Why are so many still worried about technology advancements? Steve Rogerson asks if the industry can do more.

I received a press release this week from Bosch that rather depressed me, which was a shame given the headline was meant to excite saying that in the company’s recent survey some 72% believe technology makes the world a better place.

That is good news, right? Well, no, because what that means is that 28% – that is more than a quarter – do not believe this. Think about that, one in four people do not think that technology is making the world better. That is astounding really, and it means that somehow we are not getting our message across.

OK, I get that there are those who do not like seeing everyone paying more attention to their smartphones than what is going on around them – something I am regularly guilty of – or they are listening to headphones in a world of their own. And many are understandably nervous about the prospect of self-driving cars.

However, just think for a second of the improvements that have happened and are still happening in healthcare. Surely that alone is making the world a better place.

Interestingly, there were massive regional variations in the survey with 83 and 77 per cent of people in China and India, respectively, believing technology is being used sufficiently to tackle the major problems of our time. That falls to less than half in the USA (47%), UK (37%) and Germany (29%). Those are shocking figures.

On the good side, people in Germany, UK and USA see green technologies such as climate engineering, biotechnology and hydrogen as having a particularly positive impact on society. And in China and India, there are high hopes for intelligent and connected technologies such as AI and 5G. However, around a third of all respondents in the USA and Europe see AI as the biggest technological threat.

Threat? That is a strong word, and it means many are still concerned – scared even – that technology is taking over rather than improving the world.

I am not in Las Vegas this week for the Consumer Electronics Show, but I am sure if I was that I would be seriously wowed by some of the technology on display. The question is how can we convince that reluctant quarter that, on the whole, technology progress is a good thing? Maybe we can’t, at least not in such an awful time in which people are dealing with the death and illness from a global pandemic. But we will come through these dark times, of that I am sure, and when we do we can continue the technology adventure that has been taking place throughout my life.

Talking of CES, I did notice that again the pandemic has led to a number of big-name companies being absent and travel restrictions mean that overseas visitors are rare. This is sad. I was due to head for Tokyo later this month for Automotive World, but Japan has slammed its doors shut due to the omicron variant, and Embedded World in Nuremberg has postponed itself from March to June. Let us hope that this is the last year this will happen and soon we can once again enjoy travelling and seeing technology innovations first hand.