(Photo credit: Paul Hudson (2021), ‘Return to normal – 67: “The Cause of all of this”‘. https://flic.kr/p/2kYQaJQ (CC BY 2.0 DEED))
It is common to hear pronouncements about the supposed potential of single technologies to ‘disrupt’ or ‘transform’ complex systems in simple, linear, causal ways. For example, currently among educationalists, as in other domains, there is an excitedly vocal group of people who believe the transformation of education through generative AI is imminent.
This kind of fervent, overly determined techno-optimism has much in common with the ideation of conspiracy theories relating to advanced technologies. In fact, advocates of techno-optimist futures, and the proponents of conspiracy theories such as the supposed causal relationship between 5G and COVID-19, share common cognitive, dispositional and contextual characteristics.
Both technology-related conspiracy theories and techno-optimist projections make common reasoning and judgement errors about the nature and origin of macro sociotechnological outcomes. Both often fail to demonstrate awareness and understanding of the structures and processes that shape such outcomes in the long term (Archer, 1995; Healy, 1998). Flaherty, Sterm and Farries (2022), in an examination of spatial analysis fallacies in conspiracy theories linking the spread of COVID-19 to 5G infrastructure, show how these conspiracy theories are over-determined errors of probabilistic reasoning, which fail to understand the emergent and non-linear nature of processes that shape macro-level outcomes.
This may be an easy mistake to make. As Flaherty, Sterm and Farries observe, the understanding of the relative role of structures versus individual actions in determining sociotechnological outcomes is ‘a central problem of explanation in social science’:
‘Several such shaping processes are described at a high level of generality by heuristics such as path dependency or institutional lock-in/convergence … Fundamental social-shaping processes are largely “hidden” by the minutiae of everyday life and the time-spans on which social change occurs, yet their consequences are everywhere evident … In short, there are structuring processes at work at all levels of human social life – detectable to the analyst, but largely invisible to the individual.‘
Thus, the authors of overly determined techno-optimist predictions of transformation are making an error of reasoning similar to the fallacy of conspiracy theorists who claim a causal relationship between 5G infrastructure and patterns of COVID-19 infection. Both fill the interpretative gap left by hidden or hard-to-see structures in similar ways, with preferred, subjectively probable alternative representations of events (Brotherton and French, 2014).
What’s more, both techno-optimists and conspiracy theorists are insensitive to the emergent properties of complex systems. Again, this is, perhaps, an understandable error. Flaherty, Sterm and Farries (2022) show that the ‘emergence problem’ is a long-standing epistemological and methodological question in the social sciences (Byrne, 2002; de Haan, 2006; Duit and Galez, 2008; Roberts, 2006; Sawyer, 2005). The question here is: are the collective properties of a sociotechnological system reducible to the actions of individuals, or, rather, are macro-level characteristics ‘aggregated up’ from micro-level actions?
Like structuring processes, emergent properties are hard to discern. They are complex, longer wavelength, and irreducible to local actions or individual experience (Bhaskar, 1997; Sawyer, 2005). Consequently, techno-optimists and conspiracy theorists alike make similar, over-determined errors of reasoning which prioritise preferred subjective explanations of complex events. Both seek to make sense of ambiguity by telling alternative fictions that attempt to unify and explain both what is observed in individual experience, and what is imagined to be the ‘bigger picture’ determining longer-term sociotechnological outcomes.
Not only do techno-optimists and conspiracy theorists repeat commonly recognisable fallacies and errors of judgment and reasoning, but they share certain other dispositional and contextual characteristics.
Conspiracy theories and techno-optimism alike thrive on large-scale, significant sociotechnological events, such as pandemic vaccination programmes, and the wave of generative AI. The tendency to perceive causal connections and deterministic logics, such as the ‘transformation’ of education, is heightened when the phenomena are large in scale (Whitson and Galinsky, 2008; van Prooijen, 2016), and where there are co-occurring events which can be drawn into causal connection, in what are known as conjunction fallacies (Brotherton and French, 2014). So, for 5G-COVID conspiracists, the construction of 5G infrastructure in urban spaces is drawn into association with the high density of COVID-19 cases in the same urban spaces to suggest a causal relationship between 5G and COVID infection. In a similar way, the ‘transformation’ of education by generative AI is imagined to be more likely, even more necessary, because of the presence of co-occurring events such as the problem of recruiting and retaining teachers, or declining learner participation and engagement.
This tendency to see representative coincidences, and underlying causal relationships, between covarying phenomena is known as ‘patternicity’ (Shermer, 2008). Those with a tendency to patternicity hold beliefs or motivations sufficient to override objective assessment of complicated or complex phenomena, such as the diffusion of technologies in complex societies (van der Wal et al., 2018). Some groups are more prone to patternicity than others. Experimental studies indicate that the tendency to perceive causal patterns is more likely among those who perceive themselves to be lacking in control (Whitson and Galinsky, 2008), and observational data indicate that belief in conspiracy theories is more prevalent among structurally disempowered groups (Thompson et al., 2021; van Prooijen, 2016).
Am I saying that educators awaiting the generative AI rapture are disempowered, or perceive themselves to be lacking control? Yes. To an extent, we are all powerless and without control before the current wave of AI capitalism. Moreover, educationalists at all levels – primary, secondary and tertiary, school, college and university – now frequently self-identify, and even celebrate their status, as oppressed and exploited by neoliberalist institutions (see, for example, Bell et al., 2023).
Finally, there is a positive relationship between social media use and the tendency to believe conspiracy theories and misinformation (Enders et al., 2021). Notice also that techno-optimist predictions of sociotechnological outcomes such as the transformation of education tend to proliferate on social media rather than in, for instance, peer-reviewed academic publications, or even in day-to-day conversation in institutions.
Why does this matter?
It matters because techno-optimist projections of future outcomes are not innocent or without consequence. When we make overblown claims for the transformative outcomes of a specific technology, not only do we normalise and legitimate conspiratorial applications of the same cognitive distortions, but we give credence to the fallacies themselves. If we are confident in our belief that a single given technology has the power to transform education, or reverse climate change, we should not be surprised when others argue with similar assurance for other equally spurious sociotechnological outcomes, such as the ability of 5G to spread COVID-19.
As educators in particular, we should consider whether it is responsible or ethical to participate in making such simplistic, subjective and fallacious projections about emergent processes of sociotechnological formation.
Single technologies do not transform anything, least of all complex, long-standing sociotechnological regimes such as education.
To claim that they do is reckless ignorance.
This post is accompanied by a colour photo by Paul Hudson entitled ‘Return to normal – 67: “The Cause of all of this”‘ in which we see the upper section of a 5G telecommunications mast, a tall, thin, vertical structure of grey white panels and black cables, against a blue daylight sky which is mostly covered in the photo by dense grey-white clouds.
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Matthew Moran 