Constructive Technology Assessment

The Collingridge dilemma is the tension that a technology's social consequences are hard to predict early in its development—when it could easily be changed—but become clear only later, when the technology is entrenched and change is costly. CTA addresses it by intervening early and from within the development process: rather than waiting to assess a finished technology, it brings societal considerations and diverse actors into design while choices are still open, trying to steer the trajectory during the window of malleability instead of merely reacting once effects are evident.

Traditional technology assessment, in the mould of the US Office of Technology Assessment, was largely predictive and advisory: experts forecast the impacts of a more-or-less defined technology to inform policymakers, often after key design decisions had been made. CTA is constructive: it aims to influence the design and development of technology itself, treats technology and society as co-evolving, broadens the set of actors involved in shaping the technology, and works iteratively and upstream rather than delivering a one-off external verdict.

All three belong to a family of approaches that bring societal considerations into technology development early. CTA emphasises shaping design through co-evolution and broadening the actors involved; participatory technology assessment (pTA) emphasises directly involving lay citizens and stakeholders in assessing technologies through formats like consensus conferences; and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) generalises these ideas into a policy-level framework (anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, responsiveness) applied across whole research systems. CTA and pTA are in many ways intellectual precursors to RRI.