What is a technology assessment? What question or questions does a technology assessment seek to answer?
The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) predicted in 1989 that “within the next decade . . . a ‘digital library’ containing
reference material, books, journals, pictures, sound recordings, films, software, and other types of information in electronic form”
would become available. How were they able to make that prediction before these innovations were actually made? Does the
accuracy of this prediction support technological determinism (see Chapter 3)?
Discuss some of the problems with using technology assessments for making moral evaluations of new technologies.
How should we understand the suggestion that it is fruitful to think of new technologies as social experiments?
Discuss what role the principle of informed consent should, or should not, play if we are to think of new technologies are social
experiments.
Can questions about the ethical acceptability of social experiments replace questions about the ethical acceptability of new
technologies? If not, are questions about the ethical acceptability of social experiments important for some other reason?
Propose at least one other method for evaluating the ethical acceptability of a new technology before it is introduced in society
