USE: Engineers in a changing world: past,
present, future
Jaar 1, Kwartiel 4
Introduction: The grand challenges for engineering
Emerging new technologies and the prospect of solving huge societal problems makes engineering
particularly important and exciting today. Yet this also raises fundamental questions. What choices
can and should engineers make? What are the implications? In turbulent times like ours, the future is
uncertain, and so are the consequences of our actions. In such times it is important that engineers
learn from similar problems and solutions from their discipline’s past, and that they learn to make
informed ethical choices on difficult technology-related issues.
The first lesson is that engineers have never operated in vacuum. This book shows that the dynamics,
success and social consequences of technology have always been shaped by User, Society and
Enterprise aspects of engineering – USE.
Society societal problems as poverty, hunger, etc.
Enterprise great business opportunities, or as a way to improve business processes or
worker conditions.
Users useful technology or just plain fun.
Successful key innovations usually combined user relevance, societal contributions, and a viable
business model. They adequately addressed the USE aspects of innovation.
A second lesson from engineering history is that some promising technologies have succeeded, while
others failed. USE often made difference between success and failure, between dream and
nightmare. And with regard to solving societal challenges: engineers have solved huge problems, but
their solutions have also introduced new ones. Inventions often had unintended and unwanted
consequences.
When searching solutions to present-day societal or business challenges, we need a good problem
diagnosis. How could our current change emerge from the past situation and how are USE dynamics
involved? Did technology and its USE aspects get out of synch, for instance because users started to
use technologies in harmful ways, societal priorities changed, or business models ceased to work? Or
did contradictions emerge between, say, the Enterprise and Society aspects of innovation, as in the
case of the 2015 Diesel gate scandal, where car producers installed software to cheat laboratory
emission tests?
The USE aspects of innovation play a key role: they condition the possibilities for change.
Alternatively, USE dynamics may create opportunities for change.
In other words: engineers need to look back as well as forward at the USE aspects of innovation, in
order to make informed choices today.
A third lesson from engineering history is about how to systematically incorporate USE
considerations in engineering and the innovation process.
In this book we explore two historical models of integrating USE considerations in the innovation
process. The technocratic approach centered on experts: Multidisciplinary expert teams would use
the scientific method to identify relevant USE issues, and to make better, more objective choices on
behalf of Users, Society and Enterprise. Scientists and engineers taking this approach often preferred
to shield their technological work from external government, manager or user influences.
In the participative approach, not experts, but USE stakeholders themselves bring in USE
considerations into the innovation process. Often, representatives from user groups, environmental
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, groups, business, and local politicians participated directly in technological decision making, or
worked closely with engineers in the design process.
Both approaches had their strengths and weaknesses. Today, the challenge seems to be to invent
new approaches to innovation that combine the best of both worlds.
Chapter 1: The age of promise, 1815-1914
1.1 Introduction
In 1815 when Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo, a long period of war ended, and a new era
began. In this new period of relative peace and optimism major technological dream emerged. Given
the industrial revolution and new scientific breakthroughs, the expectation was clear: the great
societal challenges that faced humanity would be solved. Inventions and innovations would change
the world.
By the end of this period, 1914, it was clear that this promise could deliver. In the most
technologically advanced countries, food, housing, and health for the masses were increasingly
within reach.
Several kinds of promises were made during the Age of Promise. These different promises are best
illustrated by one of the greatest and most influential tech events ever: the Great Exhibition of the
Works of Industry of All Nations, held in London in 1851.
The goal was to showcase groundbreaking technological achievements and design. The building
where it was hold, is called now the Crystal Palace.
To the organizers and the public, the exhibitions symbolized the promise of technology for Society:
technological advance and international industrial cooperation would create peace and progress in
the form of prosperity, health, liberty, and happiness for all.
More specific promises were also made. Entrepreneurs recognized that technology provided new
business opportunities. They created the technological company, which came to dominate the
nineteenth century business landscape.
Technology’s promises to Users were also on display. They saw technologies that promised to ease
their domestic and work lives. The Great Exhibition was designed to celebrate and motivate
industrial workers as both users – and producers – of the Industrial Revolution.
The London exhibit also became a rallying point of activists. These critical users established new
organizations to hold enterprises and governments responsible for meeting the promise of a better
world through technology.
Finally, the Great Exhibition illustrated the promise of engineering – a profession born in the Age of
Promise. The exhibition also sparked further professionalization: more technical-education and
engineering organizations in Britain and beyond. Technology’s promise of benefitting Society,
Enterprise, and Users also became the promise of advancing engineering itself – as both a discipline
and a profession.
So, the Great Exhibition of 1851 displayed a variety of technology’s promises: to Society, to
Enterprise, to Users and to professional Engineers and other technologists. These promises remain
with us today. The Age of Promise enables us to examine these original promises in greater detail –
and to assess how they evolved.
1.2 Society
Technology and international industrial cooperation would bring peace and progress.
In 1831 Michel Chevalier articulated one of the most influential technological visions ever:
technology, rather than political reform, would get Europe out of its permanent state of poverty,
class conflict, warfare, and dependence on the forces of nature.
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