4TUEthicsEDT: 4TU.Ethics Bi-annual Conference on the Ethics of Disruptive Technologies Technical University of Eindhoven Eindhoven, Netherlands, November 7-8, 2019

4TU.Ethics Bi-annual Conference ‘Ethics of Disruptive Technologies’ 

Throughout history, technology has been a driver of social change. The technologies of the industrial revolution played a crucial role in shaping modern society, and society has since then continued to be shaped by technological innovations. The conference focuses on technologies that will not just change specific domains or practices for which they were designed, but that will change our life in a much broader sense. They are called socially disruptive technologies (SDTs). SDTs transform everyday life, social institutions, cultural practices, and the organisation of the economy, business, and work. They may even affect our fundamental beliefs, rights, and values. Historical examples of such technologies include the printing press, the steam engine, electric lighting, the computer, and the Internet. Modern examples include digital technologies, bio- and brain technologies, and environmental and sustainable technologies.

The new generation of SDTs has a number of characteristics. First, it promises almost complete control over atoms, bits, genes, and neurons, allowing for everything to be reconstituted or redesigned, including human beings. Second, it is characterized by a convergence of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres, resulting in new technologies at the intersection of information technology, biotechnology/biomedicine, nanotechnology, and neuroscience/cognitive science, such as synthetic biology and brain-computer interfaces. Finally, these technologies emerge in the context of a number of grand societal challenges, such as combating climate change and meeting the UN Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs), which will actually require a range of technological and societal trans­formations.

The stakes are high. These new SDTs could bring great benefits to our society: opening up new medical perspectives, enabling new forms of political participation, or contributing to the solution of our sustainability problems. But they could also bring great harm if not properly developed and implemented (Jasanoff 2016). They could curtail our autonomy and privacy, damage our ecology, and exacerbate divisions and inequalities in society. That is why normative frameworks are so important: which values and normative principles should guide their development and introduction, and which benefits do we want for individuals and society?

Few will contest that novel technologies raise ethical questions that require ethical reflection and guidance. But a key problem in the case of SDTs is that these technologies are also challenging the very concepts and values that we normally appeal to in our ethical thinking. There are three sub-themes of the conference. Each of these sub-themes focuses on a number of key concepts that are being challenged by these socially disruptive technologies.

1. The Human Condition: concepts that are basic to our moral self-understanding, such as (moral) agency, autonomy, human interdependence, and responsibility;
2. The Future of a Free and Fair Society: concepts that form the basis of our political, social and legal institutions, such as democracy, public and private, justice, and equality;
3. Nature, Life and Human Intervention: concepts and distinctions that we use to order our world: such as distinctions between natural and artificial, humans and machines, and agents and physical systems.

The format of the conference is as follows: there are keynote speakers and presentations of papers in parallel sessions. Each session will have a 20-30 minutes presentation, followed by 10-15 minutes of discussion. In addition there will be poster sessions.

Senior and junior researchers working in the field are invited to submit abstracts for the conference. Abstracts should be 500 words, excluding a short bibliography. These abstracts will be evaluated by the programme committee of the conference. Decisions will be made before the end of July. Papers that are not accepted for a parallel session may be presented as a poster.

Taskforces of 4TU.Ethics and others are invited to submit a special session proposal for the conference, with 3-4 presentations on a particular theme.

Submission Guidelines

All papers and posters must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. 

As part of the conference we explicitly want to invite contributions that present ethical issues related to technology in innovative ways (visual or multimedia).

Proposals for both papers and posters should also follow the 500 words abstract format, with a description of the type of presentation involved.

Deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st July 2019. The Scientific Programme Committee will notify authors about acceptance by end July 2019.

List of Sub-Topics

• Nature, Life and Human Intervention: concepts and distinctions that we use to order our world: such as distinctions between natural and artificial, humans and machines, and agents and physical systems.
• The Future of a Free and Fair Society: concepts that form the basis of our political, social and legal institutions, such as democracy, public and private, justice, and equality.
• The Human Condition: concepts that are basic to our moral self-understanding, such as (moral) agency, autonomy, human interdependence, and responsibility.

Scientific Programme Committee

• Anthonie Meijers
• Bart Gremmen
• Kevin Macnish
• Lily Frank
• Samantha Copeland
• Karen Buchanan

Keynote Speakers confirmed

• Catriona McKinnon
• Tamar Sharon
• Ingrid Robeyns

Venue

The conference will be held at the Technical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to the Scientific Committee c/o Karen Buchanan k.s.buchanan@tue.nl 

New: Ethics by Design track

Co-Chairs:        Philip Brey, University of Twente, coordinator of the SIENNA project

                            Bernd Carsten Stahl, De Montfort University, coordinator of the SHERPA project

in collaboration with Ibo van de Poel, TU Delft 

Design for Values approaches have flourished in recent years, following the pioneering work of Batya Friedman and her associates who have advocated, since the 1990s, the approach of value-sensitive design. Recently, the approach has also captured the attention of industry, policy makers and research funders, in particular the European Commission (EC) with its Horizon 2020 and forthcoming Horizon Europe funding programmes.  The term used by the EC is “Ethics by design”, and it is now implemented in the general Ethics Review protocol used by the EC in Horizon 2020, and receives special attention in the Artificial Intelligence funding scheme (projected budget for Horizon Europe: 9 bln. Euros), in which it is set to become a required element for new project proposals.

Ethics by design is defined by the EC as the implementation, starting from the beginning of the design process, of ethical and legal principles.  (See https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/coordinated-plan-artificial-intelligence communication and annex.) The EC is currently exploring what ethics by design principles and methods might look like.  In the Horizon 2020 SIENNA (http://www.sienna-project.eu/) and SHERPA (https://www.project-sherpa.eu/) projects, which study the ethical and human rights aspects of AI, big data, robotics, human enhancement and human genomics, one of the objectives is the development of ethics by design principles and methodologies for the new Horizon Europe programme.

In the Ethics by Design track, we have three objectives:

(1)    Exploring current approaches to Design for Values / Ethics by Design

(2)    Making steps towards a concrete, usable Ethics by Design methodology that can be used by technology developers and designers with little or no prior training in Ethics by Design

(3)    Making steps towards a concrete methodology for the development of AI systems in particular

We invite presentations that cover any of the three objectives.  This includes ethics by design papers that do not focus on AI but on other technologies.  We will have a panel meeting after the talks with invited speakers to discuss the issues raised and to discuss possible further steps and collaborations.

The SIENNA and SHERPA projects are co-sponsor of this track.

Submitting your abstract for this 4th track:

Abstracts should be 500 words, excluding a short bibliography. These abstracts will be evaluated by the programme committee of the conference. Please include the text “Ethics by design” in the name of the file and at the beginning of your abstract.