Ethical Issues of Emerging ICT Applications

Bernd Carsten Stahl

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Hypothesis

FP7 ICT ethics processes and reviews are structurally blind to numerous ethical issues that are likely to be raised by emerging ICTs.

Aims of the ETICA project

1. Identify emerging ICTs

2. Identify ethical issues likely to be raised by those ICTs

3. Evaluate and rank these issues

4. Provide recommendations on appropriate governance structures to address these.

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Epistemology: ETICA as foresight

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The ETICA approach to identifying emerging ICTs

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• Conduct a dual discourse analysis

• Policy / funding documents

• Research institution publications

• Assumption: these will influence technology development, they thus give a good view of realistic current expectations of emerging technologies

Grid of analysis

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Emerging ICTs

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1. Affective Computing

2. Ambient Intelligence

3. Artificial Intelligence

4. Bioelectronics

5. Cloud Computing

6. Future Internet

7. Human-machine symbiosis

8. Neuroelectronics

9. Quantum Computing

10. Robotics

11. Virtual / Augmented Reality

Ethical analysis – VOSViewer, bibliometrics

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Synthesis example: Ethical issues of Cloud Computing

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Categorisation of the ethical issues of all identified emerging ICTs

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Top level issues

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FP7 ICT Ethics

Getting Through Ethics Review (http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ethics_en.html)

• Informed consent (research on humans)

• Research on human embryos foetus

• Privacy / data protection

• Research on animals

• Research involving developing countries

• Dual use

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Problems of FP7 ICT Ethics

• Compliance driven (“getting through…”)

• Based on bio-medical ethics

• Concentration on process

• Neglect of product

• Concentration on selected substantive issues (e.g. privacy, animals, implants)

• Decontextualised approach to ethics

• Ethics evaluation is done by experts sharing the proposers’ mindset

• No consideration of the process of identifying and addressing ethics

ETICA findings and FP7 ICT ethics

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Likely to find Likely to find aspects Unlikely to find

A significant proportion of ethical issues of emerging ICTs are not captured by FP7 ICT ethics processes.

Governance

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• Analysis of current arrangements

• Problems with values and how they appear in processes of justification and legitimation within arrangements

• These problems limit the ethical governance potential of any current approach

• 3 steps toward solution

• Determine current ethical issue determination and resolution

• Demonstrate these issues with reference to EU and national projects

• Assess existing proposed solutions and their limits

Governance Recommendations: normative approach

• The approach incorporates – context, – norms, – values and – addresses rational concerns (justification and legitimacy)

• Transcends the limits of a technology-specific checklist method• Support for existing EU ethics within the new approach

• Substantive findings (ETICA) can inform process

Responsible innovation: ETICA contribution

• Subject of responsibility?– Researchers – Organisations– Professions

• Object of responsibility?– Innovation process– Products– Social impact

• Authority?– Society – National governments– EU

• Type of responsibility?– Moral – Legal

• Mechanisms of ascription?• Governance models

• Temporal horizon?• Sanctions?

• What is the purpose of the responsibility ascription?