What Is the Ethics of Technology?

Much of Crichton's work can be seen as writings on the ethics of technology. So, it bears explaining just what exactly the ethics of technology entails. First, ethics are a set of guidelines in an area of human activity that tell us appropriate ways to behave in order to find an appropriate balance between the well being of individuals and the need for harmony in society. Or, in very simple terms, what do people need to do in order to get on and get along. As ethical behavior becomes institutionalized and grounded in our grand narratives, it become morality.

The ethics of technology addresses those situations that arise as a result of new technologies. Recall from previous posts that technologies, in the large sense, are ways of bringing out reliable changes, or altering the future from its natural course. When we produce a new future, intentionally or unintentionally, we must take responsibility for it. Better yet, we should take responsibility before it happens and decide what a desirable out come would be.

The ethics of technology differs from traditional ethics in that in traditional ethics we may determine the ethical quality of an alternative based upon its consequences. However, in the case of new technologies we may not be able to determine consequences. For example, if a new technology were developed that allowed you to read minds would this be a good thing? We have no idea because we have no prior experience with such a thing.

In the ethics of technology we must consider possible consequences and we can do this through stories. Many of Crichton's works can be seen as cautionary tales in the ethics of technology. The Andromeda Stain, which was briefly discussed last week, asks "what if our explorations of space brought back a deadly microbial life form that we were not prepared to handle?" This is certainly a possible consequence. Jurassic Parks asks "what if science and technology were used strictly for profit making ventures?"  And in both the book and the movie we saw some possible consequences and their sequels.

This is a theme that runs through many, possibly most, of Crichton's works and we will return to it often.

The Andromeda Strain

The Andromeda Strain is a science fiction cautionary tale that proved to be a major turning point in Crichton's writing career and a harbinger of things to come. His unique style that seemed to coalesce in this book was unlike anything at the time and set the tone for many of his books to follow.

Perhaps the most significant characteristic of The Andromeda Strain was that it used science fiction to explore issues in the ethics of technology. In this story, a space probe picks up an alien microbe and brings it back to earth suggesting consequences of space exploration that were not being considered at the time. It is a very different life form from anything the scientists had seen before suggesting that if we do find other life in the universe it may not be cute little green men. It is far more likely that it would be a microbial form possibly a life threatening microbial form.

In the story, the government had created a secret laboratory for dealing with such events called Wildfire. Wildfire had all the latest technology but failed to control the microbe. Instead, the microbe just mutated into harmlessness suggesting that nature will go its way and all of our technology is powerless to stop it. These themes of unexpected consequences and the uselessness of our technology for dealing with them will become common themes in later books and brought to a crescendo in his masterpiece Jurassic Park. 

We also see one of Crichton's signature techniques in The Andromeda Strain. He provides ostensibly factual material sprinkled throughout the story to provide greater credibility to the story. This technique works in two ways. First, it serves to make the fantastic scenario in the story more believable. And as we believe the story, we cannot help to see how easily we believe things when they are presented as factual scientific information.

Most readers were first introduced to Crichton in The Andromeda Strain as it was his first best seller book. And it has held up well over time. Although space travel is not the focus that it was in the late 1960's, nothing has happened since then to make this book seem out of date. We still have space probes. We still run the risk of bringing back harmful micro organisms. And we are no more prepared to deal with such an eventuality today than we were in the late 1960's.

Some Background

I have been reading, listening to recorded books, and watching movies in an attempt to get my arms around the vast quantity of Crichton's work. I am making good progress but there is still a lot to do especially if I want to study it in depth. So, I thought I would sprinkle in a few posts on background issues that are key to understanding what MC has done. Over the next few weeks or months, I will toss in posts to address the following questions:

1) What is Science?
2) What is Technology?
3) What is the relationship between Science and Technology?
4) What is the Ethics of Technology?
5) What do we mean when we say something is True?
6) Why do most people disregard the Truth?
7) Why are Writing and Storytelling becoming increasingly more important?

Understanding the answers to these questions is key to understanding Micheal Crichton. And hopefully, it will peak your interest enough to keep you reading.

Some Initial Observations

I have been reading, listening to recorded books and watching movies that MC wrote, produced or was in some way involved trying to get a net over his body of work. A few initial themes have emerged. I will sharpen this focus over time but wanted to document my initial impressions.

First, MC likes to blur the lines of fact and fiction. He explicitly states this in the appendix to Eaters of the Dead and refers to other modern efforts along the same lines. There are probably references to this idea elsewhere so I will keep an eye open for them.

Second, people do not consider the consequences of technology. The protagonist in Prey says something along these lines and this is a key element in the ethics of technology which I will discuss in due course. It is also the theme in several works including Westworld, Jurassic Park and Prey.

Third, people tend to flock to one side of an issue without giving adequate consideration of other sides. We can see this on the issue of sexual harassment in Disclosure and on the issue of global warming in State of Fear.

Fourth, MC seems to be attracted to projects because they look like the might be fun, challenging, interesting or lucrative. The variety of works he has done attests to this without pointing to specific works.

Finally, the fractal metaphor used in Jurassic Park where a pattern becomes clear over time is not limited to Jurassic Park. It is an oft used theme and, I suppose, it is exactly what I am doing here as well.

First, A Personal Note

Michael Crichton, author, screenwriter, director and so much more died unexpectedly in Los Angeles Tuesday, November 4, 2008 leaving a legacy of literature, film and commentary that will be explore, explained, interpreted, analyzed and admired for years, possibly decades, possibly even centuries to come. William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens were both very popular in their times much like Michael Crichton. And it was only much later that people began to realize the artistic value of their achievements beyond capturing the popular imagination. Shakespeare used drama to explore what it means to be human. Dickens used literature to explore social policies and their implications. Crichton used literature, and to a lesser extent film, to explore the ethics of technology.

I first encountered Crichton’s work as an undergraduate when I read Andromeda Strain. After reading several more of his novels, I became a fan. And, by the time Jurassic Park came out, Crichton was one of only two authors whose books I would buy as soon as they came out without waiting to hear what anybody else had to say about them. But, Jurassic Park took on a special role.

In the early 1990’s I became an academic, and one of my research interests was computer ethics. I began working on an idea using stories to explore the ethics of technology. Jurassic Park was a perfect example. Much later, when I turned the idea into a class, I used Jurassic Park not only as an example of the basic theme, but as an example of effective writing techniques that could be used to teach creative writing. I will explain more about that research and the class later.

However, in the meantime, I should confess that for years my opinion of Crichton was that his writing peaked with Jurassic Park. He became famous and wealthy and his writing went downhill from there. I could not have been more wrong. It was not Crichton’s writing that was amiss. It was my understanding of what he was doing. Often times when an author takes literature in a new direction, we do not fully understand until we have ample perspective and the benefits of hindsight. Just recently, I began to take a second look. And the more I looked, the more I understood and the more I appreciated it. So, I thought, in the sadness of his passing, it may be a good time to revisit what he has done from a more serious, more scholarly perspective. And that is what this blog is about.

This is not a daily blog, or a weekly blog. It is a public research notebook. As I read or reread his works, watch or re-watch his movies, discover new things or gain new insights, I will record them here. My goal is to look for common themes and common techniques in his work and present them in a coherent framework so other can appreciate his works more deeply.