Has technology made this a safer world?

The past 50 years have witnessed how technology has brought earthshaking changes to our life. From hybrid rice to nuclear energy, from artemisinin to smartphone, people have made use of technology to solve various problems. However, as one of our basic needs, safety of life and properties, is not secured with such advanced technology. Instead technology has not made this a safer world where people should be better protected from crimes and threats.

It is true that modern technology has enabled normal people to prevent themselves from harms and injuries and stop crimes. New inventions are created to give people a sense of security. People can set solid barriers in their home against thieves and outlaws by upgrading their locks to the newest type-C ones. Automatic alarms like fire alarms allow people to escape or take other action more swiftly. Even if something happen, people can track and find the criminals easily through close-circuit television which are installed almost everywhere. As a result, people seem to be more physically safe with empowerment of technology.

However, it is equally important that technology also empower outlaws for their crimes. Since technology is neutral, how it works usually depends on who uses it.
When outlaws have equal access or even more access to new technology than the police or military, the harm caused outweighs the positive effect of technology on protecting people. For example, in the US where people can be allowed to carry guns, sometimes the police may not carry guns when patrolling whereas due to the existence of black market, it is not hard for a person to carry a gun illegally. In this case, citizens are unsafe because potential criminals could have greater force than the justice. Besides weapons, crimes also utilise technology like the Internet or even darknet for their secret communication and deals which become harder for the police to trace. Thus, people are endangered as technology has made it even more convenient and costless to commit crimes.

Besides empowering existing threats and crimes, use of new technology also expose people to new risks and new forms of crimes. With the rise of information technology, people's privacy falls in risk. Hackers can hack your personal computer and get access to your cookies and account passwords when you are just connecting to a public Wi-Fi for a short while. The popularity of the Internet also give chances to false information. People can be easily misguided by the information displayed on the top of search results while some companies can pay to rank top and publicise fake information. Last year, the death of Wei Zexi triggered massive discussion on the harm of false information and search engine marketing. He died of cancer without proper treatment after he followed the recommendation of search engine and went to the hospital where he encountered medical fraud. As a result, people are endangered when new risks are caused by technology.

In conclusion, technology has not made this a safer world. Though people can defend themselves in a more powerful way, the effect of existing crimes are equally amplified. Even worse, people are even exposed to new dangers.