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The QWERTY keyboard from the perspective of the Collingridge dilemma: lessons for co-construction of human-technology

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Abstract

According to the Collingridge dilemma, technology is easy to control when its consequences are not yet manifest; once they appear, the technology is difficult to control. This article examines the development of keyboard layout design from the perspective of the Collingridge dilemma. For this purpose, unlike related studies that focus on a limited period of time, the history of keyboard development is explored from the invention of the typewriter and the QWERTY to brain–computer interfaces. Today, there is no mechanical problem of the typewriter for which the QWERTY was designed. On the other hand, better layouts have been designed for various situations so far, that can be easily implemented especially on virtual keyboards, but QWERTY has not been replaced. The present study shows how various factors as heterogeneous engineering have shaped QWERTY, prevented the prevalence of superior layouts, and led to Lock-in. Then, unlike other studies related to the Collingridge dilemma, which provide a qualitative description of it, a quantitative description is proposed that helps to better understand the Collingridge dilemma and Lock-in. Finally, the case study of the QWERTY keyboard illustrates that the theory of human-technology co-construction can provide a more comprehensive explanation of technology development, while the Collingridge dilemma can better provide some details of technology development.

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Notes

  1. Some scholars insist that the QWERTY keyboard layout is not optimal due to path dependence and lock-in (David 1985; Arthur 1989). Some scholars, studying competing with its most important alternative, believe that QWERTY was a rational choice (Liebowitz and Margolis 1990; Liebowitz and Margolis 2012; Kay 2013). Some believed that the market always manages to solve the QWERTY problem (Hossain and Morgan 2009). Others distinguished and formulated related types of dynamic processes including path-dependent processes (Jackson and Kollman 2012; Dolfsma and Leydesdorff 2009). Also, subsequent efforts have been made to find an intermediate solution between the two extremes: path dependence is a myth and path dependence has vast implications (Vergne 2013).

  2. Later with the advent of the computer age, various types of the QWERTY keyboard were developed (Moore and Swales 2011; Tyneski and Griffin 2006). Among them, QWERTZ in Central Europe, AZERTY in France, and QZERTY in Italy can be mentioned. But these keyboards have limited use.

  3. Recent advances have been made in BCIs that transfer information to the computer simply by imagining the handwriting. This will remove the keyboards, either virtual or physical (Willett et al. 2021).

  4. The term QWERTY effect is also used in other senses (see e.g. Vergne 2013; Hossain and Morgan 2009; Moro 2011).

  5. For more information on lock-in types and typical mechanisms, see Kotilainen et al. (2019).

  6. As already mentioned in two places in the text (competition between Dvorak and QWERTY, and competition between Linotype and QWERTY), there can be cases where the lock-in is chosen deliberately and consciously.

  7. Everyday cyborgs are “persons with replacements and augmentations ranging from the simple to the extraordinarily complex, for example, artificial joint replacements, implanted devices such as pacemakers and the total artificial heart, and limb prostheses” (Quigley and Ayihongbe 2018). We are “cyborgs not in the merely superficial sense of combining flesh and wires but in the more profound sense of being human-technology symbionts: thinking and reasoning systems whose minds and selves are spread across biological brain and nonbiological circuitry” (Clark 2003).

  8. This paper focuses on the explanation of lock-in and its prediction, and escaping lock-in is beyond the scope of this study. For the latter, see Cowan and Hultén (1996), and Kotilainen et al. (2019).

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  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Mahdi Kafaee & Elahe Daviran

  2. Department of Philosophy of Science, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Mostafa Taqavi

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  1. Mahdi Kafaee
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Kafaee, M., Daviran, E. & Taqavi, M. The QWERTY keyboard from the perspective of the Collingridge dilemma: lessons for co-construction of human-technology. AI & Soc (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-022-01573-1

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