This article introduces the special issue“Technology Ethics in Action:Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives”.In response to recent controversies about the harms of digital technology,discourses and practices o...This article introduces the special issue“Technology Ethics in Action:Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives”.In response to recent controversies about the harms of digital technology,discourses and practices of“tech ethics”have proliferated across the tech industry,academia,civil society,and government.Yet despite the seeming promise of ethics,tech ethics in practice suffers from several significant limitations:tech ethics is vague and toothless,has a myopic focus on individual engineers and technology design,and is subsumed into corporate logics and incentives.These limitations suggest that tech ethics enables corporate“ethics-washing”:embracing the language of ethics to defuse criticism and resist government regulation,without committing to ethical behavior.Given these dynamics,I describe tech ethics as a terrain of contestation where the central debate is not whether ethics is desirable,but what“ethics”entails and who gets to define it.Current approaches to tech ethics are poised to enable technologists and technology companies to label themselves as“ethical”without substantively altering their practices.Thus,those striving for structural improvements in digital technologies must be mindful of the gap between ethics as a mode of normative inquiry and ethics as a practical endeavor.In order to better evaluate the opportunities and limits of tech ethics,I propose a sociotechnical approach that analyzes tech ethics in light of who defines it and what impacts it generates in practice.展开更多
Driving improvement in healthcare can be challenging related in part related to the degree of complexity. We break down the aspects of culture needed to accelerate improvement into a technical domain and a social doma...Driving improvement in healthcare can be challenging related in part related to the degree of complexity. We break down the aspects of culture needed to accelerate improvement into a technical domain and a social domain. Task processes can be considered an organization’s technical domain. The social processes, how those doing the work interact, can be thought of as the organization’s social domain. The technical domain focuses on the work related to tasks and the social domain on the relationships that make efficient and effective work possible. We argue that work requirements and social relations are inexorably intertwined—each profoundly impacting, reflecting, and even determining the other. In this review, we argue that in order to accelerate healthcare system improvement, focus must be given to processes that take into consideration both on the social and technical domains.展开更多
The paper aims at developing a more comprehensive design theory for designing effective IT architectures based on organizational design principles.It builds on the sociotechnical systems design theory(STS-D)for the de...The paper aims at developing a more comprehensive design theory for designing effective IT architectures based on organizational design principles.It builds on the sociotechnical systems design theory(STS-D)for the design of work,workplaces,and organizations as developed in the Lowlands(The Netherlands and Belgium).Traditional sociotechnical approaches study the effects of the technical system on the social system and try to jointly optimize both systems by end-users’participation.The Lowlands STS-D approach focuses on creating organizational conditions for developing humane and productive organizations.Organizations are considered as social systems.Technical systems need to support the effective functioning of work and control of work within that social system.Therefore,the division of labour is central in the Lowlands STS-D approach.It is articulated in designing the execution tasks(production structure)and control tasks(control structure).Furthermore,it claims that the design of IT architecture follows after organizational design of the production and control structure.This boils down to the design of provisioning of information needed at workplaces and between workplaces.To understand the Lowlands approach for designing IT architecture,called archipelago,we will first in-depth explain its organizational design principles and sequence,and its application for designing IT architecture,which is becoming ever more feasible with new technologies.Furthermore,with this paper we attempt to bridge the different languages used by organizational and IT designers as they should jointly work on the same outcome:humane and productive organizations.展开更多
While scholars involved in studying the ethics and politics flowing from digital information and communication systems have sought to impact the design and deployment of digital technologies,the fast pace and iterativ...While scholars involved in studying the ethics and politics flowing from digital information and communication systems have sought to impact the design and deployment of digital technologies,the fast pace and iterative tempo of technical development in these contexts,and the lack of structured engagement with sociotechnical questions,have been major barriers to ensuring values are considered explicitly in the R&D process.Here I introduce Apologos,a lightweight design methodology informed by the author’s experience of the challenges and opportunities of interdisciplinary collaboration between computational and social sciences over a five-year period.Apologos,which is inspired by“design apologetics”,is intended as an initial mechanism to introduce technologists to the process of considering how human values impact the digital design process.展开更多
Urban infrastructures are invariably constituted by social and technical components whose capacity to withstand crisis is determined by the resilience of their sociotechnical structures.This study aims to apply the pr...Urban infrastructures are invariably constituted by social and technical components whose capacity to withstand crisis is determined by the resilience of their sociotechnical structures.This study aims to apply the principles of sociotechnical resilience in modeling and simulating disaster response in urban areas.Drawing on a case study of Jakarta,Indonesia,our study focuses on the role of hospitals as part of healthcare infrastructure in response to a large-scale disaster.Each hospital is modeled as a coordinated location with a certain amount of resources,primarily in terms of medical staff.We perform sensitivity analysis through Monte Carlo simulations to observe the impacts of various response strategies,disaster severity,and communication duration on system resilience.The results show that centralized systems are generally more suitable for dealing with low disaster severity,while the decentralized strategy performs better during a disaster with worse impacts.Additionally,the time taken for communication and coordination can significantly affect the performance of centralized systems.By simulating various scenarios,parameters,and recovery protocols,the model we developed can help policymakers,city planners,and other stakeholders design proper response strategies suitable to their structural conditions and available resources during a large-scale disaster in urban cities.展开更多
Industrial projects can be viewed as complex sociotechnical systems(e.g.,human agents interacting with technology)where cause-and-effect relationships do not necessarily occur in time-and-space proximity.For this work...Industrial projects can be viewed as complex sociotechnical systems(e.g.,human agents interacting with technology)where cause-and-effect relationships do not necessarily occur in time-and-space proximity.For this work,metanetwork(e.g.,a network of networks)analysis was applied to emergent behavior-centric intangible risks(BCIRs)in a portfolio of projects in the energy sector.A user-friendly framework is proposed to identify and quantitatively assess BCIRs,along with the conditions that initiate them throughout the project development cycle.The underlying hypothesis is a structured approach to identifying,assessing,and proactively addressing BCIRs that have the potential to improve a project team’s ability to meet its objectives.While we build upon Rasmussen’s dynamic safety model and address the need for a framework to assess causal factors that influence behaviors in the context of an energy-sector project,we do this with a view to a future where technology(e.g.,artificial intelligence(AI),automation,robotics,etc.)will play an ever-increasing role.The proposed framework is presented as tested in a live project portfolio setting where organizational modifications were identified,simulated,and implemented.One particular dimension of the analysis,the issue of authority without responsibility,is also discussed.The results of this empirical assessment were further validated by an industry panel of subject-matter experts(SMEs).展开更多
文摘This article introduces the special issue“Technology Ethics in Action:Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives”.In response to recent controversies about the harms of digital technology,discourses and practices of“tech ethics”have proliferated across the tech industry,academia,civil society,and government.Yet despite the seeming promise of ethics,tech ethics in practice suffers from several significant limitations:tech ethics is vague and toothless,has a myopic focus on individual engineers and technology design,and is subsumed into corporate logics and incentives.These limitations suggest that tech ethics enables corporate“ethics-washing”:embracing the language of ethics to defuse criticism and resist government regulation,without committing to ethical behavior.Given these dynamics,I describe tech ethics as a terrain of contestation where the central debate is not whether ethics is desirable,but what“ethics”entails and who gets to define it.Current approaches to tech ethics are poised to enable technologists and technology companies to label themselves as“ethical”without substantively altering their practices.Thus,those striving for structural improvements in digital technologies must be mindful of the gap between ethics as a mode of normative inquiry and ethics as a practical endeavor.In order to better evaluate the opportunities and limits of tech ethics,I propose a sociotechnical approach that analyzes tech ethics in light of who defines it and what impacts it generates in practice.
文摘Driving improvement in healthcare can be challenging related in part related to the degree of complexity. We break down the aspects of culture needed to accelerate improvement into a technical domain and a social domain. Task processes can be considered an organization’s technical domain. The social processes, how those doing the work interact, can be thought of as the organization’s social domain. The technical domain focuses on the work related to tasks and the social domain on the relationships that make efficient and effective work possible. We argue that work requirements and social relations are inexorably intertwined—each profoundly impacting, reflecting, and even determining the other. In this review, we argue that in order to accelerate healthcare system improvement, focus must be given to processes that take into consideration both on the social and technical domains.
文摘The paper aims at developing a more comprehensive design theory for designing effective IT architectures based on organizational design principles.It builds on the sociotechnical systems design theory(STS-D)for the design of work,workplaces,and organizations as developed in the Lowlands(The Netherlands and Belgium).Traditional sociotechnical approaches study the effects of the technical system on the social system and try to jointly optimize both systems by end-users’participation.The Lowlands STS-D approach focuses on creating organizational conditions for developing humane and productive organizations.Organizations are considered as social systems.Technical systems need to support the effective functioning of work and control of work within that social system.Therefore,the division of labour is central in the Lowlands STS-D approach.It is articulated in designing the execution tasks(production structure)and control tasks(control structure).Furthermore,it claims that the design of IT architecture follows after organizational design of the production and control structure.This boils down to the design of provisioning of information needed at workplaces and between workplaces.To understand the Lowlands approach for designing IT architecture,called archipelago,we will first in-depth explain its organizational design principles and sequence,and its application for designing IT architecture,which is becoming ever more feasible with new technologies.Furthermore,with this paper we attempt to bridge the different languages used by organizational and IT designers as they should jointly work on the same outcome:humane and productive organizations.
文摘While scholars involved in studying the ethics and politics flowing from digital information and communication systems have sought to impact the design and deployment of digital technologies,the fast pace and iterative tempo of technical development in these contexts,and the lack of structured engagement with sociotechnical questions,have been major barriers to ensuring values are considered explicitly in the R&D process.Here I introduce Apologos,a lightweight design methodology informed by the author’s experience of the challenges and opportunities of interdisciplinary collaboration between computational and social sciences over a five-year period.Apologos,which is inspired by“design apologetics”,is intended as an initial mechanism to introduce technologists to the process of considering how human values impact the digital design process.
基金the National Research Foundation of Singapore(NRF)under its Campus for Re-search Excellence and Technological Enterprise(CREATE)programme(FI 370074011).
文摘Urban infrastructures are invariably constituted by social and technical components whose capacity to withstand crisis is determined by the resilience of their sociotechnical structures.This study aims to apply the principles of sociotechnical resilience in modeling and simulating disaster response in urban areas.Drawing on a case study of Jakarta,Indonesia,our study focuses on the role of hospitals as part of healthcare infrastructure in response to a large-scale disaster.Each hospital is modeled as a coordinated location with a certain amount of resources,primarily in terms of medical staff.We perform sensitivity analysis through Monte Carlo simulations to observe the impacts of various response strategies,disaster severity,and communication duration on system resilience.The results show that centralized systems are generally more suitable for dealing with low disaster severity,while the decentralized strategy performs better during a disaster with worse impacts.Additionally,the time taken for communication and coordination can significantly affect the performance of centralized systems.By simulating various scenarios,parameters,and recovery protocols,the model we developed can help policymakers,city planners,and other stakeholders design proper response strategies suitable to their structural conditions and available resources during a large-scale disaster in urban cities.
文摘Industrial projects can be viewed as complex sociotechnical systems(e.g.,human agents interacting with technology)where cause-and-effect relationships do not necessarily occur in time-and-space proximity.For this work,metanetwork(e.g.,a network of networks)analysis was applied to emergent behavior-centric intangible risks(BCIRs)in a portfolio of projects in the energy sector.A user-friendly framework is proposed to identify and quantitatively assess BCIRs,along with the conditions that initiate them throughout the project development cycle.The underlying hypothesis is a structured approach to identifying,assessing,and proactively addressing BCIRs that have the potential to improve a project team’s ability to meet its objectives.While we build upon Rasmussen’s dynamic safety model and address the need for a framework to assess causal factors that influence behaviors in the context of an energy-sector project,we do this with a view to a future where technology(e.g.,artificial intelligence(AI),automation,robotics,etc.)will play an ever-increasing role.The proposed framework is presented as tested in a live project portfolio setting where organizational modifications were identified,simulated,and implemented.One particular dimension of the analysis,the issue of authority without responsibility,is also discussed.The results of this empirical assessment were further validated by an industry panel of subject-matter experts(SMEs).
