Research Findings
Key Theoretical Findings
„If you think technology can solve problems, you don´t understand technology – and you don´t understand your problems.“
– Credited to a variety of people, this quote figured in a 2023 art installation by Laurie Anderson at Moderna Museet (Stockholm)
Technological mediation
Once adopted, technologies shape how we perceive the world and what we can do in it. For instance, data-fuelled AI, while holding the promise of societal improvements, is already contributing to surveillance and widening societal inequalities. This underlines the need to anticipate that the actual impact of a technology often exceeds the original intentions of its developers.
Cultural bias in technology
From its inception, every technological affordance inherently reflects a cultural bias. A central design term like ´intuitive´, for instance, carries the historical influence of profit-driven interface design. This underscores the importance of recognizing and challenging these biases in technology design.
Non-neutrality of ethics principles
The belief in a ´neutral´ interpretation of ethics principles such as ´fairness´ or ´human autonomy´ often aligns with the dominant view, which always strikes us as self-evident. This encourages us to question the supposed neutrality of ethical principles and consider the broader societal context.
Ethics principles as starting points
Rather than rigid and neutral rules, ethics principles should serve as starting points for continuous, reflexive deliberation. As such, neutrally formulated ethics principles should come with warnings such as “beware, fairness may not be what you think it is”, or “in the end, your design choices will ultimately shape human autonomy”. This foregrounds the inescapable responsibility of technological innovation: it takes sides in the end.
Key Empirical Findings
„It´s an ethicist´s role to provoke self-reflection and challenge beliefs, a challenging task given people´s preoccupations. Transforming deeply held convictions in a one-hour ethics workshop can seem absurd, yet we did make some progress, I believe.“
– SIMPORT Researcher
A socio-technical divide
There exists a noticeable gap between ethics and software development, characterized by a perception that software developers primarily focus on functionality, while ethicists often works from a distance, employing abstract concepts. This socio-technical divide, marked by differing mindsets and narratives, impedes effective collaboration.
The longing for an ethics toolbox
Thinking within this socio-technical divide leads to a simplified view of Ethics by Design, with ethicists expected to create a universal ‘ethics toolbox’ for developers to ensure ethically sound outcomes. In practice, this approach leads to mutual frustration, with ethicists not meeting developers´expectations, or to the delegation of ethical responsibility to new bureaucratic structures.
The role of cultural narratives
The longing for an ‘ethics toolbox’ is further solidified by entrenched, men-dominated narratives surrounding technology and innovation. These narratives include the belief in technological solutionism, where technology is seen as the universal remedy for all challenges, and the persistence of the linear innovation model, which seperates research and development from societal application.
The potential of open-ended practices
However, the SIMPORT experience also reveals glimpses of practices where the socio-technical divide is bridged, giving rise to new possibilities emerging. Collaboration between developers and ethicists can dismantle entrenched narratives, highlighting the importance of experimental, open-ended practices where responsibility is actively assumed in ways that are never easy but always envolving and context-specific.