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1 Law, Tech. & Hum. 1 (2019)

handle is hein.journals/lwtchmn1 and id is 1 raw text is: https://thjgut edu.au/ LAW, TECHNOLOGY AND HUMANS Volume 1 (1) 2019 https://doi.org/10.5204/Ithj.vliO.1379 elcome to the Mutiverse Law, Technology and Humans Kieran Tranter General Editor, Law, Technology and Humans, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia The multiverse has invaded popular consciousness from its inception in the realms of theoretical physics.' It is an intriguing concept-this universe is but one of an infinity of universes budding and bubbling together,2 and within this multiform reality, the laws and rules of our universe twist and change. Indeed, in science fiction, the 'parallel worlds' trope has a long legacy with countless narratives based on the premise that somewhere in the multiverse are other Earths and other versions of you-each living the consequences of different decisions.3 The multiverse theory is a reminder and a warning that there is not a single reality, a single perspective, only one way to see and know the world. The assertion of a multiverse, gleaned from attempts to synthesise the subatomic of the quantum with the exceptionally large (physically and conceptually) of galaxies and gravity,' is an injunction to wonder, speculate and confidently see the world anew. But why am I invoking the multiverse in introducing the journal Law, Technology and Humans? It is because at this moment, when global culture is becoming highly aware of technology and technologically driven change (often described with dynamic modifiers such as innovation or disruption), there has been a diminishing? In this technologically infused society, culture, economy and even humanity are often ignored. A metanarrative of technology as a source of anxiety or hope for the future has become entrenched in society, and technology is commonly presented as an asocial alien force that comes to the world to cause change. In this narrative, law, regulation, ethics and forms of human normative ordering are required to channel technological change towards the common good.5 Despite the traditions within the philosophy of technology, palaeoanthropology, and science and technology that centre technology as intimate and internal to humanity the mainstream metanarrative disregards the complexity of the relationship between technology and humans. Therefore, legal thinking about technology-the emerging field of 'technology law'6-tends towards speculative, doctrinal analyses that are surprisingly empty. There is an emptiness regarding values and the future good that technology should be channelled towards by law, and regulation and ethics remain abstract or under-articulated. There is a reluctance to commit to substantive values beyond the legacy of the positivist's traditional concern with 'rule of law', coverage and the elimination of ambiguities and anomalies. Often the issue of values is deferred to an amorphous 'society' or 'policymakers' or an imagined human collective ('we') who decide the end towards which technology must be channelled.7 Human rights instruments are sometimes invocated as unchallenged trumps but without an awareness of the contestation and critique of rights and rights discourse. 'Wolfe, Surfing the Multiverse; Kukkonen, Navigating Infinite Earths. 2Carr, Universe or Multiverse? Csicsery-Ronay, The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction, 81-2. 4Wallace, The Emergent Multiverse. Tribe, Channeling Technology through Law. 6Guihot, Coherence in Technology Law. Tranter, The Law and Technology Enterprise. c * This work is licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution 4.0 International Licence. As an open access journal, articles are free to use with proper attribution. ISSN: 2652-4074 (Online) @ The Author/s 2019

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