Scientific and technological revolution, its impact on social development. Summary: Scientific and technological revolution and its impact on the course of social development
scientific revolution social consequence
The transformation of individual and joint activities of people towards the intensification and unification of its nature, the release of a significant amount of free time and human resources have led to significant qualitative changes in the lifestyle of modern man. It is the development of the scientific and technological revolution that is primarily associated with the transition from an industrial to the so-called “post-industrial society”, which is characterized by: the priority of not production, but information and service spheres, the spread of professionalism in all areas of activity and the transition from a class to a professionally stratified society, the leading role of scientific elites in determining public policy and management, a high degree of global integration both in the field of economy and culture.
Modern philosophy and sociology are characterized by an ambiguous assessment of the phenomenon of scientific and technological revolution. Traditionally, there are two main approaches to assessing scientific progress - the optimistic one, which considers the scientific and technological revolution as a natural stage of social and scientific development in the general context of the modernization of the human community, which will ensure the further development of human civilization, and the pessimistic one, which focuses on the negative consequences of technical development. (environmental disasters, the threat of a nuclear apocalypse, the ability to manipulate consciousness, the standardization of human activity and the alienation of the individual, the negative impact of technology on the human body and psyche, etc.).
Today, the achievements of science in one way or another affect the life of every person, no matter where he lives and whatever he does. For example, an illiterate resident of some Afro-Asian country - with a transistor, literacy in India - through satellite television. A modern manager - in a car, with a computer, cellular communication - is able to perform his functional duties, being in a traffic jam.
The amount of knowledge, methods of mastering it, the duration of training, and much more depend on the pace and depth of the deployment of scientific and technological revolution. The main learning paradigm is changing. The main thing is not the assimilation of a certain amount of information, but the ability to find it, to work with this information. Figuratively speaking, not the specialist who knows a lot is valued, but the one who knows where you can quickly find the information you need. One of the main goals of education is the formation of a person's need for self-education, in the constant replenishment of their knowledge.
For people of predominantly physical labor, their own problems arise. Under the influence of modern technological and information upheavals, the time for updating technologies in leading industries is reduced to an average of 5 years. Consequently, the worker, remaining within the framework of the former profession, is forced to change it, constantly retrain. All this will require from a person professional flexibility, mobility, high adaptability and, of course, constant improvement of their professional knowledge.
Also, new technical means create conditions for the dissemination of scientific, technical, cultural and artistic knowledge, enrichment of people with information and cultural values.
But the adaptation of a person to the environment that he has adapted to his life is a very difficult process. The rapid development of the technosphere is ahead of the evolutionarily established adaptive capabilities of man. Difficulties in matching the psycho-physiological potentials of a person with the requirements of modern technology and technology have been recorded everywhere both theoretically and practically. Increasing mental stress, which a person is increasingly faced with in the modern world, causes the accumulation of negative emotions and often stimulates the use of artificial means of relieving stress. The constantly changing world cuts off many roots, traditions, makes a person live in different cultures, adapt to constantly renewing circumstances.
The negative consequences of the scientific and technological revolution can also include the growing gap in the level of economic and cultural development between the developed industrial countries of the West and the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America; an ecological crisis generated by a catastrophic intrusion of man into the biosphere, accompanied by pollution of the natural environment - the atmosphere, soil, water basins - by industrial and agricultural waste; displacement of most of the population from the active sphere of activity.
Also, one of the negative factors of modern scientific and technological revolution is the stratification of mankind. Man is a social being, he never evaluates absolute indicators, but evaluates everything in comparison. Stratification occurs in several ways. Stratification by property. The NTR will strengthen it due to the fact that everyone has different starting opportunities, and the result of the NTR will be the multiplication of the initial capital. Stratification according to age. The acceleration of the pace of scientific and technological development has become obvious. The rapid change in living conditions caused by this acceleration is one of the factors negatively affecting the formation of a homeostatic system of customs and norms in the modern world. Stratification on an intellectual basis.
Of fundamental importance, however, is not the compilation of a somewhat exhaustive list of problems, but the identification of their origin, nature and characteristics, and most importantly, the search for scientifically substantiated and practically realistic ways to solve them. It is with this that a number of general theoretical, socio-philosophical and methodological issues in their study are connected, which by now have developed into a consistent concept of the problems of our time, based on the achievements of modern science and philosophy.
From all of the above, it is clear that the scientific and technological revolution, no matter how effective it may be, only provides a basis for the development of a person, but it is difficult or even almost impossible to predict how he uses this base.
Conclusion
The all-round development of a person begins, undoubtedly, from the main side of human activity - from labor, creative and creative. It is in it that his inner essence is most fully manifested. In this regard, the prospect of such a “facilitation” of human labor as a result of the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution, portrayed by some futurologists, is very doubtful, when a person will only watch machines. Labor brings joy to a person and even with its certain intensity, since it sets rather complex mental and physical tasks for a person, which he solves with pleasure and thereby asserts himself.
Most people already reflexively react to typical situations, this is quite understandable, life is accelerating more and more, at the same time becoming more complicated, there is no time to think for a long time decisions must be made here and now, otherwise you may not have time. Science is moving forward by leaps and bounds, the main feature of modern science is the formalization of the problem, with its subsequent decomposition and reduction to typical ones, resolved by known algorithms, and since life is now completely unthinkable without the achievements of science, all actions taking place in society are reduced to typical ones with previously known results. And society itself, over the years of its existence, has developed persistent stereotypes of behavior. Undoubtedly, all this is correct, but life is not always possible to squeeze into the rigid framework of our ideas about it.
In the face of weakening confrontation in the world, it is possible to exclude the development of new types of weapons, to solve global problems - the global environmental crisis, famine, epidemics, illiteracy, etc. Scientific and technological revolution allows you to eliminate the threat of an ecological catastrophe, use the energy of the sun, water, wind, and the depths of the Earth.
Progress gives humanity opportunities that open up new aspects of the world for us. Science and technology have become the driving forces of civilization. Without them it is impossible to imagine the further development of mankind. A turn to a new form of progress is expected. Without everything we have achieved, we cannot become better. I think that this form of progress will tend towards wastelessness, a minimum of resource consumption, the problems of man and machines, the intense rhythm of life and self-destruction in the technology environment will disappear.
Social consequences of scientific and technological revolution
Under the influence of scientific and technological revolution, there were significant changes in the social structure of society. Along with the accelerated growth of the urban population, the share of those employed in the service and trade sectors increased at an enormous pace. The appearance of the worker was changing, his qualifications, the level of general education and professional training were growing; level of pay, and with it the level and style of life. The social status of industrial workers was increasingly approaching the indicators of the life of employees and specialists. On the basis of structural changes in the national economy, the sectoral composition of the working class changed. There was a reduction in employment in industries with a high degree of labor intensity (mining, traditional light industries, etc.) and an increase in employment in new industries (radio electronics, computers, nuclear energy, polymer chemistry, etc.).
By the beginning of the 70s. the size of the middle strata of the population ranged from 1/4 to 1/3 of the active population. There was an increase in the share of small and medium-sized owners.
In the 70s. The West has increasingly reoriented its economy towards social needs. Scientific and technical programs have become more closely linked with social programs. This was not long in affecting the improvement of technical equipment and the quality of labor, the growth of working people's incomes, and the growth of per capita consumption.
Minuses
Global environmental crisis
Demographic explosion
Scientific and technical progress
There are statements about the impending crisis of scientific and technological progress.
Positive processes of scientific and technological revolution
1) Expanding the horizons of knowledge.
2) Global networks and infrastructure.
3) Opportunities for spiritual growth.
4) Humanization of knowledge.
5) Independence from external factors.
The impact of scientific and technological revolution on the world economy. The modern world economy is changing significantly under the influence of
rapid development of science and technology. This manifests itself in three main directions: the acceleration of production rates, changes in the sectoral structure of the economy and shifts in the location of the economy.
Changes in the sectoral structure of the economy during the scientific and technological revolution are profound.
- First, the ratio between the production and non-production spheres has changed. The number of employees in the service sector is growing rapidly and has already reached 1/3 of all employees. At the same time, employment in the manufacturing sector is declining.
- Secondly, in the sphere of material production, the proportions between its branches are changing: the number of workers in industry and transport is stabilizing, it is decreasing in agriculture, and it is growing in trade.
- Thirdly, significant shifts are also taking place in the structure of each of the industries. In industry, employment in the extractive industry is decreasing and it is growing in the manufacturing industry. However, the role of the “avant-garde trio” of industries has been rapidly growing recently: mechanical engineering (in the period of scientific and technological revolution it provides the economy with machines and mechanisms), electric power industry (without which there will be no machine) and the chemical industry (provides production with new materials). These three industries account for half of the world's industrial production.
At the same time, the latest science-intensive industries come to the fore: microelectronics, instrumentation, robotic construction, the aerospace industry, and the chemistry of organic synthesis. At the same time, the importance of the old industries (ferrous metallurgy, textile and timber industry) is decreasing.
In agriculture, the number of people employed in crop production is decreasing and somewhat increasing in animal husbandry. A “green revolution” took place in crop production, which consisted in the introduction of highly productive plant varieties, mechanization of the economy and land reclamation. In animal husbandry, there has been a transition of some types of production (poultry farms, cattle breeding complexes) to industrial technologies. In these industries, not only mechanization is introduced, but automation, i.e. control by means of machines and mechanisms.
In the era of scientific and technological revolution, the role of passenger and cargo transportation is increasing. The importance of the old modes of transport (river, sea, rail) is somewhat decreasing, and the role of the newest (air, road, pipeline, electronic) is increasing. The containerization of goods has greatly simplified transportation. However, the old modes of transport will also undergo significant changes. New vehicles appear: hovercraft and maglev trains, hydrofoils, nuclear-powered ships, etc. A research copy of the latest vehicle has been developed at the Kiev Aviant plant, which combines the best properties of a car and a helicopter. He was given the working name "aeroauto".
The scientific and technological revolution has changed the commodity structure of trade. The purchase and sale of finished goods is growing, while raw materials and foodstuffs are declining. A new form of trade has emerged - technologies: licenses, patents, technical expertise. The United States is the main seller of technology on the world market, and Japan is the buyer.
Significant shifts are taking place in the location of production: the role of some factors to which enterprises gravitate is decreasing, while others are increasing. Once a determining factor in raw materials, now it is of secondary importance. But the role of the transport factor is growing. The economy of highly developed countries now works mainly on imported raw materials, so economic objects are moving to the sea coasts.
The influence of such a factor as labor resources is also increasing. This is especially true for the location of labor-intensive and knowledge-intensive industries. The role of qualified personnel is increasing. When placing enterprises, the environmental factor is increasingly taken into account. Increasingly, "dirty" industries are being moved to areas with a lower population concentration. Highly developed countries are moving branches of their environmentally hazardous industries (in particular, non-ferrous metallurgy) to developing ones. Thus, we live in a period of scientific and technological revolution, which significantly affects all spheres of human activity.
At the present stage, the scientific and technological revolution (STR) causes profound changes in the structure of productive forces, inter- and intra-industry proportions in the national economies of an ever-growing number of countries and the world economy as a whole. The strategy of industrial sectors, on which the economic power of the leading countries of the world has been based for a long time, the transfer of a number of traditional industrial productions from industrial countries to new regions of the world, an increase in the share of science-intensive products and various kinds of services, all these processes lead to dynamic and profound changes in the world economy, MRI, the world market, which determine their qualitative features at the turn of the third millennium.
The growing impact of scientific and technological revolution is experienced by the general conditions of production and the sphere of personal consumption. In the 1950s and 1960s, the role of "locomotives" of economic growth, the development of science and technology in the world was played by automobile, aircraft, shipbuilding and industries related to them in complex (metallurgy, road construction, extractive industries). A common feature of their development is the orientation towards the mass production of standard products using highly specialized equipment, the use of automatic lines with a rigid specialization and, accordingly, the standardization of consumption. The development of material- and energy-intensive industries, cost reduction was achieved mainly due to the growth of the scale of production.
The new technological base, the availability of information from the beginning of the 80s are changing the conditions of production and consumption. The individualization of demand, the growth in the saturation of mass needs, the shortening of the time for satisfying demand, the constant threat of overproduction, a number of socio-economic factors - all this has sharply increased the role of consumer demand as an incentive for the qualitative development of production and services. Or otherwise, the formation of directions of technical progress, the ultimate efficiency of material and spiritual production.
Modern modular multi-purpose equipment allows increasing the flexibility of production programs, optimizing the combination of large and small production, making it efficient to simultaneously produce many modifications of one product, designed to increase the degree and speed of meeting the increasingly differentiating demand in a particular market or segment. This new trend has a universal meaning: as a result, cost reduction is associated not so much with economies of scale, but with economies of variety or optimal variation of scale.
New technologies bring into action qualitatively new economic ties: they are aimed at saving resources, individualization and specialization of production and consumption. The cumulative result of new connections goes not so much along the cost chain, but along the axis of the growing effect of their application. The chain reaction here has the effect of saving all kinds of resources. Increasing the role of consumers in the "producer-consumer" system results in the implementation of a set of organizational and managerial measures at the corporate level of a marketing nature (strengthening the connection between research and development work and production activities with marketing policy, preliminary identification and assessment of consumer capabilities, focus on meeting a narrow specific demand).
The use of new technologies affects world economic relations. The established nature of MRI is changing as the latest forms of automation deprive developing countries in a growing number of economic activities of part of the benefits associated with the presence of a large cheap labor force, which affects the traditional incentives for capital outflow. They are shifting from savings on labor costs to savings on the costs associated with lower standards for environmental cleanliness and labor safety, which developing countries go to in order to industrialize their national economies. In addition to the export of goods and capital, industrialized countries are increasingly using the export of scientific and technical information and scientific and technical services as a "ram" of great punch to establish and expand their positions in the world market.
Thus, the modern world is rapidly moving towards a new, synthesized model of development. It is characterized not only by a qualitative renewal of the technological base of production, the widespread introduction of resource and energy-saving technologies, but also by fundamentally important shifts in the structure, content and nature of production and consumption processes. The world community is gradually overcoming the "struggle between the two systems" syndrome. But the demolition of the bipolar model of international relations revealed another most acute conflict in the world - between the central (North) and peripheral parts (South) in the structure of the world economy. The problem of survival makes necessary the organic integration of these two parts on the basis of their mutual adaptation and active connections.
IX.7. Scientific and technological revolution, its technological and social consequences
Scientific and technological revolution (STR) is a concept used to refer to those qualitative transformations that took place in science and technology in the second half of the twentieth century. The beginning of the scientific and technological revolution dates back to the mid-1940s. XX century In the course of it, the process of turning science into a direct productive force is completed. Scientific and technological revolution changes the conditions, nature and content of labor, the structure of productive forces, the social division of labor, the sectoral and professional structure of society, leads to a rapid increase in labor productivity, affects all aspects of society, including culture, life, people's psychology, the relationship of society with nature.
The scientific and technological revolution is a long process that has two main prerequisites - scientific and technological and social. The most important role in the preparation of the scientific and technological revolution was played by the successes of natural science in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as a result of which a radical change took place in the views on matter and a new picture of the world was formed. The following were discovered: the electron, the phenomenon of radioactivity, X-rays, the theory of relativity and quantum theory were created. Science has made a breakthrough into the microworld and high speeds.
A revolutionary shift also occurred in technology, primarily under the influence of the use of electricity in industry and transport. Radio was invented and became widespread. Aviation was born. In the 40s. science has solved the problem of splitting the atomic nucleus. Mankind has mastered atomic energy. The emergence of cybernetics was of paramount importance. Research into the creation of atomic reactors and the atomic bomb forced the capitalist states for the first time to organize interaction between science and industry within the framework of a major national scientific and technical project. It served as a school for nationwide scientific and technical research programs.
A sharp increase in allocations for science and the number of research institutions began. 1 Scientific activity has become a mass profession. In the second half of the 50s. Under the influence of the successes of the USSR in the study of outer space and the Soviet experience in the organization and planning of science in most countries, the creation of national bodies for planning and managing scientific activities began. Direct ties between scientific and technical developments have intensified, and the use of scientific achievements in production has accelerated. In the 50s. electronic computers (computers) are created and are widely used in scientific research, production, and then management, which have become a symbol of scientific and technological revolution. Their appearance marks the beginning of the gradual transfer to the machine of performing the elementary logical functions of a person. The development of informatics, computer technology, microprocessors and robotics created the conditions for the transition to integrated automation of production and control. A computer is a fundamentally new type of technology that changes the position of a person in the production process.
At the present stage of its development, the scientific and technological revolution is characterized by the following main features.
1). .The transformation of science into a direct productive force as a result of merging together a revolution in science, technology and production, strengthening the interaction between them and reducing the time from the birth of a new scientific idea to its production implementation. 1
2). A new stage in the social division of labor associated with the transformation of science into the leading sphere of the development of society.
3). Qualitative transformation of all elements of the productive forces - the object of labor, the tools of production and the worker himself; increasing intensification of the entire production process due to its scientific organization and rationalization, constant updating of technology, energy conservation, reduction of material consumption, capital intensity and labor intensity of products. The new knowledge acquired by society makes it possible to reduce the cost of raw materials, equipment and labor, recouping the costs of research and development many times over.
4) A change in the nature and content of labor, an increase in the role of creative elements in it; the transformation of the production process from a simple labor process into a scientific process.
5). The emergence on this basis of the material and technical prerequisites for reducing manual labor and replacing it with mechanized labor. In the future, there is an automation of production based on the use of electronic computers.
6). Creation of new energy sources and artificial materials with predetermined properties.
7). The enormous increase in the social and economic significance of information activity, the gigantic development of the mass media communications .
8). Growth in the level of general and special education and culture of the population.
9). Increase in free time.
10). An increase in the interaction of sciences, a comprehensive study of complex problems, the role of social sciences.
eleven). A sharp acceleration of all social processes, further internationalization of all human activity on a planetary scale, the emergence of so-called global problems.
Along with the main features of the scientific and technological revolution, certain stages of its development and the main scientific, technical and technological directions characteristic of these stages can be distinguished.
Achievements in the field of atomic physics (the implementation of a nuclear chain reaction that opened the way to the creation of atomic weapons), the successes of molecular biology (expressed in the disclosure of the genetic role of nucleic acids, the decoding of the DNA molecule and its subsequent biosynthesis), as well as the emergence of cybernetics (which established a certain analogy between living organisms and some technical devices that are information converters) gave rise to the scientific and technological revolution and determined the main natural scientific directions of its first stage. This stage, which began in the 1940s and 1950s, continued almost until the end of the 1970s. The main technical areas of the first stage of the scientific and technological revolution were nuclear power engineering, electronic computers (which became the technical basis of cybernetics), and rocket and space technology.
Since the end of the 1970s, the second stage of the scientific and technological revolution began, which continues to this day. The most important characteristic of this stage of the scientific and technological revolution was the latest technologies, which did not exist in the middle of the twentieth century (which is why the second stage of the scientific and technological revolution was even called the "scientific and technological revolution"). These latest technologies include flexible automated production, laser technology, biotechnology, etc. At the same time, the new stage of scientific and technological revolution not only did not discard many traditional technologies, but made it possible to significantly increase their efficiency. For example, flexible automated production systems for processing the object of labor still use traditional cutting and welding, and the use of new structural materials (ceramics, plastics) has significantly improved the performance of the well-known internal combustion engine. “Raising the known limits of many traditional technologies, the current stage of scientific and technological progress brings them, as it seems today, to the “absolute” exhaustion of the possibilities inherent in them and thereby prepares the prerequisites for an even more decisive revolution in the development of productive forces.” 1
The essence of the second stage of the scientific and technological revolution, defined as the "scientific and technological revolution", is an objectively natural transition from various kinds of external, mainly mechanical, influences on objects of labor to high-tech (submicron) influences at the microstructure level of both inanimate and living matter. Therefore, the role played by genetic engineering and nanotechnology at this stage of scientific and technological revolution is not accidental.
Over the past decades, the range of research in the field of genetic engineering has significantly expanded: from the production of new microorganisms with predetermined properties to the cloning of higher animals (and, in a possible future, of man himself). The end of the twentieth century was marked by unprecedented success in deciphering the genetic basis of man. In 1990 The international project "Human Genome" was launched, which aims to obtain a complete genetic map of Homo sapiens. More than twenty most scientifically developed countries, including Russia, take part in this project.
Scientists managed to obtain a description of the human genome much earlier than planned (2005-2010). Already on the eve of the new, XXI century, sensational results were achieved in the implementation of this project. It turned out that the human genome contains from 30 to 40 thousand genes (instead of the previously assumed 80-100 thousand). This is not much more than that of a worm (19 thousand genes) or fruit flies (13.5 thousand). However, according to the director of the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician E. Sverdlov, “it is too early to complain that we have fewer genes than expected. First, as organisms become more complex, the same gene performs many more functions and is able to encode more proteins. Secondly, there is a mass of combinatorial options that simple organisms do not have. Evolution is very economical: in order to create a new one, it is engaged in “turning over” the old, and not inventing everything again. In addition, even the most elementary particles, like a gene, are actually incredibly complex. Science will just go to the next level of knowledge.” 2
The deciphering of the human genome has provided enormous, qualitatively new scientific information for the pharmaceutical industry. However, it turned out that the use of this scientific wealth of the pharmaceutical industry today is beyond its power. We need new technologies that will appear, as expected, in the next 10-15 years. It is then that the drugs that come directly to the diseased organ will become a reality, bypassing all side effects. Transplantology will reach a qualitatively new level, cell and gene therapy will develop, medical diagnostics will change radically, and so on.
One of the most promising areas in the field of new technologies is nanotechnology. The sphere of nanotechnology, one of the most promising areas in the field of the latest technologies, has become the processes and phenomena occurring in the microcosm, measured in nanometers, i.e. billionths of a meter (one nanometer is about 10 atoms located close one after the other). Back in the late 1950s, the prominent American physicist R. Feynman suggested that the ability to build electrical circuits from several atoms could have "a huge number of technological applications." However, at that time no one took this assumption of the future Nobel laureate seriously. 1
Subsequently, research in the field of physics of semiconductor nanoheterostructures laid the foundations for new information and communication technologies. The successes achieved in these studies, which are of great importance for the development of optoelectronics and high-speed electronics, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000, which was shared by the Russian scientist, Academician Zh.A. Alferov and American scientists G. Kremer and J. Kilby.
High growth rates in the 80s-90s of the twentieth century in the information technology industry were the result of the universal nature of the use of information technologies, their wide distribution in almost all sectors of the economy. In the course of economic development, the efficiency of material production has become increasingly determined by the scale of use and the qualitative level of development of the non-material sphere of production. This means that a new resource is involved in the production system - information (scientific, economic, technological, organizational and managerial), which, integrating with the production process, largely precedes it, determines its compliance with changing conditions, and completes the transformation of production processes into scientific production.
Since the 1980s, first in Japanese, then in Western economic literature, the term “softization of the economy” has become widespread. Its origin is connected with the transformation of the non-material component of information-computing systems (“soft” means of software, mathematical support) into a decisive factor in increasing the efficiency of their use (compared to the improvement of their real, “hard” hardware). It can be said that "... the increase in the influence of the non-material component on the entire course of reproduction is the essence of the concept of softization." 1
The softization of production as a new technical and economic trend marked those functional shifts in economic practice that became widespread during the deployment of the second stage of scientific and technological revolution. A distinctive feature of this stage “... lies in the simultaneous coverage of almost all elements and stages of material and non-material production, the sphere of consumption, and the creation of prerequisites for a new level of automation. This level provides for the unification of the processes of development, production and sale of products and services into a single continuous flow based on the interaction of such areas of automation that are developing today in many ways independently, such as information and computer networks and data banks, flexible automated production, automatic design systems, CNC machines, systems for transporting and accumulating products and managing technological processes, robotic complexes. The basis for such integration is the wide involvement in the production consumption of a new resource - information, which opens the way for the transformation of previously discrete production processes into continuous ones, creates the prerequisites for moving away from Taylorism. When assembling automated systems, a modular principle is used, as a result of which the problem of operational change, equipment readjustment becomes an organic part of the technology and is carried out at minimal cost and with virtually no loss of time. 2
The second stage of the scientific and technical revolution turned out to be largely associated with such a technological breakthrough as the emergence and rapid spread of microprocessors on large integrated circuits (the so-called "microprocessor revolution"). This largely led to the formation of a powerful information-industrial complex, including electronic computer engineering, microelectronic industry, the production of electronic means of communication and a variety of office and household equipment. This large complex of industries and services is focused on information services for both social production and personal consumption (a personal computer, for example, has already become a common durable household item).
The decisive invasion of microelectronics is changing the composition of fixed assets in non-material production, primarily in the credit and financial sphere, trade, and healthcare. But this does not exhaust the influence of microelectronics on the sphere of non-material production. New industries are being created, the scale of which is comparable to the branches of material production. For example, in the United States, the sale of software tools and services related to computer maintenance already in the 80s exceeded in monetary terms the production volumes of such large sectors of the American economy as aviation, shipbuilding or machine tool building.
On the agenda of modern science is the creation of a quantum computer (QC). There are several currently intensively developed areas: solid-state QC on semiconductor structures, liquid computers, QC on "quantum filaments", on high-temperature semiconductors, etc. In fact, all branches of modern physics are presented in attempts to solve this problem. 1
So far, we can only talk about the achievement of some preliminary results. Quantum computers are still being designed. But when they leave the confines of the laboratories, the world will be much different. The expected technological breakthrough should surpass the achievements of the "semiconductor revolution", as a result of which vacuum vacuum tubes gave way to silicon crystals.
Thus, the scientific and technological revolution entailed the restructuring of the entire technical basis, the technological mode of production. At the same time, it caused serious changes in the social structure of society and influenced the spheres of education, leisure, and so on.
You can see what changes are taking place in society under the influence of scientific and technological progress. Changes in the structure of production are characterized by the following figures . 2 At the beginning of the 19th century, almost 75 percent of the US labor force was employed in agriculture; by the middle of it, this share had dropped to 65 percent, while in the early 1940s it fell to 20 percent, having decreased by a little over three times in a hundred and fifty years. Meanwhile, over the past five decades, it has decreased by another eight times and today, according to various estimates, is from 2.5 to 3 percent. Slightly differing in absolute values, but completely coinciding in their dynamics, similar processes developed in the same years in most European countries. At the same time, there was a no less dramatic change in the share of those employed in industry. If at the end of the First World War the shares of workers in agriculture, industry and the service sector (primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of production) were approximately equal, then by the end of the Second World War the share of the tertiary sector exceeded the shares of the primary and secondary combined. If in 1900 63 percent of Americans employed in the national economy produced material goods, and 37 percent - services, then in 1990 this ratio was already 22 to 78, and the most significant changes have occurred since the early 50s, when the aggregate growth of employment in agriculture, mining and manufacturing industries, construction, transportation and utilities, that is, in all industries that can be attributed to one degree or another to the field of material production.
In the 1970s, in Western countries (in Germany since 1972, in France since 1975, and then in the USA), an absolute reduction in employment in material production began, and first of all in the material-intensive sectors of mass production. If in general in the US manufacturing industry from 1980 to 1994 employment decreased by 11 percent, then in metallurgy the decline was more than 35 percent. The trends that have emerged over the past decades seem irreversible today; for example, experts predict that over the next ten years, 25 of the 26 jobs created in the United States will be in the service sector, and the total share of workers employed in it will reach 83 percent of the total workforce by 2025. If in the early 1980s the share of workers directly employed in manufacturing operations did not exceed 12 percent in the US, today it has dropped to 10 percent and continues to decline; however, there are also sharper estimates that determine this indicator at a level of less than 5 percent of the total number of employees. Thus, in Boston, one of the centers for the development of high technologies, in 1993, 463 thousand people were employed in the service sector, while only 29 thousand were directly employed in production. At the same time, these very impressive data should not, in our opinion, serve as a basis for recognizing the new society as a “service society”.
The volume of material goods produced and consumed by society in the context of the expansion of the service economy does not decrease, but grows. Back in the 1950s, J. Fourastier noted that the production base of the modern economy remains and will remain the basis on which the development of new economic and social processes takes place, and its importance should not be underestimated. The share of industrial production in the US GNP in the first half of the 1990s fluctuated between 22.7 and 21.3 percent, having declined very slightly since 1974, and for the EU countries it was about 20 percent (from 15 percent in Greece to 30 percent in Germany). At the same time, the growth in the volume of material goods is increasingly ensured by an increase in the productivity of the workers employed in their creation. If in 1800 an American farmer spent 344 hours of labor on the production of 100 bushels of grain, and in 1900 - 147, then today it takes only three man-hours; in 1995, the average labor productivity in the manufacturing industry was five times higher than in 1950.
Thus, modern society is not characterized by an obvious decline in the share of material production and can hardly be called a "service society". We, speaking about the decrease in the role and importance of material factors, mean that an increasing share of social wealth is not the material conditions of production and labor, but knowledge and information, which become the main resource of modern production in any of its forms.
The formation of modern society as a system based on the production and consumption of information and knowledge began in the 1950s. Already in the early 60s, some researchers estimated the share of the "knowledge industry" in the US gross national product in the range from 29.0 to 34.5 percent. Today this indicator is determined at the level of 60 percent. Estimates of employment in the information industries turned out to be even higher: for example, in 1967 the share of workers in the "information sector" was 53.5 percent of total employment, and in the 80s. estimates as high as 70 percent have been offered. Knowledge, as a direct productive force, is becoming the most important factor in the modern economy, and the sector that creates it turns out to be the most significant and important resource of production that supplies the economy. There is a transition from expanding the use of material resources to reducing the need for them.
Some examples illustrate this very clearly. In the first decade of the "information" era alone, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, the gross national product of the post-industrial countries increased by 32 percent, and energy consumption by 5; in the same years, with the growth of the gross domestic product by more than 25 percent, American agriculture reduced energy consumption by 1.65 times. With a national product that has grown 2.5 times, the United States uses less ferrous metals today than it did in 1960; between 1973 and 1986, the average new American car's gasoline consumption fell from 17.8 to 8.7 liters per 100 km, and the cost of materials in the cost of microprocessors used in today's computers is less than 2 percent. As a result, over the past hundred years, the physical mass of American exports has remained virtually unchanged in annual terms, despite a twenty-fold increase in its real value. At the same time, the most high-tech products are rapidly becoming cheaper, contributing to their wide distribution in all areas of the economy: for example, from 1980 to 1995, the memory capacity of a standard personal computer increased by more than 250 times, and its price per unit of hard disk memory decreased between 1983 and 1995 by more than 1,800 times. As a result, an economy of “unlimited resources” arises, the limitlessness of which is due not to the scale of production, but to a reduction in the need for them.
The consumption of information products is constantly increasing. In 1991, US companies' spending on the acquisition of information and information technology, which reached $112 billion, exceeded the cost of acquiring fixed assets, which amounted to $107 billion; the very next year, the gap between these figures grew to $25 billion. Finally, by 1996, the first figure actually doubled, to $212 billion, while the second remained virtually unchanged. By early 1995, the American economy generated about three-quarters of the value added generated by industry through information. As the information sector of the economy develops, it becomes more and more obvious that knowledge is the most important strategic asset of any enterprise, a source of creativity and innovation, the basis of modern values and social progress - that is, a truly unlimited resource.
Thus, the development of modern society leads not so much to the replacement of the production of material goods by the production of services, but to the displacement of the material components of the finished product by information components. The consequence of this is a decrease in the role of raw materials and labor as basic production factors, which is a prerequisite for moving away from the mass creation of reproducible goods as the basis for the well-being of society. The demassification and dematerialization of production are an objective component of the processes leading to the formation of a post-economic society.
On the other hand, over the past decades there has been another, no less important and significant process. We have in mind the decline in the role and importance of material incentives that induce a person to production.
All of the above allows us to conclude that scientific and technological progress leads to a global transformation of society. Society is entering a new phase of its development, which many sociologists define as the "information society".
INTRODUCTION ____________________________________________________________2
1. THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF STD ON SOCIETY_____________3
1.1. Displacement of the majority of the population from the active sphere of activity _________________________________________3
1.2. The stratification of humanity _______________________________5
1.3. Transfer of control of people to automation _________________7
2. POSITIVE IMPACT OF STD ON SOCIETY ____________9
2.1. Expanding the horizons of knowledge __________________________9
2.2. Opportunities for spiritual growth and humanization of knowledge ______9
2.3. Independence from external factors ____________________10
3. CONSEQUENCES_____________________________________________12
3.1. Artificial intelligence and life. Cloning_________12
3.2. Virtual Reality_______________________________13
3.3. Informatization and information explosion _______________14
CONCLUSION__________________________________________________16
LIST OF USED LITERATURE _________________________17
INTRODUCTION
The scientific and technological revolution has a huge and ever-increasing influence on the formation of the future of mankind.
aim of this work is to consider the problem of the consequences of the modern technological stage of social development, i.e. study of the origins and essence of the scientific and technological revolution, its impact on society; global problems of our time, their content and development prospects.
object research are the technologies of the 21st century.
Subject research is the impact of scientific and technological development on society.
At the present stage of industrial development, the scientific and technological revolution develops primarily as a technological revolution, that is, modern technologies are leading in it.
Today, technology determines our way of life, and therefore the way we think. Technique and technology have always existed, from the point of view of the history of mankind, since this history itself does not begin until the moment when people begin to use tools, that is, the simplest technique. Moreover, the course of human history is largely determined by the process of gradual development of technology and the set of technologies available to society. However, up to the Industrial Revolution, technique and technology did not have that universal and deterministic character that they acquired in the New, and especially in the Newest Age.
The extensive development of electronics, computerization, the development of communications and communications has led to the formation of the information society. This is relevant problem of the modern world, and therefore it is to this topic of the scientific and technological revolution and technological determinism that I devoted my essay.
1. ESSENCE AND MAIN DIRECTIONS OF STD
Looking back at the history of the development of science as a whole or a separate area, we can say that development is uneven. The stages of the calm development of science or scientific direction end sooner or later. The general scheme of cycles characterizing STP as a whole can be represented as a four-level system.
1. The first, highest level is made up of general (global) technical (scientific and technical) revolutions, each of which radically transforms society in all its elements: both in productive forces, and in political forms, and in ideology. Each of the general revolutions significantly accelerates the pace of scientific and technological progress. These revolutions include:
1) a technical revolution associated with the transition to the “Iron Age” in the 1st millennium BC, and consisting in the use of steel tools in agriculture and crafts and steel weapons;
2) the industrial revolution of the late 18th-19th centuries, associated with the widespread use of a universal steam engine in various fields, the spread of working machines and the formation of mechanical engineering (starting with the invention of a caliper);
3) the scientific and technological revolution (mid-20th century), associated primarily with the spread of devices and systems for controlling and processing information based on computers (computerization) and other electronics (electronization), including control devices for robotic systems (robotics). These three revolutions were preceded by an even more significant revolution, which had unique consequences for the fate of life on earth, associated with the creation of stone tools and the development of fire. This revolution defined a clear line between humanity and the animal world, and it begins the countdown of the development of human society and subsequent technical and scientific and technological revolutions.
Already in the first half of the 50s. the use of the latest technologies in industry and other sectors of the economy of the leading industrial countries, the use of the entire range of achievements in science and technology has reached an extremely high level. This was the beginning of the scientific and technological revolution (NTR). It implies the introduction of the latest technologies not only in production, but also in the management process, the use of new types of energy and materials.
A new stage of scientific and technological revolution began with the advent in the mid-70s. mini-processors (the processor is the main working unit of computer devices). This stage was accompanied by a number of discoveries in other areas of science and technology, in particular in biotechnology. The level of automation of production has increased tremendously, following automated conveyor lines, entire automatic enterprises have appeared. But this did not lead to mass unemployment, as some skeptics feared. In the context of deepening integration, it became possible to redistribute labor resources, directing them to other branches of production. And the presence of a single information space allows the labor market itself to be active and choose the most profitable areas for this redistribution.
Scientific and technological revolution is a fundamental qualitative revolution in the productive forces of mankind, based on the transformation of science into the direct productive force of society, into the leading factor in the development of social production. Characteristic features of NTR:
- versatility,
— extraordinary acceleration of scientific and technological transformations,
- a fundamental change in the role of man in the production process,
- Orientation towards the use of scientific and technological achievements for military purposes.
The characteristic features of the scientific and technological revolution are manifested in all its constituent parts:
1) In science - the transformation of science into a direct productive force, the growth of knowledge-intensive industries.
2) In engineering and technology - the predominance of the revolutionary path of development, the "microelectronic revolution".
3) In production - development in six main areas - electronization, integrated automation, restructuring of the energy economy, production of new materials, accelerated development of biotechnology, the study and use of space.
4) In management - the emergence of cybernetics (the science of management and information), the "information explosion", the creation of automated control systems, computer centers.
Modern technologies and their objects are very complex, which determines their high scientific and information capacity, the impossibility of their formation and development without a solid scientific base, without scientific information search. These technologies are usually based on the latest achievements of fundamental sciences and interact with them. Often they pose complex problems for science, which can be solved only on the basis of the integration of a number of natural, mathematical, technical and social sciences. When they are formed, new links are established between science and technology. And if sciences that were hierarchically adjacent interacted before, now sciences that are far apart have begun to interact. In essence, for the first time, the humanities (psychology, sociology) entered into a serious relationship with technology. At the same time, there is no mechanical transfer of concepts from one science to another, but there is an increase in the interpenetration of scientific disciplines and the formation of interdisciplinary sciences, including the technological cycle, the unifying factor in which are both common approaches to solving various problems and common problems, the solution of which involves various approaches and methods of science.
For the first time, fundamentally new methods of processing products and obtaining finished products are found: electron beam, plasma, pulsed, radiation, membrane, chemical, etc. Such a technology greatly increases labor productivity, raises the efficiency of resource use, and reduces the cost of energy and materials for manufacturing products.
Another important area of technology improvement is resource saving. For this purpose, economical types of metal products, synthetic and other progressive materials are used, the technical and economic characteristics are improved, and the strength characteristics of structural materials are increased. A more complete and comprehensive use of raw materials and technological waste allows creating low-waste and waste-free production.
Based on the achievements of electronics and automation, the processing of products can reliably ensure their high quality.
Unlike traditional technology, which is characterized by environmental pollution, "high technology" is usually environmentally friendly. In this case, closed water consumption systems, closed production cycles are used, secondary raw materials and industrial waste are widely used, and environmental management is improved. This ensures the growth of not only economic, but also social efficiency of economic activity.
2. THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF STD ON SOCIETY
Any object, action, event, just like a coin has two sides, in this case the law of unity and interaction (struggle) of contradictions is applicable. Likewise, NTR has positive and negative sides. Consider the negative ones, below are some of them.
2.1. The displacement of most of the population from the active sphere of activity
"Let's look at the diagram. Automation is developing at the same pace as it is now. Only after a few decades, the vast majority of the active population of the earth is thrown out of production processes and from the service sector as unnecessary. It will be very good: everyone is full, there is nothing to trample on each other, no one interferes with each other ... And no one needs anyone. There are, of course, several hundred thousand people who ensure the smooth operation of old machines and the creation of new ones, but the remaining billions simply do not need each other. This is good?"
The existence of a person and his health become guaranteed, regardless of his activity or inactivity. If now the very nature of life forces you to make some efforts on yourself, then after the onset of the "technological paradise" there will be no need for this. Now there are problems associated with the fact that people are not able to fill their leisure time with some (let's not talk about public benefit), at least socially safe activities. People drink, do drugs, fight. There are many who are restrained by the unpleasant consequences of such "pleasures". After drinking, your head hurts, with regular use of alcohol, alcoholism develops, because of a fight you can get into the police. When these restrictions are removed, the number of those who want to "have fun" will increase dramatically, and the life of a very significant part of the population will turn into a search for ever newer, more sophisticated entertainment.
Once upon a time, science fiction writers portrayed the people of the future as tadpoles with frail arms and legs, since they do not need to work physically. It is possible that they will not have a head either. There will be just a part of the brain responsible for receiving pleasure, to which the computer sends signals of pleasure and a minimum of organs necessary to maintain life.
People don’t really need each other anyway and often see others as an annoying hindrance to their own well-being. Subsequently, they will cease to be needed by each other at all.
Technology will provide a person with everything necessary, but at the same time it will deprive him of an incentive to develop, achieve something new and make him helpless in the face of unexpected incidents. Several defense mechanisms are possible here:
- in any society there are those who are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs, who are on the “border” of contact between society and the outside world, with various global changes, these “dissatisfied” turned out to be at the head of society, and it was thanks to them that society survived;
- any even the most perfect system cannot be completely closed, there are always external influences, and these external influences, modernization, programming, restructuring will be carried out by people;
- engaging in creative activities.
2.2. The stratification of humanity
One of the negative factors of modern scientific and technological revolution is the stratification of mankind. Man is a social being, he never evaluates absolute indicators (such as “life has become better”), but evaluates everything in comparison, and in connection with these problems of “stratification” of society caused by the processes of scientific and technological revolution, it looks very menacing. Stratification occurs in several ways.
· Stratification by property
Stratification by property has existed since the dawn of civilization, when people began to own private property, so it is common. The NTR will only strengthen it due to the fact that everyone has different starting opportunities, and the result of the NTR will be the multiplication of the initial capital. Therefore, in absolute terms, the income of the less well-to-do population will increase, and in relative terms, in comparison with the more well-to-do, it will decrease.
· Stratification by age
The problem of "fathers and sons" has always existed, but under the influence of scientific and technological revolution it has become more aggravated. The acceleration of the pace of scientific and technological development has become so obvious that one does not need to be a specialist to notice it. The rapid change in living conditions caused by this acceleration is one of the factors negatively affecting the formation of a homeostatic system of customs and norms in the modern world. What lessons and instructions can a highly experienced old age give young people if the whole complex of life of the next generation does not in any way resemble the way of life of their parents?
Even now, children and parents speak different languages, both figuratively and literally, even in well-to-do families, different generations look from opposite points of view, and what parents continue to value seems ridiculous at best to the younger generation. Conversely, what young people perceive as a priori truth is perceived by the older generation as a very controversial hypothesis. Until quite recently, vinyl discs and an imported turntable were the ultimate dream of music lovers, and magnetic recordings were perceived as a pathetic parody of “real” quality. I recall the heated discussions of the late 80s, about computer music in general, and its creation on a computer in particular. The softest expression of the lovers of "clear" sound was "handicraft", and who will remember now that music can be written on a lined sheet of paper.
Of course, the above example somewhat exaggerates the situation, but even now we can say that “thanks to” the scientific and technological revolution, not only material, but also spiritual values are changing.
· Intellectual stratification
Although the achievements of ergonomics and mnemonics make it possible to use complex household appliances even for housewives who cannot distinguish a soldering iron from a toaster, nevertheless, in order to take full advantage of the achievements of scientific and technological revolution, one must have a certain level of intelligence.
Therefore, those who have a higher level of intelligence will be able to take full advantage of the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution, which will lead at least to an increase in the material gap and a clearer demarcation of social status.
· Occupational stratification
STD requires mostly people with a mathematical and engineering mindset, so at some point in time this type of thinking may seem more important, when in fact, it is just more suitable for this particular situation.
The fact is that in the course of scientific and technological progress there is a deepening of the specialization of production and only a person who has devoted his life to this problem can understand this area. In this situation, one can see another disturbing trend, a misunderstanding between specialists of different, and in some cases even related specialties.
The reasons for the growth in the number of scientific and technical workers are obvious - this is the complication of technology and the use of advanced scientific and technical achievements. As a result, the emergence of a rigid caste system is possible, with all the ensuing consequences.
2.3. Transfer of control of people to automation
Before the collapse of the USSR, we, despite the lag in computer technology, could still maintain parity with the United States in the main types of fundamental research, and in some ways we were “ahead of the rest”. Our science has achieved this not only thanks to the talent of scientists, but also due to the asymmetry of approaches to solving the tasks. In the United States, emphasis was placed on numerical methods, in our country on analytical ones, and going numerical methods require less costs, both economic and intellectual, and in some cases lead to the final result more quickly, but analytical methods make it possible to reveal more fundamental patterns, which leads to a deeper understanding of the essence of the process under study, and as a result to a more complete possibility of its use. The current scientific and technical revolution has taken the "American way" and one of the possible consequences of this may be the omission of more "elegant" solutions leading to interesting results.
Another of the negative factors of this process is the predominance of analysis methods (as they are more easily formalized) over the synthesis of scientific solutions, and as a result, the loss of human scientific intuition.
Even now, decisions are taken for a person by automation, and a person animates technology, who has not heard the exclamation of a novice computer user: “Stupid machine, it doesn’t understand me”, a person recognizes the power of automation over himself, animating it and creating a new fetish. Who can guarantee that in twenty years, when computers will be entrusted with really complex problems, a person will not create new computer gods for himself.
3. POSITIVE IMPACT OF STD ON SOCIETY
Still, despite all the negative aspects, scientific and technological revolution is carried out to improve people's lives, and the main goal of any scientific and technological revolution is the benefit of people, to name some of them.
3.1. Expanding the horizons of knowledge
Mankind at all times tried to "look beyond the horizon" and understand how the world works, it invented gods, created various theories of the world order, and step by step approached the true understanding of the world. But, like the horizon, the process of cognition is unlimited (probably, this is what attracts a person to it), and for each new discovery, in addition to the knowledge of the “old” secrets, it showed that there are still “new” ones. As they say, happiness is not the achievement of the desired, but in the movement towards it. So for humanity, stopping the process is always associated with death, and moving forward with the victory of life.
One of the most important factors for the full development of the individual is full access to any information and freedom of movement. Modern telecommunications systems, such as satellite television and communication systems, INTERNET, etc., which are to some extent independent of government policy, allow a person to receive objective information and evaluate it not from the words of the Central Television announcer. This is another step towards the freedom of man and the emancipation of mankind.
3.2. Opportunities for Spiritual Growth and humanization of knowledge
Initially, man claimed divine origin. The works of Darwin called this previously indisputable postulate into question (this is another case when scientific work had, in addition to scientific, also great psychological significance). Freud's work called into question the rationality of man. As a rule, great scientific accomplishments are accompanied by the destruction of previously unshakable dogmas, and they are unshakable because they offend people's conceit. Each step forward in the knowledge of the world strikes at the self-esteem of a person.
At the same time, knowing the surroundings and knowing oneself through the surroundings, a person has the opportunity to rise above the world, not with the help of spiritual crutches, such as “chosen by God” and other consolations for the weak, but by himself realizing that he is a Man with a capital letter, he himself can create and create, without needing the theory of “God”, as Christian and other religions interpret it.
As mentioned above, narrow specialization will lead to misunderstanding of each other by different groups of people, at the same time, an increase in material security and the creation of free economic reserves will allow more resources to be allocated to culture and the humanities. Which will play an important role in finding a common language between different groups of people outside of work.
As a consequence of this, basic education will become more fundamental, especially its humanitarian part, in particular sociology and philosophy with its concepts of basic regularities and logic, especially formal logic. As a result of this, the general direction of knowledge will become more humanitarian, and therefore more "attached" to the human community.
3.3. Independence from external factors
Homeostasis is the desire for balance, that is, for existence in spite of change.
The homeostatic activity of man, in which he uses technology as a kind of organs, has made him the master of the Earth, powerful, alas, only in the eyes of the apologist, whom he himself is. And in the face of climate change, earthquakes, and the rare but real threat of giant meteorite impacts, man is essentially as helpless as he was during the last ice age.
But already now humanity is creating a technique for helping victims of various natural disasters. He knows how to foresee some of the disasters, although inaccurately, and thereby partially neutralize their consequences.
One of the consequences of scientific and technological revolution will be homeostasis on a planetary, and later on a cosmic scale, when neither an earthquake nor solar flares can harm all of humanity as a whole and an individual in particular.
This will turn a person from being uncertain of tomorrow into the master of his own destiny, well, if not destiny, then at least life.
4. CONSEQUENCES
Science not only solves scientific problems, but also confronts us with problems that we have to solve. Some of the questions that man will face in the very near future are already clear, some have tentative answers, and some questions may not have answers.
4.1. Artificial intelligence and life. Cloning
Man invented electronic devices that facilitate arithmetic calculation. It was soon discovered that these machines could be easily adapted to solve many of the creative problems associated with human knowledge. Facts accumulated, special computer programs were written, and artificial languages for knowledge processing were invented. This process led to the emergence of "artificial intelligence". Nowadays, many theoretical studies on artificial intelligence have received practical application. Robots carry out precise mechanical operations, recognize images, search in difficult conditions, compose poetry. In the US classification of sciences, works on artificial intelligence have been transferred from the category of theoretical to the category of applied sciences.
Already, artificial intelligence is getting cheaper, and new generations of weapons are getting more expensive exponentially. In the First World War, the cost of an airplane was equal to a car, in the Second - twenty cars; by the end of the century, it already costs 600 times more than a car. It has been calculated that in 50 years even the superpowers will be able to have 18 to 22 aircraft, no more. This is how the intersection of the downward curve of the cost of artificial intelligence with the upward curve of the cost of weapons marked the beginning of the creation of unmanned armies. The figure of a soldier in a uniform and a helmet, rushing into a bayonet charge, is receding into the past to take a place next to medieval knights clad in iron.
The field of armaments is only the first sign, soon artificial intelligence will force people out of many areas of active activity, and only creative tasks will remain for a person. But how many are able to solve them?
On the other hand, artificial intelligence provides unlimited opportunities for creativity, freeing from routine work, becoming a reliable assistant in research, and sometimes replacing a person, where there is a risk of dangerous physical impact.
On the issue of cloning, there are already fierce debates about the moral and ethical side. Is it moral to create human clones to use them as a manufacturer of spare organs, because in essence it will be the same person. Or how to solve the dilemma of which of the twins is "real" and who has the right to this life.
Although science fiction writers have long answered this question, but even now, when Molly the sheep lives in two forms, there is no hint of a correct answer. After all, the answer to "prohibit" is, in fact, an attempt to evade the answer.
4.2. A virtual reality
A person cannot take advantage of all the opportunities that NTR provides him. He "chases" the ever-opening horizons of science and technology, but he will not be able to catch up (realize) them. In this case, humanity, most likely, will have to limit itself, consciously or unconsciously "closing" some areas of development. But how do we know if we missed something vital?
Another of the interesting consequences of the scientific and technological revolution is the emergence of virtual reality, at this stage it is the means of mass media (which only multi-episode soap operas are worth), INTERNET, interactive computer programs. All this creates for people who are not "fixed" in everyday life the desire to plunge into that bright life, without any worries, and get away from the "gray" reality.
This is used by people of the goal, which are not always pure, but who hold in their hands the threads of managing these means. The winner of the election is not the most competent in matters of state structure, but the most skillful in matters of manipulating public opinion and having the greatest opportunities for these manipulations. Of course, all this is true, provided that the elections are fair, if not in terms of equal opportunities to influence voters, then at least in terms of counting votes. Are there many countries where this condition is met?
The main thing is that there is a technology of power, and it will lead to power in any case, no matter what idea the candidate for emperor hides behind. "The doctrine is used to dominate the masses, while the ruling elite itself stands above its doctrine and is not bound by it." Remember Lenin's famous list: "post offices, banks, telephone, telegraph, railway stations." Today we need only add radio, television and airports to this list.
But besides the shortcomings, virtual reality provides an opportunity for unlimited implementation of ideas, unlimited access to information resources. More than 300 million people already use INTERNET, and they have access not only to the information that the government considers necessary to provide them, but also to look at events from a different point of view. And choose for themselves what they consider to be the main thing, and not what people in power have decided for them.
4.3. Informatization and information explosion
Since ancient times, it has been known that the one who has the information will succeed. But even now, despite all attempts to streamline the newly incoming information, it is growing like a "snowball", rolling at an ever greater speed. A person is simply not able to cover the entire volume of the problem facing him, this is exactly the case when the forest is not visible for the trees.
At present, the situation in informatics looks especially dramatic. In essence, the capabilities of modern informatics go far beyond the needs of the current industrial civilization.
Informatics is already ready to meet the needs of a higher order than those used by the current civilization. And therefore, while computer science itself has not created a new civilization, it is forced to follow the path of increasing external effects. Vicious path. It is also harmful to computer science itself, because after the start of a new scientific and technological revolution, it will need to regain its business style. And this is not so easy for an industry that is acquiring more and more “bohemian” features of internal functioning.
The number of discoveries is growing exponentially, but the number of scientists is growing even faster (by a large rate) (in general, discoveries make up only a small part of all the information that science produces). It is enough to look through dusty heaps of "works" and dissertations written for obtaining a scientific degree in some university archive to be convinced that sometimes not a single work of this kind out of hundreds of similar ones leads to even the slightest amount of valuable result. Therefore, reaching the limit of the information capacity of science means a significant decrease in the probability of making discoveries. Moreover, the value of this probability must from now on decrease steadily as the curve of actual growth in the number of scientists falls away from the hypothetical curve of further (now impossible) exponential growth.
On the other hand, information processing methods do not stand still, and perhaps in the near future "quantity will turn into quality." And then a person will stop feeling like an ant in front of a huge mountain of information and will understand that it is he - a Man, and not a machine, who makes decisions that envy his future.
CONCLUSION
Thus, the scientific and technological revolution is a fundamental, qualitative transformation of the productive forces on the basis of the transformation of science into the leading factor in the development of social production. In the course of the scientific and technological revolution, which began in the mid-40s of the 20th century, the process of turning science into a direct productive force is rapidly developing and completing.
Science plays a special role in modern civilization. The technological progress of the 20th century, which led to a new quality of life in the developed countries of the West and East, is based on the application of scientific achievements. Science not only revolutionizes the sphere of production, but also influences many other spheres of human activity, starting to regulate them, restructuring their means and methods. The problems of the future of modern civilization cannot be discussed outside the analysis of modern trends in the development of science and its prospects. In general, science is perceived as one of the highest values of civilization and culture.
The increase in the role of technology leads, on the one hand, to technological determinism, and, on the other hand, to a technocratic ideology, according to which individuals and groups that create technology, own it and know how to use it, not only have all the social and spiritual advantages, but are also able to reduce the management of all social processes to the management of technology. Technological determinism believes that technology is the decisive factor in development.
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