The Growing Gap Between Emerging Technologies and Legal-Ethical Oversight

Abstract

A critical question in the ethics of technology is whether new emerging technologies raise novel ethical issues, thus requiring new ethical approaches, or simply represent different contexts for application of familiar ethical themes. Two examples of technologies that can help to address this question are humanoid robots and pervasive computing. Examination of these two examples suggest that emerging technologies may raise unique ethical problems that set them apart from earlier technological developments, due to factors such as convergence, embeddedness, malleability, and human transcendence. In responding to this evolving challenge, ethicists must give greater weight to macroethical perspectives and approaches, rather than the more traditional focus on microethics. Several innovative new concepts have been suggested and are being developed to address this challenge.