Why Technologists and Historians Need to Vibe

A simple view of technological change is that certain types of technology are introduced and set off a chain reaction of social, economic and behavioral changes. This narrative leads us to believe in a causal relationship between technology and the rest of the world; that scientific knowledge and advancements result in the creation of new technologies that in turn create unavoidable ripple effects.

Not only is this view deeply harmful as it strips away the social, economic and environmental factors of historical occurrence, leaving us vulnerable to making avoidable historical mistakes, but it also can result in economically painful inefficiencies.

Here are two major reasons that technology professionals and leaders need to either take night-courses in history or surround themselves with people who have backgrounds in history, sociology or philosophy:

Reason #1: Scientific advances are not performed in isolation from human values.

This is most painfully expressed in the current predicaments we see around how the values (and biases) of the human engineers behind GAIs like ChatGPT influence the end product. History shows us that technology and scientific disciplines are inextricably intertwined with culture and historical contexts.

Leaders in the tech space and professionals working in scientific disciplines should have basic training in how science and technology as disciplines have interacted with social issues throughout recent modern history (I would personally advocate for beginning at or around WWII).

Understanding basic historical precedents in technology <> society interactions can help tech leaders in areas like fundraising, government relations and R&D — all of which translates at the front end into better business modeling, hiring the right kinds of people with the right diversity of skill sets and perspectives, and of course, avoiding common pitfalls.

Attendees at one of the Macy Conferences. These inter-disciplinary gatherings lasted from 1946 to 1960 and were purposely composed of a diverse range of academics from neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, mathematics, child development, anthropology, ethology, and medicine (among others). The Macy Conferences are one sample of interdisciplinary forums that brought together social sciences and computational ones to create breakthroughs, for instance, the introduction of the concept of ‘information’ as currently understood. (Image credit: EMCSR)

Reason #2: Having a historical understanding of technology <> society expands your intellectual and creative range.

If you understand the historical trajectory of ideas and belief systems, you are positioned to broker more knowledge areas and ideas for your own benefit. This is important because, like many other things in the world, wins in the technology field are largely about timing. An amazing breakthrough or piece of technology can fall flat if it isn’t introduced at the right time. It’s not uncommon for valuable findings to take years or decades to gain traction. Why? Maybe because vital funding from the philanthropic sector fell through. Maybe a competitor published a concurrent finding that stole the limelight. Maybe because it didn’t align with the priorities of the academic establishment at the time (or it contradicted a prior body of work). Maybe because the authors weren’t vocal enough or didn’t get accepted into the right peer-reviewed publications. All of these are cultural and economic — NOT scientific — reasons that trump the value of ‘pure’ knowledge or innovation.

The book “Perceptrons” by Minsky and Papert. Published in 1969, this single book effectually stonewalled further funding and research into neural networks and ushered in what is known as the A.I. Winter. The original concept of neural networks would be revitalised decades later once key philanthropic sources became interested again and once other academic concepts had emerged to contradict the theories presented in “Perceptrons”. (Image credit: Amazon.com)

So as a business leader in the tech space or a professional working within tech, it’s a major advantage to recognise the seed of a promising idea and be able to say, with an awareness of historical precedents, ‘Hey, that might vibe with innovation X or the concept of Y’ or to ask better questions of an idea like ‘How does this relate to A or B?’

Training the Next Generation of Tech Leaders and Consumers

All of this is not only beneficial for professionals working in the tech field. Any consumer of technology should also ideally have an understanding of how scientific knowledge translates into commercial products — that is, how human beings ‘do science’ and how science is commercialized and commodified. This builds consumer awareness, confidence and also discernment, in addition to helping younger generations apply a critical lens to their role as citizens, consumers and creators.

This body of knowledge is especially important to offer to youth parallel to their introduction to technology and technologically-driven interactions. With user demographics on platforms like Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram skewing younger and younger (well-below the legal stipulated minimum age), it is vital for educators, parents and anyone with an interest in the well-being of younger generations to offer some historical and socially contextualized guidance and insight into human+tech interactions at the same time that pre-teens are undergoing their own integration into the digitalised world.

One example of such training modules are the “Human Vs. Machine” module and “Attention Economy” module for pre-teens and teens we’ve developed as part of our Tech Ethics Ambassadors programme.

Cultivating the next generation of humans (including tech professionals and business leaders) to address social and environmental challenges isn’t going to be easy — but we have the advantage of standing on the shoulders of giants…as long as we don’t forget that they existed.