New and emerging technologies have always carried a host of potential risks to accompany their oft-blinding potential. Just as dependably, those risks have often been ignored, glossed over or just missed as public enthusiasm waxes and companies race to bring a product to market first and most effectively. Automobiles promised to get people (and products) from one place to another at life-changing speeds, but also posed a danger to life and limb while imposing a new burden on existing infrastructure. Even as technology leaps have transitioned from appliances and aircraft to computers, connectivity and large language models (LLMs), new and untested technologies continue to outpace the government and the public’s ability to moderate them. But while one can debate what constitutes an acceptable gap between the practical and ideal when it comes to regulating, mandating and evaluating the pros and cons of new technology, societies tend to generate their own methods of informing the public and attempting to rein in the more harmful aspects of the latest thing.
