Responsible
Tech Entrepreneurship
Research in the context of AI, Robotics & Synthetic Biology

Celine Pieters

Philosophy of Media and Technology, Prof. Mark Coeckelbergh,

University of Vienna, Austria

#ethical_drives

#ethos

Reflexive rhetoric at the InnovationLab

Practicing the rhetorical exercise of the praise for shaping personal values.

Celine Pieters

The ambition of creating a better world through the design of new technologies is a mainstream idea that it is especially widespread in discourses of start-ups presenting their new product and innovative ideas.

How is it that 'reflecting on values' is then mainly considered as a check-box exercise? How is it that 'doing ethics' is a niche -rather than a norm- in the context of tech entrepreneurship?

In order to discuss this problematic, I firstly investigate the values and representations of tech people through a series of interviews. I include tech entrepreneurs and investors, as well as philosophers of technology, economists and policy makers 'who care about ethical issues and societal impact'. My research revolves around the following question: what drives the stakeholders in tech to engage in ethics (whatever shape it may take)?

Secondly, and following inconclusive findings from this first attempt, I change my research strategy while keeping the same ambition: to identify and analyze the discourses, representations and practices that could encourage the building of an ethical culture in tech.

Rather then focusing on the obstacles (such as the lack of power, time or means) that prevent ethics to be the standard in tech design, I turn my interest into highlighting the drives that enable one to eventually get around these obstacles.

For this purpose, I use the technique of rhetoric as a mean and criticize the methodology.

In the background, this research means to discuss the sole concept of an 'ethical culture' in Tech.

#rhetoric #ethics #technology #tech entrepreneurship

#action research #qualitative analysis

#values #drives #desires #inspirations

#moral_imagination

#rhetoric

Building an ethical culture in Tech

A narrative-based experiment in the context of Tech entrepreneurship

Celine Pieters

23rd Biennal Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT), Tokyo 2023

As of today, the technology industry makes up a third of the total world market and it is steadily growing. Technologies developed in robotics, artificial intelligence or engineering biology are already well integrated (or about to be) in many aspects of our society and yet, they still raise a certain amount of ethical concerns.

Facing these issues, the standard answer consists in identifying and articulating a number of major problems related to the development and diffusion of the emerging technologies. Then, prescriptions in the shape of regulations, ethical frameworks, guidelines or codes of conduct are formulated with the hope to lower the level of risks and to encourage ethical behaviors in Tech entrepreneurship.

While these normative sources are largely recognized for their necessity and reasonability, their limits are also acknowledged and pointed out; prescribed rules may only lead to adherence to codes rather than they would actually minimize risks or encourage one’s (sense of) responsibility. 

Following this, other strategies are considered for encouraging the growth of (a feeling of) responsibility in Tech, such as the practice of moral imagination.

As a matter of fact, the role of imagination is indeed largely recognized in ethics. In the literature, it is for instance highlighted that imagination is required in order to discern what is morally relevant in a situation, to understand empathetically how others experience things, and to envision the full range of possibilities open to us in a particular case one.

Yet, the conditions in which to appeal to one’s ability to imagine as well as to train this ability, is a continuous research.

I argue that the discipline of rhetoric is worth considering for such a purpose since it intrinsically holds the promise of fulfilling a heuristic as well as an ethical function. I discuss this argument by presenting a rhetorical experiment in the context of Tech entrepreneurship.

#rhetoric #ethics #technology #tech entrepreneurship

#action research #imagination #moralimagination