[Music]
so I want to start by talking to you
about a friend of mine called Aviva a
few years ago following the birth of her
second child her husband had a stroke as
a result of this he struggled to use
language so Aviva decided to develop an
app displaying a remarkable practical
streak for someone with a background in
philosophy this app was designed to help
her husband speak again and to help
anyone what issues would speaking to
learn how to speak or to relearn how to
speak so she recorded her own voice the
app encourages the user using audio and
visual cues to repeat words so she was
able to use her own voice and put this
up on an iPad that allowed him to use
this every day recently he’s been
learning one new word a week and has
been able to use the app to say his
daughter’s name for the first time in
years his youngest daughter hadn’t heard
her father say her names since she was
10 months old and his eldest daughter
hadn’t heard him say her name since she
was 5 I was over 8 years ago this app is
an example of an assistive technology
which the World Health Organization
defines as technologies whose primary
goal is to maintain or improve an
individual’s functioning and
independence to facilitate participation
and enhance overall well-being
assistive technologies hold immense
power for people who have had strokes or
who suffer from dementia or over
intellectual disabilities as the global
population is aging and increasing we’re
going to have more people with dementia
we’re going to have more people with
intellectual disabilities so assistive
technologies are going to be a hugely
important technology we’re going to help
many vulnerable people live with greater
independence my work though is as a
philosopher I focus on the ethics
of technologies specifically at the
moment of assistive technologies I’m not
able to do anything practical such as
design these new technologies but I want
to use assistive technologies as a
starting point for a discussion about
the ethics of technology in general I
think that with ethics we can make the
best of new technologies if we think
about how we develop new technologies we
can ensure that we avoid the worst
pitfalls that sometimes come with these
technologies we can maximize the
benefits of these technologies this is
all the more important because at the
moment we’re in the midst of a world
suffused by tech a fourth Industrial
Revolution some people say technology is
being introduced into the air societies
at an incredible pace sometimes for
altruistic reasons and such as the vivaz
talker rounded up
but sometimes propelled by a relatively
unchallenged corporate momentum so if
you think about it we all have
smartphones now most people in the
audience will have smartphones more and
more people are using wearable
technologies that can measure our heart
rate workout how much exercise we’ve had
we’re developing automated cars that
might have to decide whether to kill its
driver or occupant
in order to save more people we’re
developing the Internet of Things in
which inanimate objects all around us
buildings and utensils in our homes will
be able to communicate via sensors with
each other and able to be able to
monitor us everywhere we’ll go we’ll be
surveyed but we’ll also be able to
communicate with these things so all of
this suggests the need for ethics we
need to think about what these
technologies are for what sort of
challenges we want to avoid and how to
maximize the benefits so I suppose I
should talk to you about ethics ethics
is about right and wrong
it’s about Potter’s obligated first it’s
about Potter’s
prohibited severe pot duties we have do
we for instance have a duty to protect
the most vulnerable in our society or do
we just do what we want with our
property these are the big ethical
questions what’s ironic now is that many
of our new technologies are beginning to
undermine the ethical values that we
uphold in our society so what are the
values of modern society we’re very
concerned with issues of Liberty we want
to be free from government interference
we want to be free from people telling
us what to do we want to be able to go
where we want walk around where we want
we want to be autonomous we want to be
able to think for ourselves we don’t
want to be brainwashed we don’t want to
be subject to propaganda these are
incredibly important modern values we
also want to have technology we’re a
techno Felix society so we think of
technology as representing progress and
sometimes associate that with moral
progress this can be questioned and this
is what we do in ethics we also want to
talk more about what sort of society
we’re going to develop this is the most
important question so let me talk about
duay technologies ironically can
undermine some of our ethical values the
most common one is privacy if we think
about privacy it’s being undermined all
the time our smartphones know her we are
big companies such as Facebook are able
to tell a huge amount of Eros they’re
able to tell our sexual preferences how
we’re likely to vote what we want to buy
and so on this data that were
voluntarily giving away is hugely
problematic so you might not care
whether these companies or anyone else
knows much about you but you might not
care if people see intimate photos of
you but in terms of our autonomy in
terms of our ability to think for
ourselves we need to protect our data
autonomy in the philosophical sense
concerns our ability to think for
ourselves to govern ourselves to give
ourselves a moral law this moral law
requires certain conditions being able
to have space to decide for ourselves if
we give away a lot of our data if we
begin to tell companies we want this we
like this we respond to that these
companies are able to influence us more
easily they’re able to know what I’m
likely to respond to they know that I’ve
traveled to Vilnius that I study
philosophy that I’m interested in movies
or whatever it is I’m interested in
hence they’re able to target ads or
messages specifically for me so this
becomes a big trap to our autonomy and
if we treat an autonomy we undermine the
premises of liberal democracy liberal
democracy is founded on the idea that
we’re able to choose for ourselves
rationally so giving away our data
undermines the conditions of autonomy
let me narrow it down even more one of
the conditions for autonomy is being
able to pay attention to certain things
I should be able to attend to what I
want I need to be able to send my
attention where I want it to go but as
people find out more and more as
companies or new tech is able to find
out more and more about what I think how
I’m likely to respond what’s going to
work for me they’re able to grab my
attention they’re able to send bespoke
messages designed purely for me in order
to get my attention this limits my
ability to think for myself so you might
ask how we’ve allowed this to happen
what is sort of ethical reasons we’ve
allowed this to happen and to me this
goes back to the Enlightenment the
Enlightenment
came up with a number of ethical
theories and that placed human autonomy
at the center of hot society should be
about society was decided it was decided
that society would be about individuals
choosing for themselves making
autonomous choices being rational this
very much suits the marketplace and it
suits a certain type of individualistic
society in this society as long as we’re
autonomous everything is meant to be for
the best so then we can rationally
choose to give away our data and
undermine certain things undermine
autonomy undermine privacy the problem
here with enlightenment with
enlightenment ethics is that it doesn’t
allow certain questions to arise certain
questions such as questions of
flourishing questions of the common good
questions such as what is best for
society so I want in this way to go back
to the future I would advocate
technology being developed according to
an older ethical tradition the ethical
tradition of the early confusions of de
Buddhists of Aristotle
these were virtue ethicist and they
believed that we should think about
parties a person’s character what’s a
good character what’s a good way of life
parties human flourishing what is the
common good rather than allowing Aryan
to decide individually for themselves
what would be the best they asked
questions that don’t arise in
enlightenment philosophies questions of
the common good these questions will
benefit our thinking about new
technologies we might be able to come up
with prize systems so that we get more
technologies that will benefit people
who are vulnerable benefit people with
intellectual disabilities benefit people
who have had strokes benefit people with
dementia
might be able to avoid de market
failures that come about when we get a
very individualistic rationalistic
system for example big pharmaceuticals
their system develops drugs for first
world people there’s no money to be made
in developing drugs to help diseases of
the third world so you have a global
health burden is overly represented in
the third world we don’t address their
diseases because the companies are under
no obligation to think about that their
only obligation is shareholders and
stakeholders in their own area which
allows them to develop stuff that will
get them a profit not what’s good
overall for the common good for the
planet
with virtue ethics we might begin to
think about these common Goods we might
begin to think about prize systems that
would design or incentivize assistive
technologies for the people that need
them while reducing the impetus to grab
patents so that money can be made back
we might begin to think about
technologies that will nudge people not
towards consuming more and more not
towards purchasing more and more but
towards consuming less consuming more
ethically towards reducing their carbon
footprint if it is the case that these
technologies can influence our autonomy
why not it influence people’s autonomy
influence their actions for the good for
environmental reasons make people more
charitable make people more concerned
with the environment more concerned with
future generations I think would virtue
ethics this will solve some of the
problems that our market-based and
atomistic enlightenment philosophies
have resulted in in our current
technological ease the fused world
virtue ethics can help us ensure that
more technology is going to be like
Aviva’s talk around it up designed to
promote a common good enough
in society rather than just produced in
profit this I think is why we need to
look to virtue ethics in order to
develop our technologies thank you very
much
[Applause]
[Music]
so I want to start by talking to you
about a friend of mine called Aviva a
few years ago following the birth of her
second child her husband had a stroke as
a result of this he struggled to use
language so Aviva decided to develop an
app displaying a remarkable practical
streak for someone with a background in
philosophy this app was designed to help
her husband speak again and to help
anyone what issues would speaking to
learn how to speak or to relearn how to
speak so she recorded her own voice the
app encourages the user using audio and
visual cues to repeat words so she was
able to use her own voice and put this
up on an iPad that allowed him to use
this every day recently he’s been
learning one new word a week and has
been able to use the app to say his
daughter’s name for the first time in
years his youngest daughter hadn’t heard
her father say her names since she was
10 months old and his eldest daughter
hadn’t heard him say her name since she
was 5 I was over 8 years ago this app is
an example of an assistive technology
which the World Health Organization
defines as technologies whose primary
goal is to maintain or improve an
individual’s functioning and
independence to facilitate participation
and enhance overall well-being
assistive technologies hold immense
power for people who have had strokes or
who suffer from dementia or over
intellectual disabilities as the global
population is aging and increasing we’re
going to have more people with dementia
we’re going to have more people with
intellectual disabilities so assistive
technologies are going to be a hugely
important technology we’re going to help
many vulnerable people live with greater
independence my work though is as a
philosopher I focus on the ethics
of technologies specifically at the
moment of assistive technologies I’m not
able to do anything practical such as
design these new technologies but I want
to use assistive technologies as a
starting point for a discussion about
the ethics of technology in general I
think that with ethics we can make the
best of new technologies if we think
about how we develop new technologies we
can ensure that we avoid the worst
pitfalls that sometimes come with these
technologies we can maximize the
benefits of these technologies this is
all the more important because at the
moment we’re in the midst of a world
suffused by tech a fourth Industrial
Revolution some people say technology is
being introduced into the air societies
at an incredible pace sometimes for
altruistic reasons and such as the vivaz
talker rounded up
but sometimes propelled by a relatively
unchallenged corporate momentum so if
you think about it we all have
smartphones now most people in the
audience will have smartphones more and
more people are using wearable
technologies that can measure our heart
rate workout how much exercise we’ve had
we’re developing automated cars that
might have to decide whether to kill its
driver or occupant
in order to save more people we’re
developing the Internet of Things in
which inanimate objects all around us
buildings and utensils in our homes will
be able to communicate via sensors with
each other and able to be able to
monitor us everywhere we’ll go we’ll be
surveyed but we’ll also be able to
communicate with these things so all of
this suggests the need for ethics we
need to think about what these
technologies are for what sort of
challenges we want to avoid and how to
maximize the benefits so I suppose I
should talk to you about ethics ethics
is about right and wrong
it’s about Potter’s obligated first it’s
about Potter’s
prohibited severe pot duties we have do
we for instance have a duty to protect
the most vulnerable in our society or do
we just do what we want with our
property these are the big ethical
questions what’s ironic now is that many
of our new technologies are beginning to
undermine the ethical values that we
uphold in our society so what are the
values of modern society we’re very
concerned with issues of Liberty we want
to be free from government interference
we want to be free from people telling
us what to do we want to be able to go
where we want walk around where we want
we want to be autonomous we want to be
able to think for ourselves we don’t
want to be brainwashed we don’t want to
be subject to propaganda these are
incredibly important modern values we
also want to have technology we’re a
techno Felix society so we think of
technology as representing progress and
sometimes associate that with moral
progress this can be questioned and this
is what we do in ethics we also want to
talk more about what sort of society
we’re going to develop this is the most
important question so let me talk about
duay technologies ironically can
undermine some of our ethical values the
most common one is privacy if we think
about privacy it’s being undermined all
the time our smartphones know her we are
big companies such as Facebook are able
to tell a huge amount of Eros they’re
able to tell our sexual preferences how
we’re likely to vote what we want to buy
and so on this data that were
voluntarily giving away is hugely
problematic so you might not care
whether these companies or anyone else
knows much about you but you might not
care if people see intimate photos of
you but in terms of our autonomy in
terms of our ability to think for
ourselves we need to protect our data
autonomy in the philosophical sense
concerns our ability to think for
ourselves to govern ourselves to give
ourselves a moral law this moral law
requires certain conditions being able
to have space to decide for ourselves if
we give away a lot of our data if we
begin to tell companies we want this we
like this we respond to that these
companies are able to influence us more
easily they’re able to know what I’m
likely to respond to they know that I’ve
traveled to Vilnius that I study
philosophy that I’m interested in movies
or whatever it is I’m interested in
hence they’re able to target ads or
messages specifically for me so this
becomes a big trap to our autonomy and
if we treat an autonomy we undermine the
premises of liberal democracy liberal
democracy is founded on the idea that
we’re able to choose for ourselves
rationally so giving away our data
undermines the conditions of autonomy
let me narrow it down even more one of
the conditions for autonomy is being
able to pay attention to certain things
I should be able to attend to what I
want I need to be able to send my
attention where I want it to go but as
people find out more and more as
companies or new tech is able to find
out more and more about what I think how
I’m likely to respond what’s going to
work for me they’re able to grab my
attention they’re able to send bespoke
messages designed purely for me in order
to get my attention this limits my
ability to think for myself so you might
ask how we’ve allowed this to happen
what is sort of ethical reasons we’ve
allowed this to happen and to me this
goes back to the Enlightenment the
Enlightenment
came up with a number of ethical
theories and that placed human autonomy
at the center of hot society should be
about society was decided it was decided
that society would be about individuals
choosing for themselves making
autonomous choices being rational this
very much suits the marketplace and it
suits a certain type of individualistic
society in this society as long as we’re
autonomous everything is meant to be for
the best so then we can rationally
choose to give away our data and
undermine certain things undermine
autonomy undermine privacy the problem
here with enlightenment with
enlightenment ethics is that it doesn’t
allow certain questions to arise certain
questions such as questions of
flourishing questions of the common good
questions such as what is best for
society so I want in this way to go back
to the future I would advocate
technology being developed according to
an older ethical tradition the ethical
tradition of the early confusions of de
Buddhists of Aristotle
these were virtue ethicist and they
believed that we should think about
parties a person’s character what’s a
good character what’s a good way of life
parties human flourishing what is the
common good rather than allowing Aryan
to decide individually for themselves
what would be the best they asked
questions that don’t arise in
enlightenment philosophies questions of
the common good these questions will
benefit our thinking about new
technologies we might be able to come up
with prize systems so that we get more
technologies that will benefit people
who are vulnerable benefit people with
intellectual disabilities benefit people
who have had strokes benefit people with
dementia
might be able to avoid de market
failures that come about when we get a
very individualistic rationalistic
system for example big pharmaceuticals
their system develops drugs for first
world people there’s no money to be made
in developing drugs to help diseases of
the third world so you have a global
health burden is overly represented in
the third world we don’t address their
diseases because the companies are under
no obligation to think about that their
only obligation is shareholders and
stakeholders in their own area which
allows them to develop stuff that will
get them a profit not what’s good
overall for the common good for the
planet
with virtue ethics we might begin to
think about these common Goods we might
begin to think about prize systems that
would design or incentivize assistive
technologies for the people that need
them while reducing the impetus to grab
patents so that money can be made back
we might begin to think about
technologies that will nudge people not
towards consuming more and more not
towards purchasing more and more but
towards consuming less consuming more
ethically towards reducing their carbon
footprint if it is the case that these
technologies can influence our autonomy
why not it influence people’s autonomy
influence their actions for the good for
environmental reasons make people more
charitable make people more concerned
with the environment more concerned with
future generations I think would virtue
ethics this will solve some of the
problems that our market-based and
atomistic enlightenment philosophies
have resulted in in our current
technological ease the fused world
virtue ethics can help us ensure that
more technology is going to be like
Aviva’s talk around it up designed to
promote a common good enough
in society rather than just produced in
profit this I think is why we need to
look to virtue ethics in order to
develop our technologies thank you very
much
[Applause]
[Music]
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