Citation

Stahl BC. Futures 2013; 50: 35-43.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Institute for the Future, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.futures.2013.03.004

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper uses the fictional account of a personal avatar (PETRA) and its interactions with a normal family in the future to explore some of the ethical issues of emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs). It is based on a foresight research project which investigated the ethical issues of such emerging ICTs. The findings of this research suggest that there are numerous well established ethical issues that are currently being discussed and that will remain relevant. These include questions of privacy and intellectual property. In addition, however, there are numerous possible ethical issues that relate to human individual and collective identity that are likely to be affected by novel technical developments. These issues currently are not discussed in academic or policy discourses. In order to render them more tangible and thus promote academic and policy discourses, fictional accounts play an important role. The present paper should therefore be understood as an attempt to translate the research findings on the ethics of emerging ICTs to a broader audience. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Language: en

Keywords

suicide; Ethics; ethics; information and communication technology; Affective computing; Ambient intelligence; Avatar; ETICA project; Foresight; Information and communication technology; intellectual property rights; policy analysis