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Assessing Expectations: Towards a Toolbox for an Ethics of Emerging Technologies

In recent years, several authors have argued that the desirability of novel technologies should be assessed early, when they are still emerging. Such an ethical assessment of emerging technologies is by definition focused on an elusive object. Usually promises, expectations, and visions of the techn...

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Autores principales: Lucivero, Federica, Swierstra, Tsjalling, Boenink, Marianne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166601/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21957435
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11569-011-0119-x
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author Lucivero, Federica
Swierstra, Tsjalling
Boenink, Marianne
author_facet Lucivero, Federica
Swierstra, Tsjalling
Boenink, Marianne
author_sort Lucivero, Federica
collection PubMed
description In recent years, several authors have argued that the desirability of novel technologies should be assessed early, when they are still emerging. Such an ethical assessment of emerging technologies is by definition focused on an elusive object. Usually promises, expectations, and visions of the technology are taken as a starting point. As Nordmann and Rip have pointed out in a recent article, however, ethicists should not take for granted the plausibility of such expectations and visions. In this paper, we explore how the quality of expectations on emerging technologies might be assessed when engaging in a reflection on the desirability of emerging technologies. We propose that an assessment of expectations’ plausibility should focus on statements on technological feasibility, societal usability, and desirability of the expected technology. Whereas the feasibility statement and, to a lesser extent, the usability statements are frequently quite futuristic, the claims on desirability, by contrast, often display a conservative stance towards the future. Assessing the quality of expectations and visions on behalf of emerging technologies requires, then, a careful and well-directed use of both skepticism and imagination. We conclude with a brief overview of the tools and methods ethicists could use to assess claims made on behalf of emerging technologies and improve the ethical reflection on them.
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spelling pubmed-31666012011-09-26 Assessing Expectations: Towards a Toolbox for an Ethics of Emerging Technologies Lucivero, Federica Swierstra, Tsjalling Boenink, Marianne Nanoethics Original Paper In recent years, several authors have argued that the desirability of novel technologies should be assessed early, when they are still emerging. Such an ethical assessment of emerging technologies is by definition focused on an elusive object. Usually promises, expectations, and visions of the technology are taken as a starting point. As Nordmann and Rip have pointed out in a recent article, however, ethicists should not take for granted the plausibility of such expectations and visions. In this paper, we explore how the quality of expectations on emerging technologies might be assessed when engaging in a reflection on the desirability of emerging technologies. We propose that an assessment of expectations’ plausibility should focus on statements on technological feasibility, societal usability, and desirability of the expected technology. Whereas the feasibility statement and, to a lesser extent, the usability statements are frequently quite futuristic, the claims on desirability, by contrast, often display a conservative stance towards the future. Assessing the quality of expectations and visions on behalf of emerging technologies requires, then, a careful and well-directed use of both skepticism and imagination. We conclude with a brief overview of the tools and methods ethicists could use to assess claims made on behalf of emerging technologies and improve the ethical reflection on them. Springer Netherlands 2011-07-09 2011 /pmc/articles/PMC3166601/ /pubmed/21957435 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11569-011-0119-x Text en © The Author(s) 2011 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Lucivero, Federica
Swierstra, Tsjalling
Boenink, Marianne
Assessing Expectations: Towards a Toolbox for an Ethics of Emerging Technologies
title Assessing Expectations: Towards a Toolbox for an Ethics of Emerging Technologies
title_full Assessing Expectations: Towards a Toolbox for an Ethics of Emerging Technologies
title_fullStr Assessing Expectations: Towards a Toolbox for an Ethics of Emerging Technologies
title_full_unstemmed Assessing Expectations: Towards a Toolbox for an Ethics of Emerging Technologies
title_short Assessing Expectations: Towards a Toolbox for an Ethics of Emerging Technologies
title_sort assessing expectations: towards a toolbox for an ethics of emerging technologies
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166601/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21957435
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11569-011-0119-x
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