Kyrtsis, Alexandros-Andreas | Greece

Alexandros-Andreas Kyrtsis (Dr. Phil. Zürich) is an Associate Professor of Sociological Theory in the Department of Economics of the University of Athens. His research interests are located in the fields of sociological theory, economic sociology and theory of development, sociology of technology, social history of ideas, and social and organizational informatics. He started his studies at the Department of Mathematics at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich and then continued his studies in sociology, social anthropology and economic history at the University of Zürich, where he submitted his doctoral thesis on spatial aspects of social change in 1981.

He has held teaching appointments at the University of Zurich; the University of Crete, where he was also adviser to the President responsible for the organization of the School of the Social Sciences; and at the Universities of Thessaly and the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences. He has held the post of visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT - Program in Science Technology and Society), the London School of Economics and Political Science and at the University of Edinburgh. He has also conducted consultancy projects for the Greek General Secretariat for Research and Technology, the European Commission, as well as for the banking and the information technology sector.

Project at IAS-STS: Precautionary principle and technological design

The central point here is that although we sorely need technology-risk-management procedures based on the idea of the precautionary principle, a conservative approach to precautionary action can raise, instead of mitigating, risks stemming from science and technology. One of the main problems in this respect is, that we tend to create rigid technical standards and to rely on indicators and assessment methods, which very often hide the real processes and thus hinder access to crucial information. Standardization of information is in most cases the less appropriate manner to understand the imperfections and unpredictabilities of real technological processes. Modes of abstraction and standardization very often blur instead of shedding light to human choice behind the technical artifacts and procedures.

The application of the precautionary principle on technological design – if exclusively based on standards and rigid methods of assessment reducing the complexity of information into simplifying indicators – leads to a premature abandonement of inventions and innovations (with sometimes devastating implications often contrary to the intentions of regulators), to ad-hoc decisions with totally unpredictable consequences or even to inaction. Alternatively, we can think of more qualitative approaches based on narratives and structured debates as the ones we know from the traditions of litigation processes, which might more efficiently expose the implicit features of cognitive resources and design strategies. However, this would require a different epistemological point of view that the one adopted by the conservative advocates of the precautionary principle. More precisely, we would need theories of science and technology focusing on inherent rhetoric and internal ethics, and not on externalist and consequentialist approaches to the judgment of ideas and practices.

Disputes on the precautionary principle and precautionary action have predominantly emerged from the perception of risks related to new technologies such as biotechnology and nanotechnology, but also from the public understanding of risks related to nuclear engineering and chemistry. They rarely apply to information and communication technologies, despite the fact that our world is densely populated with networks of digital devices and software components, which have an impact of immense dimensions on our lives. The last part of this lecture will focus on the significance of a critical approach to the idea of the precautionary principle for the understanding of the evolution of complex information systems and the implications of software code and system architectures for real life.

Selecetd Publications

“The computerization of Greek banks: Human and organizational aspects”. In: Cottrell, Ph. / Green, E. / Kostis, K. (eds.), The Human Factor in Banking: Entrepreneurs, Managers, Organisation and Personnel. Aldershot: Ashgate. (Fortcoming, 2006.).

“Context-aware uses of information technology and technophobia”. In: Kouzelis, G. et al (eds.), Knowledge in the New Technologies. Frankfurt a.M. etc: Peter Lang, 2005, pp. 71-88.

“Space, Information and Social Networks of Innovation Finance”. In: Thierstein, A. / Schamp, E.W. (eds.) (2003), Innovation, Finance and Space. Frankfurt a.M.: Frankfurt Studies in Economic and Social Geography, Nr.72, pp. 29-42.

"Transdisciplinarity and Innovation in Banking", in: Scholz, R.W. et al. (Eds), Transdisciplinarity: Joint Problem-Solving among Science, Technology and Society. Zurich: Haffmans Sachbuch Verlag, Vol.II, 2000, pp.65-69.

"The cultural background of quantitative research on public understanding of science and technology", in: Dierkes, M. / von Grote, Cl.(Eds.) Public Opinion and Public Debates. Berlin: WZB-Publications 1998, pp.3-22. (With G. Kouzelis and V. Koulaidis.)

"Greek interbellum modernizers and the sociological idea", International Sociology, No.3