This document discusses unintended consequences that can arise from new technologies. It notes that unintended consequences occur because of ignorance of potential effects, errors in problem analysis, focus on immediate interests over long-term impacts, and values that require or prohibit certain actions. The document provides examples of recent technologies that led to unintended consequences, such as social media increasing isolation. It considers potential unintended consequences of autonomous vehicles, such as increased vehicle miles leading to more accidents overall. The document urges considering how changes might cause further changes, being careful with large-scale projects, mapping out impacted systems, and expecting surprises.

1. Unintended Consequences & Tech:
Why Things Often Don’t Go The Way We Plan
Paul Orlando
@porlando
https://UnintendedConsequenc.es/

2. Why am I interested in
Unintended Consequences?

4. I gained encouragement when my writing was covered in publications including these.

5. “Causes of Unanticipated Consequences
of Purposive Social Action”
(Robert Merton)
- Ignorance of potential effects
- Errors in problem analysis
- Immediate interests over the long-term
- Basic values require/prohibit certain actions
- Self-defeating prophecies

6. Event Goal Outcome
A or A B
A
A A
Category
Unexpected
Benefit
Unexpected
Drawback
Perverse
Result
B
Unintended Consequences Categories

7. Recent Examples

14. How do you judge those examples?
- Impact you personally feel?
- Weight the overall group impact?
- Let the market decide?
- Regulate to slow down the change?
- Compensate those negatively affected?
- Unavoidable part of progress?
- How do you measure risk?

15. Projecting Some New Examples

16. monthlyfatalities
Current State of US Road Fatalities
3,000 per month

17. monthlyfatalities
Autonomous Cars Widespread
“Best” Case of US Road Fatalities
Something way less than 3,000 per month…
30 per month???

18. Thought experiment…
What would it take to increase the fatality rate in the
current human-driver world?
…
Lobby to make cars less safe? Reduce the driving age to 5?
Encourage drinking?
I don’t think it’s possible.

19. monthlyfatalities Autonomous Cars Widespread
Large Hack or Bug With Quick Resolution,
Impact on US Road Fatalities
Still overall better?
Swaps certainty for uncertainty?

20. monthlyfatalities
Autonomous Cars Widespread
- No bugs, No hacks -
Alternate Case of US Road Fatalities
Lower accident rate per million miles driven,
But many more miles driven, so accident rate remains high…
Lost organ donors…?

23. Error propagation

24. Emergence
Occurs where parts of a system interact to form
something different from what each part contributes
independently.
Compare:
- Hydrogen & oxygen atoms combine to form water
(different in combination than individual atoms),
- Water molecules combine to form drops (different
from individual molecules with properties like
surface tension),
- Drops of water combine to form rivers and oceans
(different again with their currents and waves).

25. Where might we now be exposed to
unintended consequences?
- Universal Basic Income
- Education: funding, STEM, student loans
- Media disinformation and misinformation
- Cannabis legalization
- Autonomous vehicles
- Changes in diet and lifespan
Can we develop antidotes to these effects?

26. What you can do…
Consider what changes a change might beget.
Be careful with top-down, large-scale projects.
Try to map out the system you will impact.
Expect to be surprised.

27. Unintended Consequences:
Why Things Often Don’t Go The Way We Plan
Paul Orlando
@porlando
https://UnintendedConsequenc.es/