Design for values and conceptual engineering

Abstract

Politicians and engineers are increasingly realizing that values are important in the development of technological artefacts. What is often overlooked is that different conceptualizations of these abstract values lead to different design-requirements. For example, designing social media platforms for deliberative democracy sets us up for technical work on completely different types of architectures and mechanisms than designing for so-called liquid or direct forms of democracy. Thinking about Democracy is not enough, we need to design for the proper conceptualization of these values. As we see it, we cannot responsibly engineer and innovate and shape technology in accordance with our moral values without engaging in systematic and continuous conceptual engineering: This is not only an academic, or theoretical issue, it is also not simply an issue for public policy or politics, or regulators, it has become a central problem for engineering and the world of technology. In this paper, we present a framework for doing the necessary conceptual work in the context of requirement engineering. We draw on the literature on conceptual engineering to lay out a methodology to (1) assess different conceptions and (2) to develop new conceptions. Moreover, we integrate this methodology with extant approaches in the philosophy of technology which aim at designing technological artefacts ethically. In the final section we apply this integrated framework to freedom in the context of social media networks.

Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies

“…It may also require adaptation of existing methods for responsibly developing new technology, such as value-sensitive design (VSD) (Friedman and Hendry, 2019). For example, Veluwenkamp and Van den Hoven (2023) have proposed an approach to integrate insights from conceptual engineering into the VSD approach.…”

Lying in online social networks: a bug or a feature

“…Achieving this goal necessitates the conceptualization of the abstract values of society within the framework of a social network. (Veluwenkamp and van den Hoven, 2023). For example, a social network might prioritize more informative and less sensational content or provide tools for users to report and respond to hate JICES 21,4 speech or harassment.…”

Ethics of Generative AI and Manipulation: A Design-Oriented Research Agenda

“…1 Consequently, several key questions for any design for value project concern the nature of the values that should be designed for. 2 Central to the idea of design for values is then that the target values can be specified in a way that allows for a systematic and reliable deduction of concrete design requirements from a general, abstract conception of target values such as 'trust,' 'democracy,' or 'non-manipulation' (van de Poel, 2013'trust,' 'democracy,' or 'non-manipulation' (van de Poel, , 2020Veluwenkamp & van den Hoven, 2023). It is generally acknowledged that there are often different, (prima facie) plausible conceptualisations of target values, and quite some attention has been devoted to different ways of settling on a value conceptualisation (cf.…”

“…Friedman & Hendry, 2019). 3 However, what's only recently been emphasised is the important question of how we can adjudicate between different, perhaps conflicting conceptualisations of a target value (Himmelreich & Köhler, 2022;Veluwenkamp & van den Hoven, 2023). 4 As Veluwenkamp and van den Hoven (2023, p. 2) put it, "it is not always obvious which concepts invoked in the decomposition of requirements is the most appropriate in the relevant context of use."…”