## 2 Technological Ambivalence
### Ambivalent Accounts  
We can understand technological ambivalence as precisely the tension between utopia and dystopia. It is the simultaneous presence of utopic hopes and dystopic fears; co-existing in a strained relationship; rooted in the politics, propensities, and potentials of technology. Within science and technology studies (STS), it is common to understand technological artifacts themselves as ambivalent, containing both the proverbial finger prints of their human creators[26], and the imagined and unimaginable effects upon human users, cultures, and social structures(see [27]). The complexity of technological artifacts--and their indeterminable effects--is well articulated by Actor-Network theorist [PERSON] [28] (p. 251):  
\"The very complexity of the apparatuses, which is due to the accumulation of folds and detours, layers and reversals, compilations and re-orderings, forever denies the clarity of right reason, under the aegis of which technologies have been first introduced.\"  
Expanding on this, [PERSON] [27] conceptualizes technology as _materialized action_. Technology is neither static nor deterministically powerful. Rather, technology is imbued with particular intentions, used in a multitude of ways, and an impetus for unpredictable personal practices and cultural trends. Providing a useful language with which to talk about this indeterminacy, [PERSON] [29] draws on philosopher [PERSON] to juxtapose _potentiality_ to _possibility_. Using the example of an arrow shot from a bow, [PERSON] describes the arrow's _potential_ as the infinite paths and endpoints at the time of release, and its _possibility_ as the measurable paths and endpoints calculated after the arrow lands. The latter has a final outcome, with determinable alternatives. For the former, the outcome remains uncertain, as do the available routes. With this analogy, utopic and dystopic arguments can be thought of as end-points, as outcomes from which we can trace all possible paths. In contrast, ambivalence is a flying arrow, operating on a trajectory of uncharted (and unchartable) potentialities. This kind of ambivalence recognizes simultaneously the independent power of technology, and the role of human agency. The next step is to understand how the ambivalence _of_ technology affects experiential ambivalence _with_ technology. The recent works of education scholar [PERSON] [30] and bioethicist [PERSON] [31] offer strong examples of this line of research. Indeed, these researchers examine human-technology relations empirically, through experiential subjectivity, and in doing so, find excitement and fear, benefit and loss, guilt and justification, and above all, uncertainty. [PERSON] [30] (p.17) describes ambivalence among Chinese youth in reference to internet cafes. [PERSON]'s participants frame the internet cafe as at once a stress-relieving outlet for a generation who must operate within the pressures of the one-child policy, and an addictive threat to a productive--and moral--life. To make sense of their experiences, participants articulate ambivalence by drawing skillfully and simultaneously on polemic metaphors of self-control and deserved enjoyment. [PERSON] concludes:  
\"The internet is not merely a technological object, but it serves as part of a web of values, relationships, symbols and routines that make up social life. As such, it is unavoidably loaded with competing meanings, which are reflected by the different, and sometimes conflicting, notions about what constitutes 'proper' use.\"  
[PERSON] [31] (p. 297) shows similar experiential ambivalence with regards to medical enhancement technologies. He poignantly summarizes scores of experiential accounts in the following passage:  
\"Enthusiasm is probably the wrong word to describe the way Americans feel about enhancement technologies. If this is enthusiasm, it is the enthusiasm of a diver on the high platform, who has to talk himself into taking the plunge...I don't think Americans expect happiness in a handful of tablets. We take the tablets, but we brood about it.