Inventors Who Came to Regret Their Inventions
Most inventions, it is safe to say, are made with pure intentions. With the scientific process, as a species, we have managed to create technology, culture, architecture, and more to help solve the infinite problems that have come up, from problems of convenience to unfathomable direness. Unfortunately, many good inventions turn bad, and we have seen plenty of those too many inventors have regretted creating or are still afflicting us to this day. Everyone makes mistakes, and some of the inventors of insanely popular inventions are no exceptions, even if they no longer believe or, due to the popularity (or because of it). And this is not even including the inventors killed by their invention. Here are seven such examples:
- Geoffrey Hinton and the “Godfathers of AI” Geoffrey Hinton, along with two other so-called “Godfathers of AI,” won the 2018 Turing Award for their foundational work that led to the AI boom we see today. However, Hinton has since expressed regret over his life work. He even quit his job at Google to speak freely about the dangers of AI. Hinton now wants to discuss the feared dangers of the potential outcome of AI, from the spread of misinformation to job loss to even the possibility that AI will overtake human intelligence and begin writing and performing its code. “I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away,” Hinton said. “Obviously, I no longer think that.” He tried to console himself in an interview with Vox, claiming, “If it weren’t me, it would have been someone worse,” said Hinton. “It’s just hard to see how you stop the bad actors from using it for bad things.”
- Ethan Zuckerman and the Pop-Up Ad The pop-up ad creation is even more ironic than most know. After one of Ethan Zuckerman’s advertising clients was mortified at finding their ad on a web page encouraging a particular form of sex that expressed them because the car company is not associated with us, Zuckerman created the popup ad to separate ads from the content various people found objectionable. Later Zuckerman apologized and understood that although his intentions were to help advertisers and users, the result was to create an intrusive and often annoying ad that many surfers despised.
- Wally Conron and the Labradoodle Wally Conron was working at the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia in the ’80s when a guide dog user came to him and asked him to create a guide dog that did not lose hair. The problem was the blind woman’s husband was allergic to dogs’ fur. So, Conron created a golden Labrador retriever and a poodle mix known as a Labradoodle, which is now said to be the most popular hybrid dog in the world. The poodle hybrid suffers many problems with their eyes, hips, and elbows, so a lot of them suffer from epilepsy. “I released a kraken, that’s what I did,” Conron told Psychology Today of the harmful trend of designer breeding. “So many people are just breeding for the money. So many of those dogs have physical problems, and a lot of them are crazy.”
- Mikhail Kalashnikov and the AK-47 The late Mikhail Kalashnikov, who served in a tank unit during the beginning of WWII and had already invented improvements for tanks, was tasked with building a rifle that could help Russian firepower keep up with that of Germany’s and compete against the Nazis. His automatic weapon, the AK-47, proved durable, lightweight, and extremely popular—too popular for his liking. Kalashnikov later expressed regret over his invention’s role in global violence and conflict. He wrote a letter to the Russian Orthodox Church saying, “My spiritual pain is unbearable… If my rifle claimed people’s lives, then can it be that I… a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?”
- Scott Fahlman and Emoticons Emoticons, emoji, stickers—whatever you call them, you’ve received at least one. These little reaction images can often replace text nowadays, and they come coded with various meanings. Scott Fahlman, the inventor of the emoticon, initially created them to help convey tone and emotion in text-based communication. However, Fahlman has expressed mixed feelings about their evolution. He finds it amusing but also slightly regrettable that his simple idea has turned into a massive global phenomenon, sometimes detracting from the nuance of written communication.
- Albert Einstein and the Atomic Bomb Albert Einstein’s famous E = mc² helped scientists create the atomic bomb, which Einstein even urged President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 to pursue because he believed the Nazis were developing their own. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki shone a light on the true horror of his work. In 1947, he lamented to Newsweek that if he had “known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing.” Einstein’s regret over the atomic bomb’s use haunted him for the rest of his life.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project More closely associated with being the actual “father of the atomic bomb” was J. Robert Oppenheimer, the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory who directed the development of the bomb. He and many of the other Manhattan Project staff expressed regret after the bombing of Nagasaki, which they felt was unnecessary. Oppenheimer later stated that he felt like he had blood on his hands, and to make some kind of amends he began working with the US Atomic Energy Commission to control the use of nuclear weapons.
Conclusion
While innovation often brings about positive change, the stories of these inventors remind us that the consequences of technological advancements can sometimes be unforeseen and regrettable. These inventors’ experiences highlight the importance of ethical considerations in the development and implementation of new technologies, ensuring that the pursuit of progress does not come at too high a cost.