Humans discriminate, and the technologies that we build do it too.
Discrimination leaks into our interpretation of the world and biases the creation of new technologies. However, in this sense, there is nothing unique about the research and development endeavours since discrimination is prevalent among many other human constructs like religions, laws, cultures, or organizations.
Discrimination can manifest itself in numerous aspects including gender, race, language, ideology, or education level. In essence, any aspect that differentiates us from one another can be the target of discrimination. And this is a key term, differentiation.
Although discrimination is widely perceived as negative, by definition, the core idea is to differentiate or distinguish a group of people in order to treat them differently — and different is not bad.
The political scientist Miguel Anxo Bastos defends that humans have the right to discriminate. Nevertheless, his conception is far from blunt intolerance and bigotry and has nothing to do with ideologies of superiority or hatred. On the contrary, his concept of discrimination shifts the focus of discrimination towards the freedom of humans to differentiate in their choices based on their preferences.
One area in which we generally support people’s right to discriminate is in our consideration as consumers.
As consumers, our right to discriminate entails a powerful tool for social change. Our consumption habits can have a significant collective impact on the direction of technological progress. It is certainly not the only factor steering technological progress but our purchasing choices have the potential to shape the aggregated market demand, creating ripple effects throughout the supply chain and finally influencing the priorities of companies.
Interestingly, this is hardly possible without empowering ourselves as discriminating consumers. This means raising awareness, defending, and celebrating our right to freely and consciously discriminate products based on our preferences and values. Since this can have a big impact, discrimination is not only a right but also a responsibility: do we prioritize the cheapest and best-performing solutions, the most ethically responsible and sustainable products globally, or rather the most disruptive and advanced technologies?
The other side of this coin, however, exposes us to the idea that if consumers have the right to discriminate which products and technologies are consumed, then companies also have the right to discriminate for who they design or sell their products.
In reality, companies not only have the right to discriminate between consumers, but in many cases, this is critical for their product success. Companies study customers’ demographics and psychographics as well as customers’ pains and wishes to define the ideal customer type to which a certain value proposition or product is best suited. Discrimination conceived as customer segmentation is an effective tool that fuels growth and innovation.
Such customer discrimination is also very relevant for the business development process accompanying the commercialization of new technologies: discriminating the early adopters as much as possible and tailoring the product offering to meet specific needs is essential.
Besides humans and companies, it is important to realize that technologies can also discriminate. Reasons for technological discrimination could be grouped into three categories: intentional design choices, unintended biases, or technical limitations.
In the first group, we find technologies such as personalized advertising, recommendation algorithms, or precision medicine. In these cases, differentiating groups of people based on their characteristics or preferences is a competitive advantage, and the technology is therefore optimized to segment and discriminate across customers as much as possible.
In the second group, we find technologies such as facial recognition algorithms that could discriminate unintentionally due to biased datasets or flawed design assumptions — some companies may not be aware of such discriminations.
Finally, the third group of technological discriminations is that of technologies which, at the moment, have no choice but to discriminate due to technical limitations that have not been overcome yet. This is the case with some portable devices or smart watches that are perfectly able to gather biometric data of our bodies accurately as long as we don’t have dark skin tones.
While it is true that humans, companies, and technologies can and do discriminate, the pursuit to maximize impact often leads to the opposite: inclusion and democratization. With only a few exceptions, a market adoption as wide as possible provides the best revenue and impact opportunities. In this sense, the democratization power of disrupting technologies or business models offers huge upsides.
Ultimately, it is important to acknowledge that technology can be socially directed through public or private leadership. In particular, this includes the role of scientists and entrepreneurs who are at the front edge of discovering and commercializing such new technologies.