Technology assessment in public policy: A new instrument for social management of technology

In a cultural tradition that man not lose control over his destiny, society must be the keeper of its technology. Toward that end, society already directs specialized technical knowledge to achieve its needs and wants, employing a host of public and private institutions. First in potency among these is the federal government. There is a problem, however, of conflicts in goals, policies and institutional aspirations in a pluralistic society, and inequitable representation in the decision process, that leads to an imbalance in costs and benefits or inequities in their social distribution. Correctives may be technically strenuous, economically expensive, or politically improbable. Thus to manage technology to gain consensual outcomes, society needs to focus its preferences, develop forecasts as to expected and unexpected social and environmental consequences of technological initiatives, and inject precrisis planning into the public decision making process. Achieving these goals is the task conferred on technology assesment. Technology assessment can thus help reduce uncertainty and widen the range of options, reduce arbitrariness and expediency of solutions, limit penalties of poor choices, and improve allocation of common resources, and with public involvement, it can increase accountability. Technology assessment based on technical fact thus comprises an early warning system to shorten lags in response to problems, or alter response, by meeting deficiencies in traditional institutions created to deliver technologically based goods and service. Examples are included.