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[thread] Given @AdamThierer recent straw man attacks on tech critics & advocates of banning facial recognition, I decided to revisit his book "Permissionless Innovation" to see how he defines the class of people he spends most of his professional life arguing against. These are
folks who putatively endorse what he calls the “precautionary principle.” Thierer writes: “Generally speaking, it refers to the belief that new innovations should be curtailed or disallowed until their developers can prove they will not cause any harm to individuals, groups,
specific entities, cultural norms, or various existing laws, norms, or traditions.” Has anyone ever made this argument? Can you think of anyone who insists that a necessary condition for making innovative devices or technical systems legal is that they can’t cause any harm
whatsoever? The people I know who argue that technological development should proceed cautiously tend to argue that innovation has hidden costs that aren’t well-understood and need to be better appreciated.
