{"673419":{"#nid":"673419","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Fears, Promises, and Emerging Tech\u00a0","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen Gloria Calhoun decided to pursue a Ph.D. after a career in telecommunications, she initially planned to explore how the system of overhead telephone wires was moved underground. However, when she began studying how the overhead network was built in the first place, she was surprised to find little information on the topic.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022You would almost think that all those wires and poles just appeared by magic,\u0022 Calhoun said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAs a student in the School of History and Sociology, Calhoun researches how the emergence of telecommunications infrastructures shaped the wire and cable industries. While digging into the history of overhead wires, she was struck by the way people created narratives about the \u0022fears\u0022 and \u0022promises\u0022 of emerging telegraph and telephone infrastructures \u2014 and how much they resembled the competing narratives around artificial intelligence (AI) today.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Ch2\u003EFears, Promises, and Public Discourse\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/h2\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Your viewpoints on the fears and promises of technology are often shaped by what you stand to gain or lose, so they vary from person to person and by time and place,\u0022 Calhoun said. \u0022With telecom infrastructure, some people\u0027s wildest hopes were realized, while others\u0027 worst fears came true. Some made lots of money from the networks, and others died building them.\u0022\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe fears and promises around emerging technologies range from high expectations to deep skepticism. For example, telegraph technology promised to send messages quickly, annihilating time and space in communication, Calhoun explained. But others worried about how the wires degraded urban environments and how people could use the telegraph to distort the free flow of market information. With AI, the discourse is similar. We hope the technology will eliminate mundane tasks or solve problems we haven\u0027t yet cracked. However, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/iac.gatech.edu\/feature-news\/2023\/08\/ai-ethics\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Econcerns remain\u003C\/a\u003E: Can we prevent bias in AI algorithms? Will job replacement disrupt the labor market?\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Ch2\u003ETechnology Doesn\u0027t Appear in Isolation\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/h2\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EJust like telegraph debates raged through newspapers in the 1800s, the release of OpenAI\u0027s ChatGPT language learning model in 2022 unleashed a blizzard of opinions in the media, with even some prominent AI researchers \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2023\/05\/02\/1072528\/geoffrey-hinton-google-why-scared-ai\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Echanging their minds\u003C\/a\u003E about the technology.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EWhat factors cause this range of opinions? Calhoun explains that the technology\u0027s use, its physical presence, its symbolic meanings, and its interactions with other technologies can all affect how we perceive it.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ENew technology is unpredictable because people often co-opt it in ways their inventors didn\u0027t intend or anticipate. Its physical presence also affects how we perceive it \u2014 even if it\u0027s invisible, \u0022which can sometimes seem like a good thing, as for urban aesthetics, but can also make it feel more sinister,\u0022 Calhoun said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESymbolic meanings also vary, with a typical example being railroads, Calhoun explained. Were they a symbol of progress or a machine in the garden, as the historian Leo Marx famously phrased it? And finally, just as technology is often used in unintended ways, it also interacts with other tech in surprising ways. For example, low-voltage telecommunications lines aren\u0027t hazardous alone but can be lethal if crossed with high-voltage power lines, Calhoun said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIn a nutshell, \u0022There is no blank slate. Technology doesn\u0027t appear in isolation or operate in a vacuum. We don\u0027t go overnight from inventing new technology to having it fully deployed and understood,\u0022 Calhoun said. \u0022People\u0027s perceptions change as their wants, desires, and expectations change.\u0022\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Ch2\u003EThe Regulatory Challenge\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/h2\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAnd then what? Fear and promises anticipate, but regulation reacts, Calhoun said. And often, there is a lag between the two.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022No matter how obvious it might be that somebody needs to do something, it\u0027s often not at all obvious who that somebody is or what they need to do,\u0022 she said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ECalhoun explained that the main challenge for regulators is balancing competing stakeholder interests and dealing with a technology that evolves as they try to regulate it. For example, city leaders in Montreal tried to move the wires underground for 30 years. The overhead system was dangerous, with wires blocking firefighters from reaching burning buildings and deteriorating poles posing a safety hazard.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022And they hemmed and hawed and dithered, and finally, the fire insurance underwriters said, \u0027If you don\u0027t move these wires underground, we will no longer offer casualty insurance in the city center.\u0027 And that finally moved them to start doing something about it,\u0022 Calhoun said. \u0022That\u0027s a long way of saying that when the consequences of doing nothing outweigh the consequences of change, even with all the uncertainties the change may bring, that\u0027s when it usually starts to happen.\u0022\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Ch2\u003EKranzberg\u0027s Law\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/h2\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EMel Kranzberg, the founder of the History and Sociology of Technology and Science program at Georgia Tech, published \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3105385\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EKranzberg\u0027s Laws\u003C\/a\u003E in 1986. The first states, \u0022Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022That view was evolving then, and it\u0027s the same thing we\u0027re still discussing here,\u0022 Calhoun said. As narratives of fears and promises play out with AI, it\u0027s impossible to label the tech itself as good or evil \u0022Because the social component of it is not the technology but the use. Technologies are human productions, and humans are neither all good nor all bad. So you have to focus on how we use it more than the technology itself.\u0022\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EFrom telegraphs and telephones to social media and artificial intelligence, deploying new technologies involves a learning process of trial and error. Most people will use it for good \u2014 \u0022or at least try to,\u0022 Calhoun said \u2014 and just like telegraph infrastructure, AI will be another lesson to look back on and dissect when the next society-changing creation comes along. But the history of technology has already taught us at least one thing, she said.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022New tech does not simply follow a predetermined path. It increases the range of possible paths but does not dictate which we follow or what will happen next. That\u0027s up to us.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhat can the history of telecom infrastructure teach us about AI?\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"What can the history of telecom infrastructure teach us about AI?"}],"uid":"35766","created_gmt":"2024-03-08 19:11:42","changed_gmt":"2024-04-11 01:01:22","author":"dminardi3","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2024-04-09T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2024-04-09T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"673594":{"id":"673594","type":"image","title":"UndergroundQuestion.png","body":"\u003Cp lang=\u0022EN-US\u0022\u003EGloria Calhoun studies the \u0022underground question.\u0022 As telecommunications infrastructure grew, Americans began to question whether they wanted their cities to look like the image on the left or the right, she says.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","created":"1712152464","gmt_created":"2024-04-03 13:54:24","changed":"1712679064","gmt_changed":"2024-04-09 16:11:04","alt":"Two images of a city, one with the wires underground and one with them overhead.","file":{"fid":"257010","name":"Untitled design - 2024-04-03T084634.792.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/04\/03\/Untitled%20design%20-%202024-04-03T084634.792.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/04\/03\/Untitled%20design%20-%202024-04-03T084634.792.png","mime":"image\/png","size":1260794,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2024\/04\/03\/Untitled%20design%20-%202024-04-03T084634.792.png?itok=AQV6pSJq"}}},"media_ids":["673594"],"groups":[{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"},{"id":"1288","name":"School of History and Sociology"}],"categories":[{"id":"142","name":"City Planning, Transportation, and Urban Growth"},{"id":"151","name":"Policy, Social Sciences, and Liberal Arts"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71901","name":"Society and Culture"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:dminardi3@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EDi Minardi\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIvan Allen College of Liberal Arts\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["dminardi3@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}