The long tail of innovation
Quick disclaimer: I’m just exploring some thoughts here. I’m not trying to be alarmist or freak anyone out. I’m really just putting this out there to see if I’m just completely alone in my thoughts. Thanks for keeping an open mind.
What’s the long tail of the technology you use today?
That’s the frame of reference I have had recently. And it goes beyond technology to include food, clothes, and other everyday items. Let me explain.
When did we know smoking cigarettes was bad? How many years did it take before we truly understood the long term effects? Tobacco has been smoked for hundreds of years, since before America was “discovered”. While the ingredients in cigarettes changed as they became more commercialized, it doesn’t really change the tar that comes from the tobacco. Even then, it didn’t really kill people instantly, rather slowly. That’s my concern. We aren’t that far into a lot of recent innovations: cell phones, wireless networks, and don’t get me started with what I see on food labels (not sure some of those are “innovative”).
Wait, cell phones? Haven’t those been around for decades? Yes, but how much “minimal radiation” do you think matters over the course of decades? They can’t have reasonably done testing to know how much that affects the human body over 50 years. The technology hasn’t existed that long. The first call was made in 1973, but they weren’t commercially available until 1983. My parents didn’t grow up carrying one in their pocket. Even I didn’t get one until I was 14 years old. And the first iPhone (AKA the dawn of the smart phone revolution) didn’t come out until 2007. So we are really only talking about 17 years. When all of your cells are rapidly multiplying and changing from growth as a child, is even a small amount of radiation from smart phones and tablets too much? Is it really at a safe level? When will we know? There are probably too many factors to consider to say that cell phones will have caused an increase in mortality rate in the next few decades, but I’d be curious if they did. And don’t even get me started on the mental health problems from social networks that people are constantly attached to through their phones.
And what about wireless networks? Sure they have been around a bit longer than smart phones, but not by much more than a decade. And I would argue that they became way more prevalent after smart phones became the standard. And there are new signals being invented and deployed all of the time to keep up with the increasing demand on bandwidth. So can we really say that it has no effect on the human body? On the other hand, radio waves have been around commercially since around 1900, and we don’t necessarily see anything systemic leading to increased mortality or decreased quality of life. Again, maybe nothing immediate with higher frequency signals, but over the long term? And what about while babies incubate in utero? All of this would be very hard to test in a controlled manner, but we’d be remiss to not at least consider the ramifications.
I know, it looks like I’m wearing a tinfoil hat here doesn’t it? I’m not going to say I haven’t had a “conspiracy theory” thought now and again. Heck, I’ve even verbalized some of them just to see how crazy I was. But let’s just talk conceptually for a moment and leave any particular industry out of it. How long does a technology or innovation have to be a part of society before we truly understand its long term impacts? A decade or two? A century? What if it evolves over time like wireless frequencies or food ingredients? These things don’t necessarily start out “bad”, but without proper care and consideration can easily turn that way.
So let’s talk about something a bit more nascent, AI. Sure, the concept of Artificial Intelligence has been around for decades. Even some early algorithms were classified as AI, but that’s not quite what I’m talking about. I’m talking about this most recent wave that’s only a few years old. Talk to almost anyone and they’ll tell you how it is going to change everything and your job will be obsolete in a year (yet they’ve been saying that for over a year). I would generally say that the effects of AI will be more on mental health, business, productivity, etc. rather than directly correlated with mortality. But the mortality of our planet? The energy consumption of running these models is orders of magnitude higher than traditional software right now. And it also requires a lot of water for cooling the computers running in these data centers. And many people are just using it as a “better” Google search. (I’m not quoting actual numbers here as my research found a wide range, which is hard to verify and reconcile. I leave it to you the reader to do your own research). Is that worth it? (I’ve been using AI-generated images for these blog posts, but specifically decided not too for this one after thinking about this.) These issues will very likely push innovation in the energy space, which would be great, but will we be too late to prevent massive changes to our planet and therefore our society?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a software engineer who has made a living on much of the technology and innovation I’m asking a lot of questions about. However, I think it is healthy to at least consider the alternatives and trade-offs. And if I’ve learned anything as an engineer (or maybe it is from getting older), it is that everything has trade-offs. Nothing is free or truly “on sale”. If I try to boil it down to a single sentence or sentiment, it is this: I’m just thinking a little more consideration and a little less blind ambition.