The Role of Technology in Limiting Privilege and Bias

oftwominds - Charles Hugh Smith

Technology cannot eliminate human bias or poor decisions, but it has the potential to eliminate systemic bias and privilege.

Technological skills are often viewed as the dividing line between globalization's "winners" and "Losers." Those with high technology skills tend to be paid considerably more than those with lower skills, and have more opportunities to advance.

In this view, technology is the purview of the highly skilled, highly paid "winners" of the 4th Industrial Revolution, and "the rest of us" are merely consumers of technology.

I think this overlooks the great potential of technology to flatten privilege and reduce institutional bias. I discuss this in my new book Inequality and the Collapse of Privilege. Here is an excerpt from the book:

What kind of system eliminates social privilege and opens equal opportunities to all?

Cont....