Ensuring adequate technological developments in our modern societies is a particularly wicked problem. In fact, societal and ecological stakes are often tremendous. They are considered as issues demanding the consideration of extremely various types of information, most of the time highly technical. Although it is the responsibility of engineers to find technical solutions, the ethical and political questions about the evaluation of technologies is supposedly left to politics and citizens. This view comes from the modern distinction between (scientific) facts and (political or moral) values. However, with the development of Value Sensitive Design (VSD) methodologies, answering evaluative questions seems to have become an important part of the work of engineers. One might think that, although engineers are interested in impacts with political and ethical issues at stake, their evaluation involves only matters of fact. We argue that they cover also matters of concern because facts and values are much more entangled than they seem to be at first glance in engineering design. Yet, defining and prioritizing what matters in the development of new (and old) technologies is not uniquely the responsibility of engineers. We need democratic debates such as the ones proposed in the New Humanism in the age of Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence (NHNAI) project to help delineate matters of concern concerning the future of technologies.

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On the Importance of Democratic Debates Regarding Matters of Concern in Value Sensitive Design

  • Jérémie Supiot,
  • Philippe Estival,
  • Mathieu Guillermin

摘要

Ensuring adequate technological developments in our modern societies is a particularly wicked problem. In fact, societal and ecological stakes are often tremendous. They are considered as issues demanding the consideration of extremely various types of information, most of the time highly technical. Although it is the responsibility of engineers to find technical solutions, the ethical and political questions about the evaluation of technologies is supposedly left to politics and citizens. This view comes from the modern distinction between (scientific) facts and (political or moral) values. However, with the development of Value Sensitive Design (VSD) methodologies, answering evaluative questions seems to have become an important part of the work of engineers. One might think that, although engineers are interested in impacts with political and ethical issues at stake, their evaluation involves only matters of fact. We argue that they cover also matters of concern because facts and values are much more entangled than they seem to be at first glance in engineering design. Yet, defining and prioritizing what matters in the development of new (and old) technologies is not uniquely the responsibility of engineers. We need democratic debates such as the ones proposed in the New Humanism in the age of Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence (NHNAI) project to help delineate matters of concern concerning the future of technologies.