In-use and emerging technologies

In-use and emerging technologies

Stepping back from the specifics of clean air regulations for a moment, let’s examine the ways in which already-in-use technologies can be modified by regulations. It may be helpful to compare and contrast in-use technologies or mature technologies with new or emerging technologies. The contrast between the two isn’t as strong as the vocabulary might suggest. Emerging technologies are simultaneously full of promise and danger, while mature technologies seem to be more predictable. The promises of a mature technology are manifest and the dangers seemingly under control. The term “emerging technology” is only used as an indicator that these technologies have the potential to go either way—toward a utopian or dystopian future.

When change is easy, the need for it cannot be foreseen; when the need for change is apparent, change has become expensive, difficult, and time-consuming.
— University of Aston professor David Collingridge (1980)

Emerging technologies are often considered a particularly challenging regulatory problem. The “Collingridge dilemma” in the field of technology assessment—named after the late professor David Collingridge of the University of Aston’s Technology Policy Unit—posits that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to anticipate the impacts of a new technology until it is widely in use, but once it is in wide use, it is then difficult or perhaps impossible to control the pace of change (regulate) of the technology precisely because it is in wide use. Nowadays, it is often common in economic and political rhetoric to hear of the speed of technological development as a further obstacle to effective regulation.