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@mxp@mastodon.acm.org
2025-08-17 20:51:59

Interesting observation by Langdon Winner regarding technological transformation: “by the time the issue of ‘use’ comes up for consideration at all, many of the most interesting questions involved in how technologies are constituted and how they affect what we do are settled or sub-merged.”
This is happening right now with #GenAI .

Excerpt from Langdon Winner (1977): Autonomous Technology, p. 224:

It is important to notice that the problem we are considering here has nothing to do with the traditional notion of “use” and “misuse.” Technological transformation occurs prior to any “use,” good or ill, and takes place as a consequence of the construction and operating design of technological systems. The phenomenon is found where an instrument is taking shape as an instrument but before the time when the instrument is employ…
‪@mxp@mastodon.acm.org‬
2025-08-17 20:51:59

Interesting observation by Langdon Winner regarding technological transformation: “by the time the issue of ‘use’ comes up for consideration at all, many of the most interesting questions involved in how technologies are constituted and how they affect what we do are settled or sub-merged.”
This is happening right now with #GenAI .

@mxp@mastodon.acm.org‬
2025-08-17 20:51:59

Interesting observation by Langdon Winner regarding technological transformation: “by the time the issue of ‘use’ comes up for consideration at all, many of the most interesting questions involved in how technologies are constituted and how they affect what we do are settled or sub-merged.”
This is happening right now with #GenAI .