Technological Determinism in
‘Code’
Andrés Guadamuz
AHRB Research Centre for Studies in IP
and Technology Law
Is Code new?
• Lessig emphasises that computer code is as
important as legal code in defining the
possibilities of cyberspace.
• Duh!
• The impact of technology on the
development of human society and its laws
is a commonly explored theme.
• Mary Shelley to the Matrix.
An old debate
Free will

Determinism
Nurture

Nature

Technological
determinism
Social
determinism
Technological determinism
Hard technological determinism?
“Technology is a driving force of history:
a technical innovation suddenly
appears and causes important things to
happen.”
Marx and Smith, “Does Technology
Drive History?”
Soft technological determinism
“A technological system can be both a cause
and an effect; it can shape or be shaped by
society. As they grow larger and more
complex, systems tend to be more shaping of
society and less shaped by it.”
Hughes, “Technological Momentum”
Criticisms
• “A theory of technological determinism
must contend with the fact that the very
activity of invention and innovation is an
attribute of some societies and not of
others.” Heilbroner, “Do Machines Make
History?”
• Social determinism: Technology is just
another social construct.
So what?
• Determinism has some unwanted results
(control).
• Unlike other forms of determinism, the
object itself is the one driving history.
• Nebulous, unidentified entity called
technology modifies culture.
• The object itself is the driver.
• “The bomb”, “the computer”, “the internet”
Technophilia
Technophobia
What’s Code gotta do with it?
• Code can be read in many levels.
• “There is regulation of behaviour in cyberspace,
but that regulation is imposed primarily through
code.”
• Code is about regulation, but who imposes that
regulation of technology?
• The implications of the work are far reaching, but
do they imply a deterministic future for
cyberspace?
Is Code deterministic?
• “Too many miss how different architectures embed
different values, and that only by selecting these
different architectures – these different codes –
can we establish and promote our values.”, p.58.
• This reduces the problem of regulation to one of
finding the right (deterministic) code; predicting
the resulting social, economical and ethical issues
of a certain kind of computer use.
Control
• Control is foundational, architectural,
constitutional.
• “Control will be coded, by commerce, with
the backing of the government.”
• “We can build or architect or code
cyberspace to protect values that we believe
are fundamental.”
Whose control?
• “How do we guarantee self-determination
when the architectures of control are
perpetually determined elsewhere?”
• “The invisible hand of cyberspace is
building an architecture that perfects
control and makes possible highly efficient
regulation.”
Who writes the code?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Government?
Market?
Society?
Hackers?
The invisible hand of cyberspace?
All of the above?
Taking control
“Nature doesn’t determine cyberspace. Code
does. It changes […] How it changes
depends on code writers. How code writers
change it could depend on us.
If we do nothing the code of cyberspace will
change. The invisible hand will change it in
a predictable way.”
Open code
Solution to determinism
Thank you