ETHICAL DILEMMAS IN A CHANGING WORLD
WE LIVE in an age of transformative scientific powers, capable of changing the very nature of the human species and radically remaking the planet itself. The disruptive nature of the new technologies are transforming society and reshaping our future.
Advances in information technologies and artificial intelligence are combining with advances in the biological sciences; including genetics, reproductive technologies, neuroscience, synthetic biology, as well as advances in the physical sciences to create awe-inspiring synergies – now recognised as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Since the First Industrial Revolution in particular, the development, commercialisation and diffusion of new technologies have vastly expanded opportunities for people around the world. They have also generated riches, both quantitative and qualitative, for industries and societies.
Humankind is only just beginning to realise how technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are fundamentally challenging our ideas about the world and are able to bring about undesirable externalities. This goes beyond headline-grabbing concerns about robots taking jobs, cybersecurity disasters or existential threats from an artificial superintelligence.
However, while these new powers hold great promise for enhancing quality of life in many ways, no technology is neutral and the powers of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are not.
The fact is, technologies already widely deployed are slowly fracturing social cohesion, widening inequality and inexorably transforming everything from global politics to personal identities.
No one fully foresaw or intended these outcomes. However, they make it harder to deny that the influence of these technologies on society reflects how they were developed and deployed. The recent debates about social media that exploits people’s vulnerabilities exemplifies how technologies embody the values and interests of their makers and how this can impact on us in potentially harmful ways.
As a result, there is a need for clearer articulation of ethical frameworks, normative standards and values-based governance models to help guide organisations in the development and use of these powerful tools in society, and to enable a humancentric approach to development that goes beyond geographic and political boundaries. Paresh Soni is associate director for research at the Management College of Southern Africa (Mancosa), and writes in his personal capacity.
The development of new technologies have vastly expanded opportunities for people around the world