Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Emerging Technology (ELSIET) Symposium

Excerpt

Establishing ethical guidelines for the development and release of emerging technologies involves many practical challenges. Traditional methods of evaluating relevant ethical dimensions, such as Beauchamp and Childress’s (2001) Principlist framework, are often not fit for purpose: after all, how can one give autonomous, informed consent to the use of novel technologies whose effects are unknown? How can cost-benefit analyses be conducted in cases where there is a high degree of scientific uncertainty about the severity and likelihood of different risks, and potential benefits have not yet been demonstrated? Nevertheless, it is necessary to promote consideration of the ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging technologies to avoid them being released into what some commentators label a moral, policy, and/or legal vacuum (Moor 2005; Edwards 1991). Consequently, various methods for approaching the ethics of emerging technologies have arisen over the last few decades, some of the more common of which are summarized below. …