Description:
Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
Technologies are not created hostile, but they can become so. Through neglect, austerity, or repurposing, the systems that shape our lives can cause profound harm to people, animals, and physical and social environments in ways their creators neither anticipated nor acknowledged.
Drawing on examples spanning border control, welfare systems, urban design, and AI, this provocative collection introduces the concept of technological innocence: the obliviousness that allows bias and hostility to flourish unchallenged.
Moving beyond naïve design ethics, it offers scholars, designers, and policy makers a powerful new vocabulary for confronting the darker consequences of technological choice.
Brief description: Sally Wyatt is Professor Emerita of Digital Cultures at the Maastricht University Science, Technology and Society Studies research programme.
Review Quotes: 'This beautifully curated collection reveals the myriad ways in which technologies become or are made hostile. It will captivate students and general readers alike'. - Claudia Aradau, Department of War Studies, King's College London