Innovation causes litany of existential threats that are unpredictable.

Innovations can be intentionally harmful, such as for example the atomic bomb, auto-matic rifles, electric chairs, or the 'Spanish donkey.' These innovations clearly cause great harm by creating new opportunities for individuals to more effectively carry out harmful intentions. 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).