Unlocking Digital Signature Licitness for Business Ethics and Conduct Disclosure Statement in European Union

How to eSign a document: digital signature licitness for Business Ethics and Conduct Disclosure Statement in European Union

thanks for inviting me in june of this year the european group on ethics in science and new technologies the ege published a statement which aims to provide a fresh perspective on the role of ethics and governance of new technologies in europe it emphasizes the importance of ethics for the future of europe and it envisages an ambitious and proactive ethics i will briefly clarify what such an ambitious and proactive ethics entails ing to the ege and which challenges it will have to meet but let me start with a preliminary remark about the importance of democracy the european commission has taken up the challenge of declaring a new push for democracy as one of its priorities adopting its new eu action plan on human rights and democracy and the european democracy action plan and launching a landmark conference on the future of europe the ege welcomes that european commission has taken up the challenge of declaring a new push for democracy is one of its priorities and it recommends to maximize opportunities for public participation in policy making the ege has stressed in the past and indeed it stresses again the close links between the practice of ethics in its remit and participatory governance and democratic principles our ethical reflections on new technologies and innovation are premised on and situated in a social political system under the rule of law democracy and respect for human rights moral values are not for one small group to decide in everyone else instead the values we live by are and ought to be the outcome of inclusive debates and democratic practices with mutual respect meaningful relations between citizens and between those who govern and those who are governed and this means cultivation of a space of public reason and ensuring opportunities for civic engagement as all stages of the policy cycle and this strong call has been a light motif of ege advice ethical reflection and analysis are more than a set of afterthoughts or philosophical accompaniments they need to address issues at an early stage of innovation when ethical considerations can still make a real difference they are an integral and constitutive part of all policy making governance and management such an approach to ethical reflection goes to the heart of what europe stands for in the world but it is the contrary of a parochial deglobalized or nationalist view on ethics it implies a willingness to respectfully justify one's view to any party likewise willing to engage in an exchange of thought ethical claims are valued vantage points for constructive dialogue in light of common problems neither absolute truths nor mere opinions valid relative to a social and cultural framework europe has developed ambitious plans for its digital and climate leadership along both doshas europe rightfully foregrounds ethical principles and fundamental rights enshrined in the constitutive and mining treaties of the european union europe's ethical stance on progress and innovation has given rise to astonishment and disbelief outside of europe and to concern concerns in europe itself how can one prosper in a high-tech economy how can one lead in digital innovation and spearhead data-driven research and ai development while being firmly committed to the highest ethical standards especially when others don't obviously europe cannot afford to forego the benefits that innovation in its broadest social meaning may bring for citizens in europe and beyond it must thus move forward and compete in a global market while adhering to the core ethical principles at its foundations here an apparent tension emerges however the tension may subside if progress is taken in a broader sense in the same way we have broadened our conception of the performance of a country's economy beyond gdp metrics haven't we made progress when we managed to take care of the interests of future generations as well as of the interest of the most vulnerable people who live today haven't we made progress if we manage our data in such a way that we can do good medical research and protect the data of patients at the same time moral values and ethical principles should be conceived as much more than frustrating constraints they are expressions of care of proactive responsibility and commitment to the well-being of all and as such can open up surprising trajectories of responsible innovations the ege suggests that our values and ethics can function as a catalyst of innovation and beneficial change some have spoken about beneficial constraints and as a reason as recent reports in harvard business review show constraints may stimulate rather than hamper creativity and innovation those who turn a blind out to our values may not only be morally blameworthy but they may also miss out on innovative solutions they would otherwise have discovered one can for example deceitfully pretend to have come up with a motor management system that is both sustainable and super efficient but all the time that one succeeds in fooling the world about one's accomplishments no work was done on the truly innovative and responsible option the ege is of the opinion that europe has a unique opportunity and responsibility to initiate and drive ethical debates in a world that faces many global challenges europe has to make its ethics work in practice by showing how fundamental rights and ethical principles can lead to fruitful innovations that others will be interested in too if only at a later stage the general data protection regulation serves as a powerful example of how europe has foregrounded individual rights and freedoms while embracing digital innovation and thereby has set global ethical standards by means of eu law the european commission is justified in assuming that the same can and must be achieved for ai data governance and european self-sovereign identity global eu partners sometimes referred to as its system rivals may seek to shape ethical frameworks for regulation global governance and global standards of new technologies building on ethical premises that may be inconsistent with eu law and its core ethical ideals so this is by no means a trivial pursuit but the ege is of the opinion that ethics has been currently is and will in the future be an important pillar of the european project and a potent ingredient in its geopolitical positioning in enhancing its regulatory power and serving as a source of responsible innovations are times of rampant miss and disinformation deep s troll armies has resulted in an epistemic chaos where an appeal to facts the truth the world as it is has become deeply problematic merchants of doubt have tainted signs with anomalies anecdotal evidence and flawed statistics influencers and meddlers have compromised independent journalism with news propaganda disinformation and hyper partisan narratives lobbyists have undermined trust in politics profit maximizing elites have obliterated trust in the financial sector and the corporate world conspiracy entrepreneurs crowd out serious attempts to understand the world and unfortunately digital technologies have given a helping hand to all of them the consequences of this epistemic crisis reach far beyond confusion as volterra remarked those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities in order to further develop a future-proof approach to ethics for europe the ege identifies some of the main conditions that any public ethics relevant to policy and governance of innovation in the 21st century will have to come to grips with first there are complexities deep uncertainties and unforeseen consequences our societies are hyper-connected and they give rise to complexities and wicked problems that is problems with unclear and shifting problem statements disagreement about relevant expertise and changing criteria for what counts as a successful solution secondly in dealing with wicked problems we encounter frequent recurrent deep disagreements which are often reasonable in the sense that they do not necessarily stem from a flawed reasoning misunderstanding of the facts but are the result of a plurality of perspectives values and worldviews thirdly whatever policy option one adopts there will always be a conception of the good life an image of man a model of society that is challenged by it either by its consequences or by its justifications fourthly our ethical thinking about these issues is situated in a world of shifting power balances of gross inequities resulting in asymmetries and influence which are typically financially and digitally leveraged this gives rise to widespread and corrosive distrust which is a foreign formidable stumbling block for the implementation of even the wisest policies furthermore ethics as a discipline is in the meanwhile in transition the fates of previously unconnected people around the world are now interdependent in complex ways and the number of persons whose well-being needs to be considered in decision in policy making at a given place given time has vastly expended a standard question in ethics has always been what ought i to do here and now we now have to consider what our collective omissions may possibly mean for distant and future inhabitants of the earth and for the earth itself and finally a recently gained weak confidence about foundations for ethics in our common humanity our common evolutionary biology has become shaky now some advocate that human beings as we know them could be enhanced and transcended by engineering design in light of these features of our condition in addition to being ideal oriented analytic and reflective ethical analysis will have to be aligned with new forms of policy making that are being now considered to deal adequately with uncertainties complexity emergent properties non-linearity exponential growth and tipping points in complex adaptive systems our ethical thinking in research and practice thus needs to be agile interventionist interdisciplinary and translational that is covering the whole spectrum of fundamental research to professional practice what can we success usefully say further about ethics and the future of in the future of europe under these conditions the ege suggests that a proactive and ambitious conception of ethics has the following features for firstly a future ethic should accommodate the importance of design in the 21st century we know by now that values and worldviews are baked into everything that is made by human beings artifacts do have politics and this starting point is extremely important since everything around us is designed from governance systems to means of communication production processes voting procedures smart cities and genomes as sir winston churchill aptly observed first we shape our houses and then our houses shape us sometimes value choices and world views are incorporated intentionally in design sometimes inadvertently and unwittingly design choices may be well intentioned or morally dubious or objectionable for example when they are manipulative discriminatory dishonest disrespectful such is the case with dark patterns on the internet computational propaganda polarizing recommender algorithms or subtle nudges in online behavioral advertising ethics in the 21st century should be present when and where values are inserted intentionally or surreptitiously in our life world in the form of technology ethics should also be present in a form that makes it more likely that it will be of practical consequence ethical reflection will have to deliver specifications of what our values and principles imply in terms of design requirements for institutions and new technologies without concrete specifications and requirements our ideas remain inconsequential gratuitous even and moreover if we do not specify what our values mean for the shaping of the world of tomorrow democratically continuously systematically transparently others may do it haphazardly self-servingly and undemocratically we should work therefore on the competences capabilities mechanisms and the supporting institutions that allow us to systematically investigate scrutinize govern and account for what is designed developed and produced we have to insert ethics when and where it matters and in a form that cannot be disregarded this is what we may call the ideal of designing for values values sensitive design or ethics by design and these concepts are referenced more and more in policy documents but often in an ad hoc manner for example in the context of data protection regulation regarding privacy by design and in the context of ai governance concerning algorithmic fairness by design this approach applies we suggest more widely and needs to be generalized and made part and parcel of our education production monitoring inspection standardization and governance of innovation and new technology a european approach along the lines of the eu's concept of open responsible research and innovation forms an excellent vantage point in this regard secondly our ethics needs to be ambitious ethics for the future of europe and beyond needs to be in ethics that is ambitious proactive daring and public an ethics that asks the hard painful and tedious questions such as uh such a way of doing ethics doesn't simply serve to make institutions and process a bit more ethical without addressing the larger political social and economic factors that give rise to these institutions and processes in the first place and ambitious public ethics as the ege envisages does not merely passively respond to new developments such as new fields of scientific research or new technologies but it participates in shaping the agenda it does not take refuge in technical fixes reduced moral ambitions or purely instrumental reasoning an ambitious public ethics should be aimed first and foremost at our collective problems and there is no shortage of challenges as we know here there is a stock list of formidable problems that humankind needs to urgently address whether we refer to these problems as the grand challenges the millennium goals or the unsdgs in this ethicists and ethics advisors have a responsibility to act in the service of the public rather than in the service of innovators or market parties in a narrow sense there is understandably a growing frustration with ethics when seen as defending politics or ethics washing as when ethics groups or company ethics boards are established to validate contested developments or as means to hedge against public criticism or as moral buffers ethicists have the obligation to ask uncomfortable questions also for those without a voice the ege concludes in her statement that the development of a charter of democracy of the european union could among other things provide guidance to the way ethics of innovation and new technologies along these lines needs to be institutionalized in europe we cannot hang it from a skyhook i quote from the egv statement it is now time to buttress the objective to maximize opportunities for public participation in policymaking in the eu and to engage in the development of a charter of democracy of the european union such a charter could no doubt also provide valuable guidance to the active exploration of how new digital technologies can be responsibly utilized to harness our collective wisdom and augment collective deliberation processes and thereby strengthen our democracies in a digital age thank you for your attention