Can We Trust Technology?

Can We Trust Technology? examines the contemporary crisis of trust, where people’s trust in organisations and in emerging technologies is decreasing. As governments, industry organisations and research funders are investing millions in the quest to design technologies people will trust, this book asks if it is plausible to think tech workers and research designers can produce trustworthy technologies and, moreover, if it is realistic to assume everyday users of those technologies will ever truly trust them? Drawing on incisive analysis of the contemporary context and ethnographic research with those who develop and use technologies, the book reconsiders dominant assumptions about trust, arguing for a shift in thinking away from motifs of trustworthy technology and toward a vision for trusted futures.

This book is for researchers, professionals and practitioners from all disciplines and professions, interested in technology, trust and futures.

Sarah Pink is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, Professor and Director of the Emerging Technologies Research Lab and FUTURES Hub at Monash University, Australia. Her recent books include Emerging Technologies/Life at the Edge of the Future (Routledge 2023) and the co-authored Design Ethnography (Routledge 2022).

Emma Quilty is a research fellow in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for The Elimination of Violence Against Women at Monash University, Australia. Emma’s writing explores technology, power and gender and has been published in AI & Society, Mobilities, and Senses & Society.