On the face of it, this is an extraordinary claim. After all, technologies are
designed, constructed and used to do particular things. They are by definition purposeful,
instrumental, directed at achieving a particular end. Works of art may perhaps
be allowed to be ironic and paradoxical in their effect, but prosaic artefacts
like helmets, motorcars, hospitals, heating systems, drugs, and information systems
are not there to behave ambiguously, uncertainly, let alone perversely. Indeed, technologies
are carefully designed and applied to do just what we want them to do—
to bring about a certain state of affairs—no more and no less. And so how is it
that technologies—the rational, goal directed, instruments of our will—sometimes
(always?) perform ironically?