Over glorified stance of technology and its impact in our society
I was listening to one of the Korean VC chats on clubhouse, hearing some conversations by technologists and venture capitalists. They offered amazing, substantial advices for students who are interested in the VC industry like me and gave extensive talks on what’s happening in the industry at the moment.
The VCs talked about how some of the technology will advance the world. I agree with them that so much of the development of technology have led to many positive factors in our society, including but not limited to democratization of information and education.
However, the overall sentiment of glorification of technology made me realize that most of them are missing the bigger picture of how the advancement of technology has played in last decade. I understand that since most people in the VC industry are technology enthusiasts, they are more likely to look at only the benefits of technology in our society.
I believe that technology is inherently harmless. It is a mere tool, yet a very powerful one, and it depends on humans how to use it. Technology solves whatever problem you believe that must be fixed in hand in a much efficient manner.
Some of these common “problems” laid out by tech companies for their software engineers to solve are to increase screen time on their platform or devise algorithms with machine learning that create chasms between social groups in order to maximize their margins. If these problems do not align with the societal good, better technology magnifies crucial problems in the society, such as declining mental health among teenagers or polarization among political and socio-economic groups.
Moreover, technology has created a widened gap of wealth inequality and will create a widened gap in inequality in the future. I have been thinking a lot about this issue and came across this article by MIT tech review (link below). Automation is growing at an exponential rate that is hurting a lot of low- and middle-income populations. While some may argue that education is democratized by the widened internet, a technology-driven economy inherently depends on a small group of talented people. To give a comparison, in the industrial age, we needed to hire more people to build infrastructures. In other words, the entire economic structure depended on having more workforce to build factories and machines. However, tech needs only a small talented group of people. In fact, having more people in building software creates more bureaucracy and a lack of communication. It is better to have a small group that has better creativity and skill for tech companies. This change and shift towards the predominance of the major tech-driven economy will leave behind most of the population.
With all these perils of the rise of tech, I acknowledge that tech innovation is inevitable. The change is here, and more is coming. However, as we move on, I think we should think about what this change means to us and how it will form our society. I don’t believe that this conversation is happening widely, and in fact, prepared to confront this new society.
I agree that technology can be awesome like this instance:
that enhances human lives, but a truly socially good and only happens when proprietary technology along with an ethical and grand mission and great execution come into play.
In all, I hope that the VC industry, which has an influential power over the adoption of new technology, considers this big picture of technology when investing in new companies and try to help companies that can be profitable and have a better aligned incentive structure. While many might think that those two do not go together, but there are companies like Tesla that has the mission of accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
