The report, Ethically Aligned Design, was released
earlier this week
by the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers
(IEEE). It is the culmination of a
year’s work by 250 world leaders in technology, law, social science, business and
government spanning six continents.
IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organisation. With over 420,000 members in 160 countries, it’s the global authority for professional standards related to technology. The latest report proposes a set of recommendations (suggestions) that are open to public feedback.
Once adopted, the guidelines in the report will be implemented by professional organisations, accreditation boards and educational institutions to ensure the next generation of engineers incorporate ethical considerations into their work.
The big questions posed by our digital future sit at the intersection of technology and ethics. This is complex territory that requires input from experts in many different fields if we are to navigate it successfully.
To prepare the report, economists and sociologists researched the effect of technology on disempowered groups. Lawyers considered the future of privacy and justice. Doctors and psychologists examined impacts on physical and mental health. Philosophers unpacked hidden biases and moral questions.
The report suggests all technologies should be guided by five general principles:
protecting human rights
prioritising and employing established metrics for measuring wellbeing
ensuring designers and operators of new technologies are accountable
making processes transparent
minimising the risks of misuse.
The report runs the spectrum from practical to more abstract concerns, touching on personal data ownership, autonomous weapons, job displacement and questions like “can decisions made by amoral systems have moral consequences?
Each issue tackled includes background discussion and a set of candidate recommendations. For example, the section on autonomous weapons recommends measures to ensure meaningful human control. The section on employment recommends the creation of an independent body to track the impact of robotics on jobs and economic growth.
A section on affective computing – an area that studies how computers can detect, express and even “feel” emotions – raises concerns about how long-term interaction with computers could change the way people interact with each other.
IEEE standards are developed iteratively and the organisation will use the findings in this report to build a definitive set of guidelines over time.
Over the next year, the final version will be released as a handbook with recommendations that technologists and policy makers can turn to, and be held accountable for, as our technological future unfolds.