Silicon Valley needs to STIR it up!

Scientists and innovators often feel uncomfortable discussing the societal impacts of their technologies, for understandable reasons. There are signs, however, that this is beginning to change.

In a recent LinkedIn article, Caroline Fairchild reported how Silicon Valley’s start-ups are now considering some of these impacts and provocatively asked if these impacts would force Silicon Valley to “grow up.” Speaking at the Milken Global Conference in Los Angeles, Uber’s creator, Oscar Salazar talked about the broader implications, “We are all responsible...We are adding technology to a society without thinking about the consequences. I think government, industry and society need to work more together, because it is going to get crazier and crazier.” Belinda Johnson, who serves as AirBnb’s chief business affairs and legal officer, mentioned that companies have a fear of impeding their growth and ability to innovate if they stop to think about the regulatory or societal impacts. However, even AirBnB eventually realized that they need to pay attention to this, as it can affect their guests’ experiences.

The downstream effects of innovation must be considered in order to ensure that innovation is both sustainable and responsible. However, this is hard to do without a set of tools or a framework to guide this process. This is where innovators can work with social scientists. One such tool, called STIR, short for Socio-Technical Integration Research, was specifically designed to facilitate difficult but necessary discussions. Designed by Professor Erik Fisher, STIR offers a structured framework for integrating societal concerns into technology development in a synergistic fashion. Originally developed for use in laboratories, its use has been extended out of the lab and is currently featured in an innovative project focusing on smart grid development.

The STIR Cities Project, funded by the National Science Foundation, uses STIR to investigate how urban centers develop and deploy smart grid systems by studying and interacting with a wide range of key stakeholders such as public utilities, planning offices, industrial operations, and research labs.

Fisher’s STIR has been employed in over 30 laboratories and universities across three continents. The success of STIR has been documented in peer-reviewed journals here, here, and here. Its application in Silicon Valley would allow start-ups to take measurable action towards closing the gap between talking about incorporating societal concerns and actually incorporating societal concerns, a gap which Recode’s Kara Swisher highlighted during the conference. Closing this gap is important and will show that Silicon Valley is indeed capable of growing up and taking accountability.

The future of technology needs Silicon Valley and Silicon Valley needs to STIR it up!

Full disclosure – Dr. Stacia Dreyer is a social scientist who has been trained in STIR.