Ethical Use of Technology Quotes

Technology without morality is barbarous; morality without technology is impotent.

Science has given to this generation the means of unlimited disaster or of unlimited progress. There will remain the greater task of directing knowledge lastingly towards the purpose of peace and human good.

There is great freedom in simplicity of living, and after I began to feel this, I found harmony in my life between inner and outer well-being. There is a great deal to be said about such harmony, not only for an individual life but also for the life of a society. It's because as a world we have gotten ourselves so far out of harmony, so way off on the material side, that when we discover something like nuclear energy we are still capable of putting it into a bomb and using it to kill people! This is because our inner well-being lags so far behind our outer well-being.

[Internet] technology, like anything else that mankind creates is a tool and that tool can be used for good or for evil, like a light saber. Technology is supposed to bring people together, streamline things and make life easier and in a lot of ways it does that. However, technology can also disconnect you from other people and break down the social network, the real social network of family and friends and interpersonal communication, and isolate people, make them feel alone, make them feel small. So it's a tool that needs to be used correctly.

If you want to do evil, science provides the most powerful weapons to do evil; but equally, if you want to do good, science puts into your hands the most powerful tools to do so

I think we need to take a look at the technology, but not depend on it for things that require humanity.

No society has ever yet been able to handle the temptations of technology to mastery, to waste, to exuberance, to exploration and exploitation... We have to learn to cherish this earth and cherish it as something that's fragile, that's only one, it's all we have... We have to use our scientific knowledge to correct the dangers that have come from science and technology.

We cannot idealize technology. Technology is only and always the reflection of our own imagination, and its uses must be conditioned by our own values. Technology can help cure diseases, but we can prevent a lot of diseases by old-fashioned changes in behavior.

I think morality is more important than ever before. As we gain more power, the question of what we do with it becomes more and more crucial, and we are very close to really having divine powers of creation and destruction. The future of the entire ecological system and the future of the whole of life is really now in our hands. And what to do with it is an ethical question and also a scientific question.

Any new technology, if it's used by evil people, bad things can happen. But that's more a question of the politics of the technology.

Everybody should be ashamed who uses the wonders of science and engineering without thinking and having mentally realized not more of it than a cow realizes of the botany of the plants which it eats with pleasure.

There seems scarcely any limit to what could be done in the way of producing a good world, if only men would use science wisely.

I am all for your using machines, but do not let them use you.

Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich.

Science can give us only the tools in the box, these mechanical miracles that it has already given us. But of what use to us are miraculous tools until we have mastered the humane, cultural use of them? We do not want to live in a world where the machine has mastered the man; we want to live in a world where man has mastered the machine.

If we blow ourselves up we will do it by misapplication of science; if we manage to keep from blowing ourselves up, it will be through intelligent application of science.

The only weapon we have to oppose the bad effects of technology is technology itself. There is no other. We can't retreat into a nontechnological Eden which never existed...It is only by the rational use of technology to control and guide what technology is doing that we can keep any hopes of a social life more desireable than our own: or in fact of a social life which is not appalling to imagine.

Technology should be used for better purposes, for people's overall welfare and development of state and country, instead of misusing it to win elections.

The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value.

If we human beings rely only on material development, we can’t be sure of a positive outcome. Employing technology motivated by anger and hatred is likely to be destructive. It will only be beneficial if we seek the welfare of all beings. Human beings are the only species with the potential to destroy the world. Because of the risks of unrestrained desire and greed we need to cultivate contentment and simplicity.

If we are to become the masters of science, not its slaves, we must learn to use its immense power to good purpose. The machine itself has neither mind nor soul nor moral sense. Only man has been endowed with these godlike attributes. Every age has its destined duty. Ours is to nurture an awareness of those divine attributes and a sense of responsibility in giving them expression.

Automation does not need to be our enemy. I think machines can make life easier for men, if men do not let the machines dominate them.

Scientific and technological progress themselves are value-neutral. They are just very good at doing what they do. If you want to do selfish, greedy, intolerant and violent things, scientific technology will provide you with by far the most efficient way of doing so. But if you want to do good, to solve the world's problems, to progress in the best value-laden sense, once again, there is no better means to those ends than the scientific way.

Anybody can use science and technology without fundamentally altering his own frame of mind which governs how they are used.

I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It's up to you.