It’s time to retire the word ‘technology’

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":6.43,"text":"The writer is a systems engineer and the author of ‘Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World’"}],[{"start":13.61,"text":"For centuries, when people wanted to describe a technology they spoke of “inventions” or “the useful arts”. In early English usage, “technology” referred to a treatise on technical subjects, not the tools themselves. Its modern usage — which covers everything from toothpicks to Teslas, and TikTok to tomahawks — gained ground in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as engineering aligned itself with scientific authority and institutional prestige."}],[{"start":48.25,"text":"The result is that “technology” has become a bloated umbrella, spanning too much and clarifying too little. Nor is it alone in this semantic stampede. Words like “innovation,” “smart” and “sustainability” have suffered similar dilution, sprayed across policy memos and pitch decks until their edges blur."}],[{"start":70.58,"text":"Vagueness offers alluring flexibility. Consultants peddle “technology solutions” to undefined problems. More troubling, “tech company” has become a convenient shield. Social platforms claim they are not publishers. Ride-hailing services say they are not employers. Online marketplaces avoid retail classification. Without distinction, accountability drifts."}],[{"start":97.67,"text":"Precision still works, but only when we allow it. “Biotech” emerged from the haze once investors needed a way to separate pills from pixels. “Fintech” spans wire transfers and crypto speculation. “Edtech” includes tutoring apps and loan servicers. “Agtech” groups robotic milkers with gene-edited crops. “Cleantech” wraps battery storage, algae farms and “clean coal” under the same feel-good brand. These tags reproduce confusion at smaller scales."}],[{"start":132.2,"text":"Language, itself a technology, shapes how we understand agency. “Technology is changing the workplace” conceals the fact that it is executives who are choosing to automate processes and cut jobs. “Technology connects us” hides the deliberate design of attention-harvesting systems. This framing presents human decisions as inevitable shifts."}],[{"start":159.39,"text":"At its most insidious, “technology” flattens innovation itself. Even “science and technology” — a favourite handle in policy circles — makes engineers wince. It confuses product with process and presents tools as if they have emerged from theory alone. When every advancement, from a hair dryer to the Hoover Dam, shares one designation, differences in form, intent and consequence fade."}],[{"start":189.54,"text":"The Greeks had it right. Technē meant skilled craft, guided by prudence and purpose. It described something made, named, practised and held to account by people. From technē, we derived “technology.” Over time, however, we traded clarity for cachet."}],[{"start":208.57999999999998,"text":"Some languages still preserve the link between method and meaning. German distinguishes between technik, the realm of practical methods, and technologie, the study of those systems. Tamil speaks of thozhil nutpam, the nuanced art of labour, where work is both diligent and dutiful. The Japanese adopted tekunorojī because the native gijutsu was too civic-minded for such abstraction. These distinctions retain what English often erases and we must recover: technique implies moral responsibility."}],[{"start":245.30999999999997,"text":"Technē kept the maker in view: someone creating, naming, guiding and standing by their work. The modern term slips past those commitments. Ludwig Wittgenstein warned that “philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday”. “Technology” has been on an extended vacation."}],[{"start":267.03999999999996,"text":"We’ve retired words before, some for their harm, others because they wore out. Technology now fits that second category. Let’s lay it to rest, not with contempt, but with care. Only then can we see our tools, and ourselves, with the precision they, and we, deserve."}],[{"start":288.02,"text":"Letter in response to this comment:"}],[{"start":291.46999999999997,"text":"Remembering what Hillis had to say about technology / From Jem Eskenazi, London N3, UK"}],[{"start":305.23999999999995,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftmailbox.cn/album/a_1754868741_2792.mp3"}