Human-driven design of micro- and nanotechnology based future sensor systems
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-10-2013-0039 |
| Date | 11 May 2015 |
| Published date | 11 May 2015 |
| Pages | 110-129 |
| Author | Veikko Ikonen,Eija Kaasinen,Päivi Heikkilä,Marketta Niemelä |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance |
Human-driven design of micro-
and nanotechnology based future
sensor systems
Veikko Ikonen, Eija Kaasinen, Päivi Heikkilä and
Marketta Niemelä
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Tampere, Finland
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to present an overview of the various ethical, societal and critical issues
that micro- and nanotechnology-based small, energy self-sufcient sensor systems raise in different
selected application elds. An ethical approach on the development of these technologies was taken in
a very large international, multitechnological European project. The authors approach and
methodology are presented in the paper and, based on this review, the authors propose general
principles for this kind of work.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors’ approach is based on a great amount of experience
working together in multi-disciplinary teams. Ethical issues have usually been handled in the authors’
work to some degree. In this project, the authors had the opportunity to emphasise the human view in
technological development, utilise the authors’ experience from previous work and customise the
authors’ approach to this particular case. In short, the authors created a wide set of application scenarios
with technical and application eld experts in the authors’ research project. The scenarios were
evaluated with external application eld experts, potential consumer users and ethics experts.
Findings – Based on the authors’ experiences in this project and in previous work, the authors suggest
a preliminary model for construction activity within technology development projects. The authors call
this model the Human-Driven Design approach, and Ethics by Design as a more focussed sub-set of this
approach. As all enabling technologies have both positive and negative usage possibilities, and
so-called ethical assessment tends to focus on negative consequences, there are doubts from some
stakeholders about including ethical perspectives in a technology development project.
Research limitations/implications – The authors argue that the ethical perspective would be
more inuential if it were to provide a more positive and constructive contribution to the
development of technology. The main ndings related to the ethical challenges based on the actual
work done in this project were the following: the main user concerns were in relation to access to
information, digital division and the necessity of all the proposed measurements; the ethics experts
highlighted the main ethical issues as privacy, autonomy, user control, freedom, medicalisation
and human existence.
The work presented in this paper has employed numerous people and the work has been mainly
team work. So though there are only the four named authors of this text we owe huge thanks to all
the colleagues whom with we have been working in these projects. Furthermore, we would like to
present our gratefulness of the valuable participation in all the people who have been involved in
our projects as potential users of planned solutions. Naturally, we send big thanks also to people
who participated actively and pro bono in the Ethical Advisory Board work of the project. EU and
the Guardian Angels project partners funded this research, so last thanks belong to them to for
making this work possible. Last parts of these research has been done in Great – project which has
received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research,
technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 321480.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
JICES
13,2
110
Received 14 November 2013
Revised 19 June 2014
16 November 2014
26 November 2014
Accepted 26 November 2014
Journalof Information,
Communicationand Ethics in
Society
Vol.13 No. 2, 2015
pp.110-129
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-10-2013-0039
Practical implications – Various technology assessment models and ethical approaches for
technological development have been developed and performed for a long time, and recently, a new
approach called Responsible Research and Innovation has been introduced. The authors’ intention is to
give a concrete example for further development as a part of the development of this approach.
Social implications – The authors’ study in this particular case covers various consumer application
possibilities for small sensor systems. The application elds studied include health, well-being, safety,
sustainability and empathic user interfaces. The authors believe that the ethical challenges identied
are valuable to other researchers and practitioners who are studying and developing sensor-based
solutions in similar elds.
Originality/value – The authors’ study covers various consumer application possibilities of small
sensor systems. The studied application elds include health, well-being, safety, sustainability and
empathic user interfaces. The ndings are valuable to other researchers and practitioners who are
studying and developing sensor-based solutions to similar elds.
Keywords Ethics, Communication technologies, Sensors, Nanotechnology, Ambient intelligence,
Ethical assessment
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Micro- and nanotechnology will enable very small sensors that can monitor our
environment and us. This creates possibilities for many kinds of services. In this paper,
we analyse future usage possibilities and the related ethical issues concerning small
energy-efcient nanotechnology-based sensor systems. The study was carried out as a
part of a European research project called Guardian Angels (GA). The project was
aiming far into the future with the following vision: GA technology will enable very
small sensors and computing units to monitor, provide feedback and actively involve us
in understanding and acting on our own well-being and our environment. The GA units
will be self-sufcient in terms of energy and, thus, suitable for the long-term use without
maintenance. Several usage possibilities are foreseen in health, well-being, safety,
sustainability and empathic user interfaces. GA sensor systems can be classied into
three classes (Guardian Angels, 2012):
(1) Physical GA facilitate long-term monitoring of health parameters to predict and
prevent health problems, and to involve users/patients in actively taking
responsibility for their own health and well-being through sustained
interactions over longer time periods.
(2) Environmental GA monitor the natural environment, buildings and trafc, for
increased safety.
(3) GA technology will enable empathic user interfaces that involve users in
experiences where they express themselves and get feedback from the system,
which creates even stronger involvement. These systems will offer users
“emotional mirrors” that will allow them to reect and even act on their own
bodily signs and signals that indicate different emotional processes.
Ethical challenges of future technologies are multifaceted, and almost innite when
considering different possible contexts and stakeholders. They are also in many cases
quite hard to predict and vision concretely. The basic technology should be safe and
secure as such, applications should be safe and secure and human values such as
privacy, autonomy, trust should not be violated by the technology or the applications.
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Human-driven
design
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