What is the law of unintended consequences and how powerful it is (for good and bad)

When the pioneers of social networks created them, they did so with the hope of opening spaces for people and communities to connect..

They soon realized that not all exchanges would be kind, but that was not wildly unexpected, given human nature.

What they could hardly have predicted is that in a matter of a few years the networks would become sophisticated tools to adjust the course of democracy to suit one trend or another.

Or that the leaders would hide behind them, alleging that through these means they communicated directly with the governed, thus denying them the right to question them.

And it is that Every innovation, in any field, brings with it unforeseen consequences, sometimes positive; others, negative, and often surprising.

It is a phenomenon that social observers from different disciplines have noted since ancient times.

The philosopher Plato, for example, illustrated this beautifully in the dialogue “Phaedrus.”

In it, Socrates tells that when the Egyptian god Teut – who had invented, among other things, letters – went to show King Tamus all his works, he asked him to explain how useful they were.

“When they came to the writing Teut said: ‘O king! This invention will make the Egyptians wiser and will serve their memory; I have discovered a remedy against the difficulty of learning and retaining.'”

The king responded that the genius inventor is not the best judge, and that, with respect to writing, he was attributing to it “the complete opposite of its true effects.”

“It will only produce oblivion in the souls of those who know it, making them despise their memories; they will trust in external writings and will not remember for themselves.

“What you discovered is not an aid to memory, but to reminiscence; and You do not give your disciples the truth, but only the appearance of the truth; They will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; They will appear omniscient and generally know nothing; “They will be tedious company, having the appearance of wisdom without reality.”

For Plato, true knowledge was achieved through Socratic dialogue: the search for answers through the effort of reflection and reasoning.

Even if you don’t agree with his opinion on writing, the story shows how even the most precious technologies can have unforeseen consequences.

Adam Smith, considered the father of modern economics, gave the name “the invisible hand” to one of the most famous of them.

The 18th-century Scottish philosopher argued that each individual who seeks only his own benefit “is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention,” generating widespread benefits.

Several thinkers discussed what is now called “the law of unanticipated consequences,” but it was the American sociologist Robert K. Merton who, in 1936, published the first analysis of the concept.

Merton begins his influential article “The unforeseen consequences of intended social action” commenting that until that moment no systematic scientific analysis of the topic had been done.

He supposes that perhaps it was because for most of human history the unexpected had been attributed to “the gods,” “fate,” or divine interference.

With the Age of Reason, we began to believe that life could be understood.

In his study, Merton identified 5 main causes of these unexpected outcomes.

Ignorance is the first: They are unforeseen, so, in some cases, no matter how much you wanted to, it would have been very difficult to guess that what happened would happen.

Those who developed the modern bicycle in the 1880s and 1890s were not planning to create a vehicle of women’s liberation.

It not only promoted the use of “rational clothing” but had a profound impact on women’s rights and roles in society.

“Let me tell you what I think about riding a bicycle,” suffragette Susan B. Anthony said in an 1896 interview.

“I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a sense of freedom and self-sufficiency. It makes them feel like they are independent (…) and it goes away, the image of a free and unrestricted femininity.”

Like this, myriad examples demonstrate that, Merton wrote, “the most obvious limitation on a correct anticipation of the consequences of an action is provided by the existing state of knowledge.”

Which, among others, sometimes led some to “support the argument that says in effect: ‘if we had known, we would have known’“he added.

The second main cause was the error: Sometimes the analysis fails or actions that have been successful in the past are repeated in new situations, without rethinking them.

The compelling immediacy of interestwhich leads to neglecting the consideration of long-term consequences since the primary concern is the expected immediate effects, is the third cause.

The fourth is “superficially similar to the immediacy factor”, but significantly different: the basic values.

These can lead us to act according to fundamental beliefs without considering the consequences.

Merton cited the case of the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism to illustrate this point.

The Protestant moral standards of hard work and asceticism “paradoxically lead to their own decay through the accumulation of wealth and possessions.”

And finally, a cause that sounds esoteric: the self-destructive prophecyin which you do not act for fear of negative and unforeseen consequences, or you warn of a future problem, and that leads to it not happening.

“To take a concrete social example,” Merton noted, “(Karl) Marx’s prediction of the progressive concentration of wealth and the increasing misery of the masses influenced the very process predicted.

“At least one of the consequences of socialist preaching in the 19th century was the expansion of the organization of labor, which (…) slowed down, if not eliminated, the events that Marx had predicted.”

In his book “The Logic of Chance,” mathematician and philosopher John Venn used the colorful term “suicidal prophecies” to name this fifth leading cause of unforeseen consequences.

Over time, other thinkers have added others, such as economist Kenneth Arrow, who contributed a warning: “most people underestimate the uncertainty of the world.”

Merton further classified 3 types of unanticipated consequences:

• unexpected benefitslike the many cases of fortuitous scientific discoveries;
• unexpected inconveniencesin which what was wanted may be achieved, but accompanied by negative aspects;
• perverse effectswhich result in the opposite of what was intended.

Because we are on the threshold of a new phase for humanity, probably one of the most significant of all..

The rapid emergence of a new generation of artificial intelligence systems that can make judgments and decisions and generate ideas is one of society’s greatest challenges.

Artificial intelligence is a huge leap into the unknown in different areas of our lives, from health to education, from the military to law, from the arts to transportation.

It will change our lives in ways we cannot yet imagine.

But we can’t afford not to.because behind the exciting innovation and enthusiasm for AI there are fundamental questions that we must ask ourselves, technological leaders and our rulers now.

“When it comes to AI, there are many who see it as something magical, or think that there will be an imminent battle between humans and robots, and the type of questions are like science fiction: ‘can a robot be trusted’? “.

“As a social scientist, I want to draw attention to the fact that really It is not a question of whether we trust a robot but of whether we trust the people behind the technologies“.

It is those AI entrepreneurs and innovators who have the power to radically shape our future.

But we are all, to a greater and lesser extent, the ones who must participate in decision-making today.

Artificial intelligence systems are trained with large amounts of information and learn to identify the patterns it contains to perform tasks.

The applications seem endless and range from helping doctors detect breast cancer to deciding what to show us on social networks or recommending what to buy.

What we have seen so far is the tip of the iceberg; However, at almost every step, in addition to wonders, the dangers have been evident, as well as the difficulty of combating them.

Take generative AI—one that, like ChatGPT and DALL-E, generates text or images that look like they were created by humans—it has a legion of followers.

But among them are child sexual abuse content creators who multiply their profits without the authorities being able to do much about it.

An unforeseen consequence?

Perhaps, but the question is what kind, because whether it is by mistake or by the imperative need of interest, they are difficult to excuse.

That’s why, although recent advances in AI have been hailed as revolutionary, even big names like Elon Musk have advocated a pause in its development.

Similar fears have led two of the three scientists known as the godfathers of AI for their pioneering research, Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, to speak out in this regard.

Stilgoe, who as a RAI researcher focuses on how we should shape the development of AI for the benefit of people, communities and society, is concerned about “the interest of those who develop the technology in not anticipating the consequences.”

In their quest to monetize their creations, “AI people develop their systems and release them into the world, and then it’s up to society to figure out what the consequences are and deal with them.

“There is a massive asymmetry because we leave innovators free of responsibility“.

The social scientist affirms that there are cases in which AI clearly has benefits, but he believes that it must be developed in the context of reliable institutions, which are interested “not only in what is good for an individual but for society in general.”

Thus, there will be chances that “AI will not only be effective, but also fair”.

Well, as Plato warned us about writing, any technology, no matter how wonderful, has its flaws.

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