Ford School Professor Shobita Parthasarathy has been invited to serve as an “Expert Voices” columnist for Science over the next two years. As one of the world’s leading scientific journals, Science is a major platform for news and commentary on science policy and is broadly read by scientists, policymakers, and science communicators around the globe. Parthasarathy will contribute essays focused on the intersections of science, technology policy, and social equity from cross-national and international perspectives.
In her inaugural column, “Beware the drive to scale technology,” Parthasarathy examines the widely held belief that standardized solutions deployed at mass scale are the most effective route to social benefit and equity. She highlights that while scaling technology is often associated with efficiency and progress, it can unintentionally perpetuate or exacerbate inequities, especially in marginalized communities.
Through case studies such as the pulse oximeter (which produced unreliable readings for people with darker skin tones during the COVID-19 pandemic), the MIT Media Lab’s One Laptop Per Child initiative intended to bridge the digital divide in low- and middle-income countries, and India’s rollout of low-cost sanitary pads, Parthasarathy illustrates how the hidden assumptions and context-specific limitations embedded in technologies can result in unintended harms. She shows that these scalable solutions often neglect diverse needs, local knowledge, and the complex systems within which technologies operate.
“Scientists and engineers may imagine that their innovations can overcome these circumstances to produce transformational change, but technologies do not stand alone. They are “sociotechnical systems,” the proper operation of which depends on human judgments, behaviors, and connections to other technologies and infrastructure, as well as social norms, laws, policies, and even geography.”
Parthasarathy urges scientists, engineers, and policymakers to rethink the role of scalability in promoting equity. She calls for deeper engagement with intended users and a broader, holistic approach to innovation to achieve social impact.
“To avoid such moral, social, and political harms, scientists, engineers, and policy-makers need to reconsider their assumption that scalability is the primary path to achieving equity. Instead, they should treat the drive to scale with curiosity and skepticism.”
Read the inaugural column, “Beware the drive to scale technology,” in Science, and watch for more of her “Expert Voices” articles in the weeks and months to come!
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