Fluent Essays

Directions: Answer the questions below based on your reading of the “Values, Ethics and Innovation: Rethinking Technological Development in the Fourth Industrial Revolution” issued by the World Economic Forum. Most answers are readily available in the article; however, you should also provide personal, thoughtful analysis of the topics discussed. This may mean that you need to look up unfamiliar terms used in the article and/or refer to external sources for examples and clarification of the points you choose to include in your answers. All external sources, examples etc. must be cited explicitly using MLA format.1. How do “society and technology develop in tandem, with technologies shaping and embodying societal values,”?2. Why can we no longer assume that technological and economic progress are automatically aligned with social progress?3. What are the two most widely held beliefs about technology and how do they both reflect an inadequate understanding of technology’s role in society?4. What is Collingridge’s dilemma?5. How has the US responded to this dilemma vs. European countries like the UK?6. The article uses the example of the automobile as a technology that fundamentally changedsociety. It lists many changes, both positive and negative, that the automobile brought tosociety but also makes sure to state that “None of these impacts were inevitable”. Why?7. According to the article, what is the “central question” surrounding technology that a human-centered approach must always take into consideration?8. The question of what a meaningful future for mankind might look like could be different for avariety of people so why can’t we simply let the free market decide what the “majority” ofpeople want?9. The article claims that, “Despite the tendency to think of technologies as objects or tools, theyinevitably embody the values of their creators,”. Who do we generally think of as the creators of technology? Is there a bias inherent in this type of thinking and/or the reality of who creates technology for whom? How does the article propose to fix this bias?10. How can inclusion practices help mitigate the potential consequences of “surface assumptions” in creating new technology and/or its uses in society?11. How is it profitable as well as ethical to adhere to what the article calls “transformative innovation”?12. What do they mean when they say that the challenge to create a transformative and ethical relationship between technology and society is a “systemic challenge”?13. How can innovation and the creation of new technologies be compared to having a child? wef_wp_values_ethics_innovation_2018__1_.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview White Paper Values, Ethics and Innovation Rethinking Technological Development in the Fourth Industrial Revolution August 2018 Authors: Thomas Philbeck Head of Technology, Society and Policy, World Economic Forum Nicholas Davis Head of Society and Innovation, Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum Anne Marie Engtoft Larsen Knowledge Lead, Fourth Industrial Revolution, World Economic Forum World Economic Forum® © 2018 – All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or Transmitted in any form or by any means, including Photocopying and recording, or by any information Storage and retrieval system. The views expressed in this White Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the World Economic Forum or its Members and Partners. White Papers are submitted to the World Economic Forum as contributions to its insight areas and interactions, and the Forum makes the final decision on the publication of the White Paper. White Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and further debate. Contents Introduction 4 Towards a human-centred approach 5 A. Adopting a systems view of technologies B. Appreciating and shaping the moral role of technologies C. Engaging with a wide variety of stakeholders 6 7 9 D. The need for new disciplines 10 Achieving transformative innovation 11 A. New tools 12 B. New skills 13 C. New partnerships 14 D. New institutions 14 Conclusion 16 Endnotes 17 Bibliography 18 White Paper 3 Introduction Technologies enable us to live longer, healthier, more fulfilling lives. Since the first Industrial Revolution in particular, the development, commercialization and diffusion of new technologies have vastly expanded opportunities for people around the world. They have also generated riches, both quantitative and qualitative, for industries and societies, increasing the real average global wage by at least 2900\% since the 1700s.1 The technologies emerging today promise further value, both economic and social. For example, artificial intelligence alone could generate between $3 trillion and $5 trillion across nearly 20 industries,2 and blockchain could help revolutionize humanitarian relief.3 Humankind, however, is only just beginning to realize how technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are fundamentally challenging our ideas about the world and are able to bring about undesirable externalities. This goes beyond headline-grabbing concerns about robots taking jobs, cybersecurity disasters or existential threats from an artificial superintelligence. The fact is, technologies already widely deployed are slowly fracturing social cohesion, widening inequality and inexorably transforming everything, from global politics to personal identities. No one fully foresaw or intended these outcomes. However, they make it harder to deny that the influence of these technologies on society reflects how they were developed and deployed. The recent debate about data collection on social media that exploits people’s vulnerabilities exemplifies how technologies embody the values and interests of their makers and how this can impact us in potentially harmful ways. As Marc Benioff, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Salesforce, USA, remarked at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2018 last January, the task of regulation is to set true north. It is not just about what companies and governments create and do, it’s about how they create and do it. The moral role of technologies that concerns the values and ethics of technological development must be addressed at this critical moment in history, and industry is asking for guidance.4 “The values and ethics of technological development must be addressed at this critical moment in history” Rethinking the processes of technological development is needed, asking first what long-term future is wanted, and then how to orient technological development towards achieving it. Technologies cannot decide for people what constitutes the good life. The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development represents a step in this 4 Values, Ethics and Innovation direction. It recognizes that technologies will play a role in whether the Sustainable Development Goals are reached, and establishes a multistakeholder “Technology Facilitation Mechanism” to maximize the chances.5 The World Economic Forum is also pioneering a futureoriented agenda – one that promotes responsible development and the adoption of new technologies, and drives a higher quality of life with greater public participation in how technologies are employed – by taking seriously the roles of values and ethics in technological development. Leaders from multiple sectors must now come together to guide the development and deployment of new technologies that will further values, such as environmental stewardship, the common good and human dignity. To fight growing inequality and resulting populism, greater awareness of technologies’ impact on human rights is required, as well as their more inclusive integration into societies and economies. This White Paper is part of the Forum project on Values, Ethics and Innovation. It expands on the call to action for values leadership in Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Klaus Schwab and Nicholas Davis, 2018). The first section of this paper argues that society and technology develop in tandem, with technologies shaping and embodying societal values, and calls for a human-centred approach to technological development. The second section identifies and describes the new tools, skills, partnerships and institutions required to achieve transformative innovation – namely, innovation that no longer widens the gap between the haves and have-nots, and that facilitates technological advance in line with social progress. All stakeholder groups stand to benefit from this approach. Governments can re-establish trust in their governance of technologies by better aligning them with societal values. Industry leaders can hope to develop new markets, attract new investment and create more positive engagement with customers. Civil society can claim a role in shaping the preservation of rights and freedoms through the design of societally aligned technologies. And citizens will have greater potential for self-realization. Technologies continue to be seen as part of the solution to many complex global challenges in the 21st century. They are also capable of taking society forward in an inclusive, sustainable and positive way, if the right approach to their development is taken. This is a pressing issue after 30 years of stagnating wages, with 80\% of the reduction in labour’s share of national income attributed to technologies.6 Technological and economic progress can no longer be assumed to be aligned with social progress, and data from many European countries and the United States, in particular, suggest material conditions have improved much more than the quality of life.7 The human story over the next half century will turn largely on how well societies succeed in collectively defining their priorities, engaging essential questions about values and ethics, and aligning technological development accordingly. Towards a human-centred approach How people think about technologies matters. This is not simply because technologies are the primary contributor to economic growth worldwide. It’s because technologies shape people, and people shape technologies. This relationship not only impacts research agendas, it also impacts investment flows, business models and the content of education systems. The two most widely held views of technologies among current business leaders and senior policy makers fail to reflect the complexity of our relationship with these technologies. The first widespread perspective approaches technologies as mere tools that are intrinsically and unquestionably aligned with greater opportunity. The second prevalent view regards history as driven by technological progress, with people powerless to shape its direction: in this view, technologies are inevitable and out of human control. Neither of these views, though pervasive, is ideal nor fully accurate. The lack of a more critical comprehension of technologies, and their moral role in society, reduces our ability to make informed decisions about the development and application of powerful new approaches, particularly with those technologies that blur the lines between human and technological capabilities, such as machine learning, biotechnologies, neurotechnologies, and virtual and augmented reality. A more balanced and empowering perspective recognizes technologies as capabilities that interpret, transform and make meaning in the world around us. Rather than being simple objects or processes that are distinct from human beings, they are deeply socially constructed, culturally situated and reflective of societal values. They are how we engage with the world around us. They affect how people order their lives, interact with one another and see themselves. Far from an academic observation, this more nuanced view has practical importance for strategic needs as well as implications for successful governance of technologies. “To build a just and equitable society, the process must start with people – with their logic, ideals, experience, empathy and collaboration” This perspective opens up space for critical reflection on the question of how societies should govern technologies that pose ethical challenges and may have undesirable influences on societal priorities. It also provides ground for conversations about technology and values trade-offs and their impact on business and society. Moreover, this view allows for a better examination of technologies at different levels – from broad technical architecture to integrated personal applications. Most critically, it acknowledges that taking up these challenges involves decisions about values and uncertain outcomes. Part of the challenge is that the full impact of technologies is difficult to ascertain when they are still emerging. But when technologies are mature, embedded in social and economic infrastructure, those impacts are difficult to change.8 This is known as the Collingridge dilemma. The United States has tended to respond to this dilemma by prioritizing innovation as a core value, thus delaying regulation and focusing on products and outcomes. In Europe, a precautionary approach focused on process has prevailed. A classic example here is the different approaches to genetically modified foods.9 Policy development routes that focus on process rather than outcomes have their advantages. Reflective, deliberative and participatory approaches can more effectively embed values and ethics in technological development. The EU General Data Protection Regulation, a recent example of policy developed with ethical challenges in mind, requires organizations to consider privacy from the initial design stages through to the end of the product development process.10 Focusing on processes as well as outcomes is increasingly needed as technologies such as artificial intelligence, geoengineering or gene editing have the potential to change the world profoundly and irrevocably. Waiting until they are fully developed and deployed to try to understand and shape their impact is simply not feasible. Institutions and organizations are currently underprepared to address the complex issues stemming from progress in these fields. “The most widely held views of technologies fail to reflect the complexity of our relationship with them” As mentioned previously, industry is asking for guidance here. Among global business leaders, even in the technology sector, the question is not whether there should be regulation, but rather what type of regulation and accountability are most appropriate. During his Senate Testimony in April 2018, Mark Zuckerberg stated that “the real question, as the internet becomes more important in people’s lives, is what is the right regulation, not whether or not there should be regulation.”11 Industry leaders, as well as legislators and civil society leaders, are rapidly appreciating that technologies are having an effect on societal values in ways that can be negative. Making progress in governing technologies requires recognizing that technologies embody values. But it is not enough to simply acknowledge that the development and use of technology is inherently political, or that technologies come with built-in biases. As soft and hard forms of governance are created through policies and laws, individuals and organizations working with new technologies White Paper 5 must engage actively and thoughtfully with the values they embody and influence. To do this effectively, a humancentred approach to technological development is called for that recognizes the tension between seeking efficiencies and realizing human values. A human-centred approach to technologies means never losing sight of one central question: How can technologies enable a meaningful future for humankind? Neither technologies nor markets can answer this question on their own. People cannot realistically support products and services that align with their values if access to them is too inconvenient or too expensive. Instead, guidelines and policies that fold societal values into technologies during their development must be established, so people are not incentivized to choose products that ultimately work against the common good. If this basic tension in technological development is ignored, the chances of unnecessary social discord will be increased, as will its uncomfortable political consequences. As philosopher of technology Peter-Paul Verbeek relates, “A real technocracy comes about when technologies implicitly answer the question of the good life for human beings.”12 To build a just and equitable society that is more interconnected and more inclusive, the process must start with people – with their logic, ideals, experience, empathy and collaboration. Society – which is to say, all of us – must figure out how technology can empower, create meaningful opportunities, and enhance an individual’s potential and agency. A human-centred approach cultivates contextual and emotional intelligence to guide technological development based on values and ethics. It raises awareness of issues throughout the development process, supplies practical ways of addressing values-related and ethical challenges when they arise, and works to craft technologies towards positive ends for society. A human-centred approach means taking on a “co-development” mindset, paying attention to the process through which technologies and societies recursively influence and form each other.13 Taking on a human-centred approach involves adopting three complementary strategies: first, adopting a systems view of technologies; second, appreciating and shaping the moral role of technologies; and third, engaging with a wide variety of stakeholders. 6 Values, Ethics and Innovation A. Adopting a systems view of technologies The concept of co-development can help frame how technologies and people act together to create new technologies. People develop technologies in environments that are simultaneously opened up and limited by how existing technologies have shaped societal, political and economic values. In turn, technologies now being developed will open up or limit the environment for creating future technologies by shaping society’s vision, priorities, goals and objectives.14 Take the automobile, for example. At the turn of the 20th century, vehicles powered by steam, electric or internal combustion engines that could run on gasoline or biofuel all looked to be potential alternatives to horse-drawn vehicles. Gasoline-powered vehicles gradually reached socially transformative scale due to a wide system of aligned interests, visions, technological advances, investments, business models and political support.15 As this system became entrenched, it directed and constrained choices, incentivizing technologists to focus efforts on improving gasoline engines rather than on innovating in steam- or electric-powered transport. This “lock-in” has long-lasting effects, and constrains problem solving as systems develop. “Technologies inevitably embody the values of their creators, whether a small team of engineers or a large group of nations imagining a collective destiny” The automobile opened and closed choices in other, broader ways. Widespread car ownership conferred greater personal autonomy, for example, but led to the design of cities that were challenging to navigate on foot, by bicycle or by public transport. It enabled suburban sprawl, with attractive individual places to live but ways of life that arguably eroded social cohesion. Moreover, this development contributed to deep economic dependence on oil and to pollution that has severe health and environmental consequences, including impacting climate change. None of these impacts were inevitable; they were mediated by collective choices, such as tax incentives and the relative priority placed on building roads or mass transit systems. Technologies impact entire systems – economic, social and political. They shape world views, and world views shape them as well. They are dreamed up and refined in laboratories and workshops by teams of people. Their development, just as anything else, is subject to social factors,16 such as tribalism, water-cooler politics and gender discrimination. A systemic view of how values and ethics become part of the technological development process is needed. Figure 1 illustrates a systemic perspective for thinking about where and how values and ethics can find their way into technologies and policy creation. Despite the tendency to think of technologies as objects or tools, they inevitably embody the values of their creators, whether of a small team of engineers hoping to solve a technical challenge, or of a large group of nations imagining a collective destiny.17 Looking at technologies from this perspective can help stakeholders shape the societal effects of technological development. In fact, well-informed leaders and creative executives already recognize the need for this and are discussing opportunities for cooperative and collaborative policy-making. The impacts of technologies, especially on policy, sustainability and social stability, are becoming mainstays of global multistakeholder conversations. Thanks to dedicated research over the last 30 years, more is understood about how and where values and ethics are relevant in the development process – from decisions about infrastructure development to organizational incentives to the imagination of schoolchildren. Figure 1’s outer circle identifies key “inflection points” at which the right stakeholders can be engaged at the right time. The inner circle identifies some examples of how ethics and values may be addressed, and the centre shows where all these processes flow together, integrating into a wider set of systems. Fig 1. System Integration of Values & Ethics into the Technological Development Process Figure 1: System Integration of Values and Ethics into the Technological Development Process Outer circle: Inflection points amplification opportunities for embedding values in technologies Technical Architecture Educational Curricula Societal Resistance Media, political discussion, courts Skills development, ethics courses Values by design Embedded ethical research and processes Product Design Fundraising and Investing Shareholder value metrics, legal frameworks ... Purchase answer to see full attachment