Technological Domination

Broadly two interpretations of techne (a tool, technique or craft) come from whether it's applied by us, or to us.

Tool-using civilisations make and control technology through creative reasoning, sharing, communication, knowledge and so on. Here technology amplifies intelligence (IA), and affective and effective reach/agency in the world.

In technologically degenerate (dominated) civilisations people have become the tools of technology, by dependence, by cognitive decline such as loss of memory, attention and agency, we become deferent to and then tyrannised by our own work.

Other than the plain fact that nobody likes or wants to live in the latter type of society, the security risk is that the machine either:

• runs destructively amok
• suddenly fails entirely

In general security thinking the second of these is increasingly addressed through more focus on resilience and continuity of operations. The problem of untrustworthy or even predictably treacherous systems has only recently surfaced on most radar screens because of "AI".

Explore how "AI" and "IA" are flip-sides of technology.

However, technology does not dominate, in and of itself. It must be misused, in weaponised form by other power-seeking humans. Here technology fashions systems of;

• surveillance and influence
• enslaving human resources
• extracting value from other humans

There are all high impact harms and threats to the psychological, and social security of individuals, civic organisations, businesses, politics and indeed freedom and democracy itself.