Reports 350 items
Recommended Download: WEF White Paper Report: Values, Ethics and Innovation Rethinking Technological Development in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (www3.weforum.org)
Values, Ethics and Innovation Rethinking Technological Development in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Introduction 


Technologies enable us to live longer, healthier, more fulfilling lives. Since the first Industrial Revolution in particular, the development, commercialization 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, increasing the real average global wage by at least 2900% since the 1700s.


1. The technologies emerging today promise further value, both economic and social. For example, artificial intelligence alone could generate between $3 trillion and $5 trillion across nearly 20 industries


2. and blockchain could help revolutionize humanitarian relief.


3. Humankind, however, is only just beginning to realize 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. 


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 debate about data collection on social media that exploits people’s vulnerabilities exemplifies how technologies embody the values and interests of their makers and how this can impact us in potentially harmful ways. 


As Marc Benioff, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Salesforce, USA, remarked at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2018 last January, the task of regulation is to set true north. It is not just about what companies and governments create and do, it’s about how they create and do it. 


The moral role of technologies that concerns the values and ethics of technological development must be addressed at this critical moment in history, and industry is asking for guidance.


4. “The values and ethics of technological development must be addressed at this critical moment in history” Rethinking the processes of technological development is needed, asking first what long-term future is wanted, and then how to orient technological development towards achieving it. Technologies cannot decide for people what constitutes the good life. 


The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development represents a step in this direction. It recognizes that technologies will play a role in whether the Sustainable Development Goals are reached, and establishes a multistakeholder “Technology Facilitation Mechanism” to maximize the chances.


5. The World Economic Forum is also pioneering a futureoriented agenda – one that promotes responsible development and the adoption of new technologies, and drives a higher quality of life with greater public participation in how technologies are employed – by taking seriously the roles of values and ethics in technological development. 


Leaders from multiple sectors must now come together to guide the development and deployment of new technologies that will further values, such as environmental stewardship, the common good and human dignity. To fight growing inequality and resulting populism, greater awareness of technologies’ impact on human rights is required, as well as their more inclusive integration into societies and economies. 


This White Paper is part of the Forum project on Values, Ethics and Innovation. It expands on the call to action for values leadership in Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Klaus Schwab and Nicholas Davis, 2018). 


The first section of this paper argues that society and technology develop in tandem, with technologies shaping and embodying societal values, and calls for a human-centred approach to technological development. 


The second section identifies and describes the new tools, skills, partnerships and institutions required to achieve transformative innovation – namely, innovation that no longer widens the gap between the haves and have-nots, and that facilitates technological advance in line with social progress. 


All stakeholder groups stand to benefit from this approach. Governments can re-establish trust in their governance of technologies by better aligning them with societal values. Industry leaders can hope to develop new markets, attract new investment and create more positive engagement with customers. 


Civil society can claim a role in shaping the preservation of rights and freedoms through the design of societally aligned technologies. And citizens will have greater potential for self-realization. Technologies continue to be seen as part of the solution to many complex global challenges in the 21st century. 


They are also capable of taking society forward in an inclusive, sustainable and positive way, if the right approach to their development is taken. This is a pressing issue after 30 years of stagnating wages, with 80% of the reduction in labour’s share of national income attributed to technologies.


6. Technological and economic progress can no longer be assumed to be aligned with social progress, and data from many European countries and the United States, in particular, suggest material conditions have improved much more than the quality of life.


7. The human story over the next half century will turn largely on how well societies succeed in collectively defining their priorities, engaging essential questions about values and ethics, essential questions about values and ethics, and aligning technological development accordingly.


Download the full 22 Page pdf report here: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_WP_Values_Ethics_Innovation_2018.pdf
    • 1
    Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst The emergence of capitalism led to a new rethinking of values and how to protect the rights of human beings in front of the new Age of Machines where profit was the only god. We are wiser (we hope) now, and understand that the 4th IR and any other future disruptive change in society and economy will need also the transformation of how we, as individuals and as communities and societies, define ourselves, which values and ethics must be hold and preserve, etc. That is why, even when the education system is calling for STEM students, more and more generalists, specialists in moral, ethic, values, epistemology should be prepared and available to work together with technology developers.