ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the development of innovation from the point of view of society and social fairness. The destructive aspect of an economic system based on permanent innovation may be very high for society: it may cause social stress and great human suffering. Then new applications of science and technology are becoming ambiguous, especially if we consider the opportunities opened by the convergence of nanotechnologies, biosciences and artificial intelligence. And, last but not least, the management of this destructive creativity is mostly left in private hands. The enterprises are the key decision-takers in a system led by logic of means, its own development, and not by logic of ends and values. If development through innovation is discontinuous, random and risky, it is also brutal and dangerous. If the logic of economic and technical innovation is that of creative destruction, one wonders whether today, for some categories of people, the destructive effects of creation do not outweigh its benefits.
