Pistols, pills, pork and ploughs: the structure of technomoral revolutions

Hopster, Jeroen; Arora, Chirag; Blunden, Charlie; Eriksen, Cecilie; Frank, Lily; Hermann, Julia; Klenk, Michael; O’Neill, Elizabeth; Steinert, Steffen

doi:10.1080/0020174x.2022.2090434

Cited by 16 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Various other historical examples have been discussed in the literature on technomoral change, such as the influence of ploughing technology on gender norms; the dynamics between new weapon technology and the demise of dueling as an exclusively aristocratic practice; or the role of veterinary medicine and meat replacements in changing attitudes towards the treatment of farm animals [95]. While these historical cases provide a proof of concept, the technomoral change framework is mostly used as an anticipatory framework, which serves to sketch scenarios of possible pathways of future value change.…”

Section: Two Dyadic Models: Techethics and Techlawmentioning

confidence: 99%

The technology triad: disruptive AI, regulatory gaps and value change

Hopster

Maas²

2023

AI Ethics

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Disruptive technologies can have far-reaching impacts on society. They may challenge or destabilize cherished ethical values and disrupt legal systems. There is a convergent interest among ethicists and legal scholars in such “second-order disruptions” to norm systems. Thus far, however, ethical and legal approaches to technological norm-disruption have remained largely siloed. In this paper, we propose to integrate the existing ‘dyadic’ models of disruptive change in the ethical and legal spheres, and shift focus to the relations between and mutual shaping of values, technology, and law. We argue that a ‘triadic’ values-technology-regulation model—“the technology triad”—is more descriptively accurate, as it allows a better mapping of second-order impacts of technological changes (on values and norms, through changes in legal systems—or on legal systems, through changes in values and norms). Simultaneously, a triadic model serves to highlight a broader portfolio of ethical, technical, or regulatory interventions that can enable effective ethical triage of—and a more resilient response to—such Socially Disruptive Technologies. We illustrate the application of the triadic framework with two cases, one historical (how the adoption of the GDPR channeled and redirected the evolution of the ethical value of ‘privacy’ when that had been put under pressure by digital markets), and one anticipatory (looking at anticipated disruptions caused by the ongoing wave of generative AI systems).

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Section: Two Dyadic Models: Techethics and Techlawmentioning

confidence: 99%

The technology triad: disruptive AI, regulatory gaps and value change

Hopster

Maas²

2023

AI Ethics

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“…(6,7) Authors in the field of philosophy of technology have directed attention to the technological mediation of morality and on the complex mechanisms about techno-moral change, studying how technology and morality co-evolve. (8)(9)(10) Recent refinements have been formulated by Hopster and Löhr, offering tentative substantiations of what techno-social, and -potentially -ethical disruption might mean on a more fundamental level. (11,12) The moral concept of 'responsibility' is one such concept that continues to be disputed in healthcare practices where technologies can mediate shifts of responsibilities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the ought implies can dictum in light of disruptive medical innovation

De Proost,

Segers

2023

J Med Ethics

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It is a dominant dictum in ethics that ‘ought implies can’ (OIC): if an agent morally ought to do an action, the agent must be capable of performing that action. Yet, with current technological developments, such as in direct-to-consumer genomics, big data analytics and wearable technologies, there may be reasons to reorient this ethical principle. It is our modest aim in this article to explore how the current wave of allegedly disruptive innovation calls for a renewed interest for this dictum. As an effect of prevention and prediction oriented technological innovation, an increased focus on assumedly controllable lifestyle risks may be anticipated. For lay people who might turn into patients, this may entail a reinforced behavior-based individual responsibilisation. Holding on to the OIC dictum, such responsibilisation seems to require that individuals can actually control what is framed as ‘lifestyle risks’ when there is not always a reliable consensus about what one should do. As such, reference to OIC may be mobilised in function of a political task of designing institutions so as to enable such choice and control.

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“…2 On the difficulties associated with making predictions about technologies, see, e.g., Collingridge (1980), Hansson (2011), and Brey (2012); on varying ethical problems across contexts, see, e.g., Nissenbaum (2009) and Forge (2010); on socially disruptive technologies, see Carlsen et al (2010), Brey et al (2019), Hopster (2021a2021b), andNickel et al (2021); on morally disruptive technologies, see Baker (2013; and Nickel (2020); on the relationship between technological change and moral change, see Swierstra et al (2009), Verbeek (2011, Pols (2013), Swierstra (2013), Kudina & Verbeek (2019), van de Poel (2021), Hopster et al (2022), and van de Poel & Kudina (2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextual Integrity as a General Conceptual Tool for Evaluating Technological Change

O’Neill

2022

Philos. Technol.

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The fast pace of technological change necessitates new evaluative and deliberative tools. This article develops a general, functional approach to evaluating technological change, inspired by Nissenbaum’s theory of contextual integrity. Nissenbaum (2009) introduced the concept of contextual integrity to help analyze how technological changes can produce privacy problems. Reinterpreted, the concept of contextual integrity can aid our thinking about how technological changes affect the full range of human concerns and values—not only privacy. I propose a generalized concept of contextual integrity that is applicable to a broader variety of circumstances, and I outline a new, general procedure for technological evaluation. Among the attractive features of the proposed approach to evaluating technological change are its context-sensitivity, adaptability, and principled presumptive conservatism, enabled by the mechanism the approach supplies for reevaluating existing practices, norms, and values.

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Pistols, pills, pork and ploughs: the structure of technomoral revolutions

Cited by 16 publications

References 66 publications

The technology triad: disruptive AI, regulatory gaps and value change

The technology triad: disruptive AI, regulatory gaps and value change

Revisiting the ought implies can dictum in light of disruptive medical innovation

Contextual Integrity as a General Conceptual Tool for Evaluating Technological Change

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