TED Conversations

Manoj Chandrashekar

Software Engineer, Thomson Reuters

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Should the ultimate application of technology become a decisive factor in innovation?

I have seen a lot of flak that an idea gathers because of its potential application in destructive activities. I believe any technology is an idea. And ideas must be respected as ideas and not how they might be used. For that matter, you can kill a person with a fork.


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  • Apr 5 2012: Quoting my dictionary: "A technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes". As such, any technology is not an idea. You are probably thinking of the science research that is the base of a specific technology. In that case, the question is: what is the relation between science and morality?

    In my opinion, the questions that science is trying to solve are not moral questions and a scientific advance is not intrinsically good or bad, however the application of science can be good or bad. For instance, nuclear technology can be used for peaceful purposes or as a weapon of destruction.

    Now, to the case of the mechanical hummingbird, from a scientific point of view it is very interesting research as the mechanics and control for flight at that regime are not fully understood. Moreover, I see this the first step towards much more interesting questions like the ones proposed here:

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