Description of the project

What makes digital transition in accord with human values and satisfaction of the human needs? Why do we think that the use of algorithms, AI, Big Data, and robotics is more than just a technical and engineering matter? When answering these questions, notions of humanity, human-centeredness, digital humanism and the like play a crucial role: the label ‘human’ (1) tags the debate around the fourth revolution (2) marks a techno-social system as a system which is likely to be accepted as trustworthy and (3) grounds computer science and engineering in societal values. Conversely, any challenge to this image of human-centered technology undermines public acceptability of science and technology. Sometimes these challenges consist in a low quality of the information or of the performance, but sometimes, they are of a foundational ethical nature. For instance, a growing number of flaws have been uncovered in algorithmic decision-making and fear of job loss accompanies the rise of automation in the work place.

Our project addresses precisely those ethical challenges and develops ways of making digital transition more aligned with human values and the satisfaction of human needs. Our key move is to set a digital agenda. It will go beyond the traditional divide between science and technology on the one hand, and the intellectual life of the whole of western society (lifeworld), on the other. In addition, it will calibrate the most recent philosophical accounts of digital humanism (e.g., convergence of human values and ethics by design solutions) with emergent technologies. The combination of normative and descriptive analysis is likely to break new ground in the ethical debate around the need to shape digital technologies from a human-centric perspective and beyond. In particular, we will argue that properly constructed algorithms and robots can be reconciled with the aim of advancing technology for humanity.

The benefits of the research are manifold. First and foremost, it will greatly enhance our understanding of the scope and limits of ideas like ‘humanity’, ‘human centeredness’, ‘what it means to be human’, and ‘digital humanism’ when looking for guidance in the development of emerging technologies. Second, it will improve the practice of artificial disciplines such as computer science and engineering. This will be highly useful for technological innovation and industrial applications. Third, we will perform this exploration with the focus on the epistemic and ethical impact of the peer-production of knowledge (citizen science; participation and technology development). Fourth, the application of our ethical insights will reinforce the international level of Italian research and production in the European context, which is indeed characterised by human values considered to be sine qua non requirements.