Technology Assessment Quotes

Societies will, of course, wish to exercise prudence in deciding which technologies that is, which applications of science are to be pursued and which not. But without funding basic research, without supporting the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake, our options become dangerously limited.

If we had a reliable way to label our toys good and bad, it would be easy to regulate technology wisely. But we can rarely see far enough ahead to know which road leads to damnation. Whoever concerns himself with big technology, either to push it forward or to stop it, is gambling in human lives.

Despite claims by some to the contrary, we have heard numerous times in hearings and briefings by experts that existing technologies do not fully or effectively detect nuclear material.

Bio Life Technical's strategy of providing technical due diligence by expert professors from core disciplines and world class experts working with interdisciplinary institutes, such as Imperial College's Institute of Biomedical Engineering, will enable a more thorough scientific evaluation of the technology.

And this is one way to do technology forecasting; get a sense of where technology is, and then anticipate the next upturn.

Our society lacks a feedback loop for controlling technology: a way to gauge intended effects from actual effects later on

So the technology that does the least alteration of nature, the least harm to other species and systems, and provides the greatest intimacy of human with nature, is the best. We could make a scale with that in mind, and judge any technology by its place on that scale: speech and eyeglasses, say, would rank low; nuclear bombs and coal plants, high.

You may think using Google's great, but I still think it's terrible.

All technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent

I wanted to make sure that this be the first scientific and technology revolution in history in which the public thoroughly discussed all the potential benefits and all the potential harms, in advance of the technology coming online and running its course.

I try to be objective about technology. Agnostic, in a sense. Whatever personal opinions I form tend to have more to do with what we find to do with the new thing.

Spend 10% of the project budget making sure you understand problem, the key technologies involved, and have looked at all of the options before you dive into the detailed design.

We have self-assessment tools, computer-based tools to see how we are performing mentally in outer space and there's some also very interesting technology and work that's being funded by NRSBI to look at facial recognition to look at your patterns to see if you're experiencing stress or fatigue. It's a kind of thing that I think will gain acceptance with gradually. But it probably has more to immediate application in things like homeland security, and looking at facial recognition of people going through airports and things like that to see who's under stress.

As to Bell's talking telegraph, it only creates interest in scientific circles... its commercial values will be limited.

How do we judge whether technology is making us more productive, or just lazy and impatient?

I think we need missile defense. But I want to make sure it works, that it's cost effective, that the technologies are operable, that it's our best possible strategy, and that hasn't been shown.

Nobody wants to be against technology, but I think that regulators should not - and people should not - assume that faster is always better in markets. We need to question technology to insure that markets continue to perform their fundamental purposes.

Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried.

We need to question technology to insure that markets continue to perform their fundamental purposes.