Chapter 14 - Technology Assessment & Social Experiment

technology assessment

Purpose: provide early indications of probably beneficial and adverse impacts of the application of a technology.

Moral importance: give insights into social and ethical implications of technology

technology as a social experiment

Static assessment becomes obsolete when the development and usage of a technology change down the line. Experiment is continuously monitored and assessed.

van de Poel’s criteria

1. No other reasonable mean to gain knowledge about risks and benefits is available

2. Data and risks are monitored while addressing privacy concerns

3. Adapting and stopping of the experiment is possible and willed

4. Risks are contained as far as reasonably possible

5. Experiment is consciously scaled up(?) to avoid large-scale harm and to improve learning

6. Experiment has a flexible set-up and avoids the lock-in effect

7. Avoid experiments that undermine resilience(?)

8. It is reasonable to expect social benefits from the experiment

9. Clear distribution of responsibilities for setting up, carrying out, monitoring, evaluating, adapting, and stopping of experiment

10. Subjects are informed

11. Experiment is approved by democratic government bodies

12. Subjects have a say in the setting up, carrying out, monitoring, evaluating, adapting, and stopping of the experiment

13. Subjects can withdraw from the experiment

14. Vulnerable subjects either are not subject to the experiment or are additionally protected and/or particularly profit from the experimental technology

15. Potential hazards and benefits are fairly distributed

16. Harm is reversible or, if impossible, compensated

Debate of the replacement of the Question

It isn’t easier to answer whether a technology is a morally acceptable social experiment compared to whether a technology is morally acceptable itself

There are cases where a technology is never morally acceptable as an experiment but is to use