Haphoestus-the Greek god of fire and metalworking had a pronounced limp.Entrusted with the development and maintenance of many a key technologies, Haphoestus was responsible for keeping society running smoothly and perfectly yet he was ironically the only imperfect member of the pantheon of classical gods. This ancient irony is compounded by current attitude towards Haphoestus’s crafts.
Technology today is the focus of much public homage. Its progress is taken as a precondition for regular improvement of human life. And most of it is seen as the chief hope for solving the myriad problems facing society. Many decades ago it was simply seen as a key to a prosperous new world. With its help the economy bounced, man made fast venture into the space, the revolution in the field of agriculture and industry seemed to promise a solution to the world food problem, nuclear power was proclaimed as a source of clean and cheap energy. And still in modern times cloud computing ,artificial intelligence, machine learning robotics, data analysis,internet of things have revolutionized the human world. We have seen that advanced medical knowledge has led to the control of host of infectious disease. In such a critical situation communication and Information technology proved to be a boon to suffering and dying humanity. During pandemic when the entire planet was soaked with pain, suffering grief and despair it was the only ray of hope for the masses.
But if we look at the whole scenario the power and versatility of technology is marred by some crippling defects. The benefits of technological advances are offset by serious social and environmental costs among which climate change, pollution,energy shortage and growing dependence on electronic gadgets are the most obvious. The technological advancement has brought little benefit to the world’s poorest people. During Corona crisis educational technology has done great disservice to poor public. Although growth rate has increased ,poverty, joblessness and their attendent miseries have increased. The revolutionary development in the field of agriculture has raised grain yields but malnutrition is still a fact of life and death for hundreds of million of people-a grim reminder that technical fixes alone can’t solve complex social problems.There are other deeper concerns that technology is out of control,that technological development have momentum of their own that is difficult for individuals to influence.Consequently people find their lives shaped by technology that they don’t understand and over which they have little control.The development and application of technology is thus not linked with a wide understanding of the perils that arise from imprudent and uncontrolled application of technology.The social,economic and political forces that shape the development of technology are not able to follow the corresponding development within science and technology.So if solution are to found to the problem regarding predicament of mankind ,a considerable change is required with in these systems.The technological fixes can overcome strictly technological problems such as how to improve the efficiency of an automobile engine but they can’t solve wider socio-economic problem such as how to reduce public dependence on automobiles So technology must be associated with ethics.Furthermore,a new parameter which must be considered is the human factor.The logics of technologies,processes,mechanisms are the functions and the tasks which still have to be considered but greater attention must be given on how to make work meaningful and to find humanizing methods for work.In this way technology will be improved and involved in a way that will not only eliminate its harmful effect on society but will also enrich the quality of life of mankind in good measure.This will also wipe out the irony of the fact that humanity has acquired such spectacular technological prowess yet continue to face problems that seem to defy technological solution.
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