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Technological Changes and Human Resources Set
coordinated by
Patrick Gilbert
Volume 1
Technological Change
Clotilde Coron
Patrick Gilbert
First published 2020 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd
27-37 St George’s Road
London SW19 4EU
UK
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030
USA
© ISTE Ltd 2020
The rights of Clotilde Coron and Patrick Gilbert to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020930221
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-437-7
Introduction
For a long time, technological change was considered synonymous with economic and social progress. Today, it stimulates some and worries others. To take just one example, the most emblematic, the massive arrival of new digital tools is disrupting consumption patterns, forms of employment and working conditions, and posing many challenges for organizations and individuals alike. While it is recognized that technological change is a key determinant of economic growth, it is also true that it can also amplify or even catalyze inequalities (by age, gender, level of education and skills, income, etc.). In short, technological change is also a social change with which it maintains complex interactions: technology is as much the source, ambivalent, as the consequence of social transformations. In particular, individuals are both human resources of technological transformations and receivers, more or less capable and accepting of its effects.
I.1. First definitions
The phenomenon we are about to discuss has a long history. However, there is still some uncertainty about the meaning of the terms used to describe it, so it is useful to start with a few definitions.
I.1.1. Technical, technological and technical objects
There is some confusion between the technical and technological, probably because of the respective connotations of these terms in everyday language. Today, the term “technological” tends to be used as a superlative of “technical” for which it is sometimes substituted. More pretentiously, it has come to refer to a modern and complex technique, such as information and communication processing techniques. While the term “technical” refers to well-demarcated know-how and the traditional industrial universe, the term “technological” is spontaneously associated with modern values. Resisting the current tendency to make the terms somewhat synonyms, we will follow the tradition introduced by sociologist and anthropologist Marcel Mauss (1872–1950), and extended in the anthropology of techniques, notably by Leroi-Gourhan (1911–1986), André-Georges Haudricourt (1911–1996), and others, by designating the technical the “effective traditional act”.
Let us take up the three elements of Mauss’ formula: the act, tradition and efficiency. First of all, a technology is not defined by a collection of objects, but by the concrete action it exerts on the world. It must be effective because, without sensitive effects and known as such, an act cannot be designated as such. Moreover, this act is described as traditional. For if it is not linked to a tradition, an act is neither intelligible nor reproducible, and cannot be transmitted to others.
Technologies are also based on invention and innovation, but they are not themselves totally independent of the knowledge and know-how accumulated in a given culture. Specifically, technology refers to all the processes and methods used in the production activities of an object or service. It is a real need for scientists, engineers and industrialists. But, undoubtedly precisely because of the diversity of these needs, it can hardly lead to a representation that is unanimously accepted.
As for technology, it is, according to the classical definition, the social science that takes a technique as its object, the study of techniques, tools, machines and materials. However, it should be recognized that clearly distinguishing the two concepts may seem difficult. Therefore, we will admit, by extension and according to a widespread use, the use of the term technology as a grouping of the techniques, procedures, methodologies, equipment and discourses associated with their implementation. In this second sense, we will speak of digital technology, biotechnology, agro-technology, etc.
In any case, we will not confuse the technical object, the product of human activity, with technology. The technical object is only one of its elements, the most concrete, the hard material of technology, “hardware”. It is a solid thing consisting of one or more tangible and intangible components (organs, information, energy and other resources), functionally arranged, designed and realized to meet a specific need or needs. Among the technical objects, we will distinguish between the technical equipment (infrastructure, machinery and tools) used to produce other objects, and the resulting products (see Figure I.1).
Figure I.1. From technology to object
These clarifications are proposed as conventions that we would like to share with the readers of this book. They will lead us, for example, to consider digital technology as the grouping of a set of technologies covering fields of application as diverse as medicine (video-endoscopy), prototype production (additive manufacturing or 3D printing), architecture (Building Information Models, or geometric representations of a building in 3D), and graphic creation (digital comic strips). Each of these technologies in turn brings together several objects. Thus, additive manufacturing