequences of technology cannot function (Grunwald 2009b;Nordmann 2010). Instead of hoping for secure prognoses, it comes to substantial uncertainty over the consequences of a technology and sometimes to substantial diversity and divergence in the respective techno-futures.…”

Introduction: S.NET and Nanoethics

“…And Alfred Nordmann (TU Darmstadt) criticized the 'design' of the future within technology assessment, arguing for a research agenda that leaves behind the illusion of a direct effect of current decisions on future technological developments. The future, he suggested, should not be seen as an object of design by processes that seek to control it; instead, we need to interrogate the present and to view the future as a projection of current wishes and needs [2]. Such an approach would also put pay to speculation about the future of technology, humanity and society in the form of so-called 'speculative ethics' [3].…”