International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology – serie

Copy the following link for free access to the first chapter of this title: http://www.springerlink.com/content/j23468h304310755/fulltext.pdfThis book is a warning. It aims to warn policy-makers, industry, academia, civil society organisations, the media and the public about the threats and vulnerabilities facing our privacy, identity, trust, security and inclusion in the rapidly approaching world of ambient intelligence (AmI).In the near future, every manufactured product – our clothes, money, appliances, the paint on our walls, the carpets on our floors, our cars, everything – will be embedded with intelligence, networks of tiny sensors and actuators, which some have termed “smart dust”. The AmI world is not far off. We already have surveillance systems, biometrics, personal communicators, machine learning and more. AmI will provide personalised services – and know more about us – on a scale dwarfing anything hitherto available.In the AmI vision, ubiquitous computing, communications and interfaces converge and adapt to the user. AmI promises greater user-friendliness in an environment capable of recognising and responding to the presence of different individuals in a seamless, unobtrusive and often invisible way. While most stakeholders paint the promise of AmI in sunny colours, there is a dark side to AmI.This book aims to illustrate the threats and vulnerabilities by means of four “dark scenarios”. The authors set out a structured methodology for analysing the four scenarios, and then identify safeguards to counter the foreseen threats and vulnerabilities. They make recommendations to policy-makers and other stakeholders about what they can do to maximise the benefits from ambient intelligence and minimise the negative consequences.

The volume contributes to the ongoing nanoethics debate in four topical areas. The first part tackles questions of what could be called ‘meta-nanoethics’. Its focus lies on basic concepts and the issue of what - if anything - is truly novel and special about the new field of nanoethics or its subject matter. The second part of this volume presents a selection of interesting perspectives on some of the opportunities and challenges of nanotechnology. Part three takes a more in depth look at one of the most pressing current concerns: how to deal with the risks and uncertainties surrounding nanotechnology in a responsible manner. In its fourth and final part the volume touches on issues of public debate and policy.

As we are increasingly using new technologies to change ourselves beyond therapy and in accordance with our own desires, understanding the challenges of human enhancement has become one of the most urgent topics of the current age. This volume contributes to such an understanding by critically examining the pros and cons of our growing ability to shape human nature through technological advancements. The authors undertake careful analyses of decisive questions that will confront society as enhancement interventions using bio-, info-, neuro- and nanotechnologies become widespread in the years to come. They provide the reader with the conceptual tools necessary to address such questions fruitfully. What makes the book especially attractive is the combination of conceptual, historical and ethical approaches, rendering it highly original. In addition, the well-balanced structure allows both favourable and critical views to be voiced. Moreover, the work has a crystal clear structure. As a consequence, the book is accessible to a broad academic audience. The issues raised are of interest to a wide reflective public concerned about science and ethics, as well as to students, academics and professionals in areas such as philosophy, applied ethics, bioethics, medicine and health management.

This book provides a current analysis of the legal and ethical challenges in preparing for and responding to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) crises.

This book provides a current analysis of the legal and ethical challenges in preparing for and responding to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) crises.

This book explicitly addresses policy options in a democratic society regarding cognitive enhancement drugs and devices. The author provides an argument on the much debated issue of fairness of cognitive enhancement practices and tackles the tricky issue of how to respect preferences of citizens opposing and those preferring enhancement.

This open access book provides the first comprehensive collection of papers that provide an integrative view on cybersecurity. The book has a strong practical focus as it includes case studies outlining ethical issues in cybersecurity and presenting guidelines and other measures to tackle those issues.

This open access book provides the first comprehensive collection of papers that provide an integrative view on cybersecurity. The book has a strong practical focus as it includes case studies outlining ethical issues in cybersecurity and presenting guidelines and other measures to tackle those issues.

This book brings together a number of essays that are optimistic about the ways certain neuroscientific insights might advance philosophical ethics, and other essays that are more circumspect about the relevance of neuroscience to philosophical ethics.

This book brings together a number of essays that are optimistic about the ways certain neuroscientific insights might advance philosophical ethics, and other essays that are more circumspect about the relevance of neuroscience to philosophical ethics.

This book investigates how ethics generally precedes legal regulation, and looks at how changes in codes of ethics represent an unparalleled window into the research, innovation, and emerging technologies they seek to regulate.

This book investigates how ethics generally precedes legal regulation, and looks at how changes in codes of ethics represent an unparalleled window into the research, innovation, and emerging technologies they seek to regulate.

This open access contributed volume examines the ethical and legal foundations of (future) policies on recommender systems and offers a transdisciplinary approach to tackle important issues related to their development, use and integration into online eco-systems.

This open access contributed volume examines the ethical and legal foundations of (future) policies on recommender systems and offers a transdisciplinary approach to tackle important issues related to their development, use and integration into online eco-systems.

This book presents the reader with a comprehensive and structured understanding of the ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

This book presents the reader with a comprehensive and structured understanding of the ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

This book shares innovative approaches to effectively engage students and faculty working in research labs, lab-based classrooms and courses to build inclusive ethical cultures. The frameworks and approaches presented move beyond traditional research ethics training to strengthen the ethical culture in research labs.

This is the first book to provide a coherent overview over the ethical implications of AI-related technologies in medicine.

This is the first book to provide a coherent overview over the ethical implications of AI-related technologies in medicine.

This book provides an ethical analysis of the ethical issues that arise in the design, nature and use of AIs as they are currently used in the delivery and planning of healthcare by hands-on healthcare professionals, institutional administrators and social policy makers.

This book brings normative ethical theory to AI system development. It shows how we can align artificial intelligence (AI) systems with normative human values by training AI to follow human goals and values. It specifies these normative ethical and philosophical foundations. It then provides techniques to implement these values using state-of-the-art methods for aligning general-purpose language systems. All of this is introduced in a straightforward way through the book's original concept of dynamic normativity. This book is useful for advanced students and researchers in the fields of the ethics of technology, artificial intelligence, and responsible innovation, as well as technology professionals and policymakers seeking to direct artificial intelligence towards common virtues and the public good.

This book systematically addresses the issue of assessing the normative nature of visions of emerging technologies in an epistemologically robust way. In the context of democratic governance of emerging technologies, not only it is important to reflect on technologies’ moral significance, but also to address their emerging and future oriented character. The book proposes an original approach to deal with the issue of “plausible” ethical evaluation of new technologies. Taking its start from current debates about Technology Assessment, the proposed solution emerges as a combination of theoretical and methodological insights from the fields of Philosophy of Technology, Science and Technology Studies and a normative justification based on pragmatist ethics. The book’s main contribution is to engage a diverse and interdisciplinary audience (ethicists, philosophers, social scientists, technology assessment researchers and practitioners) in a reflection concerning the epistemological challenges that are associated to the endeavour of appraising the moral significance of emerging technologies in the attempt of democratically governing them. It brings together concepts and methodologies from different disciplines and shows their synergy in applying them to two specific case studies of emerging biomedical technologies.

This book addresses the problem of how to make democratically-legitimate public policy on issues of contentious bioethical debate. It focuses on ethical contests about research and their legitimate resolution, while addressing questions of political legitimacy. How should states make public policy on issues where there is ethical disagreement, not only about appropriate outcomes, but even what values are at stake? What constitutes justified, democratic policy in such conflicted domains? Case studies from Canada and Australia demonstrate that two countries sharing historical and institutional characteristics can reach different policy responses.This book is of interest to policymakers, bioethicists, and philosophers, and will deepen our understanding of the interactions between large-scale socio-political forces and detailed policy problems in bioethics.asdf

This book provides insights on how emerging technosciences come together with new forms of governance and ethical questioning. Combining science and technologies and ethics approaches, it looks at the emergence of three key technoscientific domains - body enhancement technologies, biometrics and technologies for the production of space -exploring how human bodies and minds, the movement of citizens and space become matters of technoscientific governance. The emergence of new and digital technologies pose new challenges for representative democracy and existing forms of citizenship. As citizens encounter and have to adapt to technological change in their everyday life, new forms of conviviality and contestation emerge. This book is a key reference for scholars interested in the governance of emerging technosciences in the fields of science and technology studies and ethics.  ​

Taking its start from current debates about Technology Assessment, the proposed solution emerges as a combination of theoretical and methodological insights from the fields of Philosophy of Technology, Science and Technology Studies and a normative justification based on pragmatist ethics.

This book addresses the problem of how to make democratically-legitimate public policy on issues of contentious bioethical debate.

Combining science and technologies and ethics approaches, it looks at the emergence of three key technoscientific domains - body enhancement technologies, biometrics and technologies for the production of space -exploring how human bodies and minds, the movement of citizens and space become matters of technoscientific governance.

human practices? How are we to morally evaluate technology developments that have open horizons, encompass uncertainties, and lack control? Technology is in- uential on society; technological innovations act upon the perception of ourselves, the world, and our relation with fellow humans and other objects. Technology is changing everything we do by creating new entities (such as software, nanop- ticles, or Internet), by changing the scale of activities (e. g. vast amounts of data about people can be stored and analysed, and not infrequently without people - ing aware of this), by generating new kinds of knowledge (for instance about i- nesses, the human genome and so on). Technologies, as a consequence, impinge upon our morality and for this reason an ethics of technology should not wait passively until moral problems arise and not only focus on identi ed and exi- ing moral problems, but contemplate technology developments and possible - pacts proactively. However, this is easier said than done, because a prospective and proactive evaluation of technology developments is complicated by complexity and uncertainty. The uncertainty of technology development is closely related to one of the str- ing features of technology, namely what Jim Moor has coined logical malleability. (1985, 269) Technological devices are logically malleable in that they can be shaped to do any activity that can be characterised in terms of logical operations.

Most philosophers still like to feel that they have a special subject matter, well insulated from anything that the social scientists, and scientists in general, have to tell them. That is not healthy for philosophy; and it is all too likely to lead to an ethics that continues, as of old, to plead for its ultimates-the fact that one is totally ineffectual being decently concealed by an impressive terminology. (Stevenson 1963, pp. 114–5) Many so-called moral theories do not even attempt to explain or justify common morality but are used to generate guides to conduct intended to replace common morality. These p- posed moral guides, those generated by all of the standard consequentialist, contractarian, and deontological theories, are far simpler than the common moral system and sometimes yield totally unacceptable answers to moral problems. Since these philosophers who put forward these theories have usually dismissed common morality as confused, they are c- pletely unaware of the complexity involved in making moral decisions and judgments. It is not surprising that many who take morality seriously and try to apply it to real problems faced by actual people are so critical of moral theory. (Bernard Gert 1998, p. 6) As both Stevenson and Gert note, ethics requires social and other sciences for by its very nature, ethics is a practical enterprise.