The Design of Technology: Bridging Highly Advanced Science and Technology with Society Through the Creation of Products - Principia Designae: Pre-Design, Design, and Post-Design - page 13

with accidents). We might assume that the social system that copes with car
accidents was not organized when the car was first introduced.
Yet, the author believes that the Design of Technology involves issues that differ
from the issues that affected previous cases.
First, a number of highly advanced science and technologies involve completely
unimaginable notions (i.e., invisible dangers of significant magnitude and longitude).
Second, accidents and failures are unacceptable for a number of highly advanced
science and technologies because they might cause such significant damage that
society would be unable to recover.
These two issues are extremely difficult to approach. To address the first issue,
we must wait for society to accept these notions. This will take a long time because
society must create and share completely new views. The second issue appears
impossible to address. As mentioned in the previous section, we cannot control the
behaviors of products. Stable and safe behaviors developed after many experiences
with accidents or problems occurred. The author believes it is essentially impossi-
ble to obtain product stability and safety without the occurrence of experiences with
accidents or problems. Further, the social system that copes with negative aspects of
science and technology has been organized based on experiential accumulation. It
seems almost impossible to organize this type of system in advance without relying
on feedback obtained from actual experiences.
In this chapter, comparisons were made between “a car” and “a nuclear power
station.” It is important to note that these concepts cannot be aligned on the same
level. Rather, “a nuclear power station” should be compared with “a thermal power
station.” Even when we make comparisons in this case, the concept, “thermal
power station,” is similar to the concept, “steam locomotive.” However, if we
focus on all cars or thermal power stations used on the earth, we know they emit
a great deal of carbon dioxide, which is believed to cause global warming. Global
warming could cause significant damage from which society might be unable to
recover. This discussion suggests that even conventional science and technology
will display the same characteristics as highly advanced science and technology
when its products are used in large quantities.
Currently, if we engage in the Design of Technology, we should remember that
some essential issues remain unsolved. We must hope that intellectuals from many
fields (e.g., designers, researchers, artists, novelists, sociologists, philosophers, etc.)
will collaborate to develop and orchestrate new harmonious knowledge.
Acknowledgments The conceptions introduced in this chapter were based on discussions I had
with Prof. Michio Ito (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan) and Prof. Yukari
Nagai (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). The author would like to express
deep gratitude to them both. The idea that the term, “responsibility,” came into use after the
Industrial Revolution began was based on a comment made by Tomonobu Imamichi during a
personal conversation we had in 1996. The concept of the differences that exist between risk and
danger developed from a comment made by Michio Ito during a conversation we had in 2012. His
comment was based on the work of Ulrich Beck.