Revenge effects mean innovation creates net social harm

More in general, the introduction of new technology can lead to ‘revenge effects.’  Pesticide and antibiotic use can create conditions where new super-weeds and super-bugs evolve, air-conditioning increases external temperatures, and expanding roads can  increase traffic and lead to more congestion. Tenner (1997) sub-divides these revenge  effects into rearranging, repeating, recomplicating, regenerating and recongesting effects. 

In some cases, the harm from innovation comes not from regular use but from  unanticipated accidents, such as Chernobyl. In other cases, the harm is an unintended  yet anticipated outcome that comes from proper use. This harm can be well-known or  hidden. A known side-effect of the proper use of cigarettes is lung cancer. A relatively  little-known fact about shale gas production is that it produces considerable amounts of  radioactive waste (Warner et al. 2013). Even the truck drivers disposing of this radio-  active waste are not aware that their truckload is radioactive (Nobel 2020).  

We have seen with digital technologies such as social media and machine learning,  that things seen as dark sides – discrimination in applications and data sources or  cognitive distraction – are part of the constitutions of technologies. It is convenient for  innovators to label negative consequences as ‘unintended’, but they may be designed into  the system – features, not bugs – or they may be deliberately unanticipated to avoid  accountability (Stilgoe 2020). 

2.4. Innovation to deceive or to escape regulation  

Firms may lie about the toxicity of their products. However, if this is no longer possible,  they may introduce new products that are not yet proven to be harmful (because it always  takes time for the evidence to emerge). This type of innovation to escape regulation does  not address the underlying problems, but merely delays regulation. For example, e-  cigarettes are seen as an alternative to regular cigarettes, but they also contain carcinogens (Cotti, Nesson, and Tefft 2018). E-cigarettes seem to have public health benefits, if  they replace conventional cigarettes, but they also create new problems and new behaviours. This seems to be an inherent part of the nature of innovation: complicated  substitutions, uncertainty about benefits and risks, and new technologies that combine  solutions with new problems. One might also mention here financial market innovations  that deceive investors about the risks in their portfolios (Zingales 2015) or the expensive  fees paid for active fund management that does not outperform passive funds.