Ethics and Unintended Consequences of Technology

Abstract

In Chapter 5, we have seen that technical artefacts are often part of larger sociotechnical systems and that those systems also contribute to determining the consequences of the use of such artefacts. We ended Chapter 6 with the conclusion that technology can result in unintended consequences. These two observations lead one to wonder to what extent engineers are able to predict the consequences of what they design during the actual design process. Those consequences provided an important basis for the ethical questions accompanying the design processes that were dealt with in Chapter 3. What happens if these consequences are not known or are perhaps not foreseeable? What kind of ethical questions does that then precipitate? How can and must an engineer cope with such matters?