Technological trespassers

In 2018, philosopher Nathan Ballantyne coined the term epistemic trespassers to describe people who ‘have competence or expertise to make good judgments in one field, but move to another field where they lack competence—and pass judgment nevertheless.’

It’s a great label (for non-philosophy readers, epistemology is the study of knowledge), and an archetype we all recognise. Ballantyne calls out Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson, scientists who now proffer questionable opinions on theology and philosophy; recently we could point to discredited plagiarist Johann Hari’s writing on mental health, which has caused near-audible tooth-grinding from domain experts.

This is certainly a curse that afflicts the public intellectual. There are always new books to sell, and while the TV networks never linger on a single topic, they sure love a trusted talking head. Experts can grumble on the sidelines all they like; it’s audience that counts.

(As an aside, I also wonder about education’s role in this phenomenon. As a former bright kid who perhaps mildly underachieved since, I’ve been thinking about how certain education systems – particularly private schools – flatter intelligent, privileged children into believing they will naturally excel in whatever they do. Advice intended to boost self-assurance and ambition can easily instil arrogance instead, creating men – they’re almost always men, aren’t they? – who are, in Ballantyne’s words, ‘out of their league but highly confident nonetheless’. I can identify, shall we say.)

Within and without borders

Epistemic trespass is rampant in tech. The MBA-toting VC’s brainwormish threads on The Future of Art; the prominent Flash programmer who decides he’s a UX designer now. Social media has created thousands of niche tech microcelebrities, many of whom carry their audiences and clout to new topics without hesitation.

Within tech itself, this maybe isn’t a major crime. Dabbling got many of us here in the first place, and a field in flux will always invent new topics and trends that need diverse perspectives. But by definition, trespass happens on someone else’s property; it’s common to see a sideways disciplinary leap that puts a well-known figure ahead of existing practitioners in the attention queue.

This is certainly inefficient: rather than spending years figuring out the field, you could learn it in months by reading the right material or being mentored by an expert. But many techies have a weird conflicted dissonance of claiming to hate inefficiency while insisting on solving any interesting problem from first principles. I think it’s an ingrained habit now, but if it’s restricted to purely technical domains I’m not overly worried.

Once they leave the safe haven of the technical, though, technologists need to be far more cautious. As our industry finally wises up to its impacts, we now need to learn that many neighbouring fields – politics, sociology, ethics – are also minefields. Bad opinions here aren’t just wasteful, but harmful. An uninformed but widely shared reckon on NFTs is annoying; an uninformed, widely shared reckon on vaccines or electoral rights is outright dangerous.

Epistemic humility

Ballantyne offers the conscientious trespasser two pieces of advice: 1. dial down the confidence, 2. gain the new expertise you need. In short, practice epistemic humility.

There’s a trap in point 2. It’s easy to confuse knowledge and skills, or to assume one will naturally engender the other in time. Software engineers, for example, develop critical thinking skills which are certainly useful elsewhere, but simply applying critical thinking alone in new areas, without foundational domain knowledge, easily leads to flawed conclusions. ‘Fake it until you make it’ is almost always ethically suspect, but it’s doubly irresponsible outside your comfort zone and in dangerous lands.

No one wants gatekeeping, or to be pestered to stay in their lane, and there are always boundary questions that span multiple disciplines. But let’s approach these cases with humility, and stop seeing ourselves as the first brave explorers on any undiscovered shore.

We should recognise that while we may be able to offer something useful, we’re also flawed actors, hampered by our own lack of knowledge. Let’s build opinions like sandcastles, with curiosity but no great attachment, realising the central argument we missed may just act as the looming wave. This means putting the insight of others ahead of our own, and declining work – or better, referring it to others who can do it to a higher standard – while we seek out the partnerships or training we need to build our own knowledge and skills.