Lecture 4: Joyce's Response

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You've heard the lectures. You've seen what our experts have to say. But what do you think? It's time for you to join the debate.

Our experts' responses

'We need shock as well as awe'
Joyce Fortune
'Fear can take many forms'
Derek Matravers
'Precaution and accountability are crucial in technological endeavour'
Tom Hewitt
'Things just got complicated again'
Nick Braithwaite

Joyce's response to the fourth lecture of the 2005 series of Reith lectures

The laptop I am using to prepare this response is many times smaller than the machine I used as a student to just punch the cards that were fed into the University’s mainframe computer. And it took a stack of punched cards a few inches high to perform an essentially trivial task such as calculating the mean and standard deviation of a list of numbers. (Okay, so perhaps this is an essentially trivial task too, but I’m sure you get the point!)

The transformation from what we had then to what we have now is truly amazing. It has changed our lives in very many ways. But when technological developments are reported in the popular press the actual achievements never seem to be quite awe-inspiring enough for either the reporters or the readers.

There has to be some fantastical element. We need shock as well as awe. In the case of nanotechnology the shock element was provided by the ‘grey goo’. This was a threat that held sway for some time, raising the profile of nanotechnology and keeping it in the headlines. For the last few months, however, the press has only mentioned ‘grey goo’ in order to dismiss it as ‘a scare story’, a ‘science fiction tale’ or a ‘doomsday fantasy’. I suspect the term nanotechnology will not continue to excite anything like the same popular interest whilst the developments are being reported are fuel additives, stronger and lighter tennis rackets, a more effective form of sunscreen; and the like.

Content last updated: 26/04/2005

About Joyce

Dr Joyce Fortune is a senior lecturer and Head of the Technology Management Department at the Open University. Her teaching and research interests include systems failures, quality management and technology strategy. Her latest book is about learning from information system failures. Other topics she has written about recently include risk in project management, the cultural school of strategy formation and human rights and ethical policing.