Values and Technology
Design for Values
Design for Values
Main research question: How can values be integrated into the design of technologies, institutions and sociotechnical systems?
One of the main approaches to responsible innovation within VTI department and specifically the Ethics and Philosophy of Technology Section is Design for Values. This approach aims at integrating non-instrumental values in the design of new technologies and innovations from the start. This raises a number of challenges. One is how to deal with value conflicts in design. Another challenge is the role of institutions and how they should be designed in order to do justice to values and responsible innovation. A third challenge has to do with possible tensions between collective and individual responsibility and in responsibility gaps.
Pieter Vermaas has created with Jeroen van den Hoven and Ibo van de Poel the comprehensive handbook on design for values. In his research he analysed the possibilities for design for values in various technological domains ranging from nano technology to architecture
- Ishmaev, G., P.E. Vermaas, D. Hoeneveld, and P. van Gelder (2021) Safe by Design regulation for academic experimentation and value conflicts: an exploration of solution directions, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, 1554
- Vermaas, P.E., and S. Eloy (2021) Shape Grammar Systems as a Technology for Flexible Design for Values in Cities: Giving Architectural Design to Inhabitants, in M. Nagenborg, T. Stone, M. González Woge and P.E. Vermaas (eds.) Technology and the City: Towards a Philosophy of Urban Technologies (Dordrecht: Springer), pp. 225-252.
- Stone, T., F. Santoni de Sio and P.E. Vermaas (2020) Driving in the Dark: Designing Autonomous Vehicles for Reducing Light Pollution, Science and Engineering Ethics 26, 387-403.
- Van den Hoven, J., P.E. Vermaas and I. van de Poel (eds.) (2015) Handbook of Ethics, Values and Technological Design (Dordrecht: Springer)
- Vermaas, P.E., P. Hekkert, N. Manders-Huits and N. Tromp (2015) Design Methods in Design for Values, in J. van den Hoven, P.E. Vermaas and I. van de Poel (eds.) Handbook of Ethics, Values and Technological Design (Dordrecht: Springer), pp. 179-201.
- Vermaas, P.E., Y-H. Tan, J. van den Hoven, B. Burgemeestre and J. Hulstijn (2010) Designing for Trust: A Case of Value-Sensitive Design, Knowledge, Technology and Policy 23, 491-505.
- Van den Hoven, J., and P.E. Vermaas (2007) Nano-Technology and Privacy: On Continuous Surveillance Outside the Panopticon, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 32, 283-297.
Design for values in energy technologies
Research on the development of new energy technology has given rise to the development of a framework that aims to identify relevant value in sociotechnical systems. The starting point of this framework is that values are not only embedded in the design of values in technical artefacts, but also in the institutional context and participatory methods.
- See website https://www.delftdesignforvalues.nl/
- Handbook on design for values:
- van den Hoven, Jeroen, Pieter E. Vermaas, and Ibo Van de Poel, eds. 2015. Handbook of ethics and values in technological design. Sources, Theory, Values and Application Domains: Springer.
- Method for translating values into design requirements:
- Van de Poel, Ibo. 2013. "Translating values into design requirements." In Philosophy and Engineering: Reflections on Practice, Principles and Process, edited by D. Mitchfelder, N. McCarty and D.E. Goldberg, 253-266. Dordrecht: Springer.
What are values? And how can they play a role in the design for values?
- Klenk, M., Values and Design, in progress.
How to deal with conflicting values in design for values
- van de Poel, Ibo. 2015. "Conflicting Values in Design for Values." In Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological Design, edited by Jeroen van den Hoven, Pieter E. Vermaas and Ibo van de Poel, 89-116. Springer Netherlands.
- Dignum, M., Correljé, A., Cuppen, E., Pesch, U., & Taebi, B. (2016). Contested Technologies and Design for Values: The Case of Shale Gas. Science and Engineering Ethics, 22(4), 1171-1191. doi:10.1007/s11948-015-9685-6
Value embedding and technology
Michael Klenk - Technology is not value neutral, and Michael Klenk has developed a theory that explains this idea in terms of the ethical affordances of technology. The ‚affordance account of value embedding’ provides the basis for evalauting empirically the values embedded in technology and it shows that neither technological determinism – the idea that technology determines social living – nor technological instrumentalsim – the idea that humans determine the value of technology – is correct.
Klenk, M. „How do technological artefacts embody moral values?” Philosophy and Technology, 2020
Ibo van de Poel - Accounts for how technologies embody values have been developed (Van de Poel and Kroes 2014) and applied to AI (van de Poel 2020).
Van de Poel, Ibo. 2020. "Embedding Values in Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems." Minds and Machines 30 (3):385-409. doi: 10.1007/s11023-020-09537-4.
Van de Poel, Ibo, and Peter Kroes. 2014. "Can technology embody values?" In The moral status of technical artefacts, edited by Peter Kroes and Peter-Paul Verbeek, 103-124. Dordrecht: Springer.
Value change
Michael Klenk's work illuminates the nature of moral progress and the conditions and properties of moral revolutions.
Klenk, M. Sauer, H, „Moral Progress. The Problem of Cognitive Control”, Philosophical Psychology, 2021.
Klenk, M., O’Neill, Elizabeth, Moral Revolutions, Analysis, in preparation
Steffen Steinert is interested in how technology, emotions and values relate to one another. He has focused on how social media, by fostering emotional contagion and a particular emotional climate, can contribute to changes in social values.
Steinert, S. (2020). Corona and value change. The role of social media and emotional contagion. Ethics and Information Technology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-020-09545-z
Ibo van de Poel - See the website www.valuechange.eu
van de Poel, I., Kudina, O. Understanding Technology-Induced Value Change: a Pragmatist Proposal. Philos. Technol. 35, 40 (2022). https://doi-org.tudelft.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s13347-022-00520-8
Van de Poel, Ibo. 2020. "Embedding Values in Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems." Minds and Machines 30 (3):385-409. doi: 10.1007/s11023-020-09537-4.
Van de Poel, Ibo, and Peter Kroes. 2014. "Can technology embody values?" In The moral status of technical artefacts, edited by Peter Kroes and Peter-Paul Verbeek, 103-124. Dordrecht: Springer.
Morally disruptive technologies
Janna van Grunsven is involved in several research collaborations and has published several articles focusing on mental health and disability and the manner in which digital technologies can support or undermine inclusive spaces of communication and interaction.
Van Grunsven, J & S. Roeser (2021) AAC Technology, Autism, and the Empathic Turn, Social Epistemology, DOI: 10.1080/02691728.2021.1897189