Abstract
Almost every new technology developed for the benefit of society has a potential “dark side”, manifested, for example, by security or privacy threats. This chapter presents some findings of two European projects, which by employing foresight methods tried to shed light on these dark sides: one project assessed the threats of potential abuse (by criminals or terrorists) posed by selected emerging technologies, while the second focused on the impacts of emerging technologies on privacy. In both projects special attention was paid to new, even surprising possibilities opened by the convergence of technologies. Both projects also dealt with related policy issues. The foresight processes, which helped to explore evolving security or privacy aspects of new technologies, reflect a need for continuous analysis of the unfolding technology landscape for potential, sometimes surprising implications.
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- 1.
FESTOS: Foresight of Evolving Security Threats pOsed by emerging technologieS. The project partners were Interdisciplinary Center for Technology Analysis and Forecasting (ICTAF), Tel Aviv University (Israel), Technical University of Berlin (TUB) (Germany), Finland Futures Research Centre, University of Turku, Foundation for European Scientific Cooperation (FEWN) (Poland), and EFP Consulting (UK).
- 2.
“Sufficiently mature” means that the technology was at least demonstrated and validated outside the laboratory, through testing of prototypes. (This is similar to TRL-5 or higher, on the “technology readiness scale” used in many technology assessments).
- 3.
“Easy” means that the technology is easily available/affordable/adaptable or “disruptable”. “Malicious” refers to terrorism and crime.
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The Scenarios Workshop was moderated by the Futurist and Science Fiction writer Dr. Karlheinz Steinmüller, who also subsequently wrote the narrative scenarios based on the workshop.
- 5.
Warren and Brandeis, “The Right to Privacy”, Harvard Law Review, December 15, 1890 http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/privacy/Privacy_brand_warr2.html
- 6.
Paraphrasing Richard Feynman’s famous visionary lecture “Plenty of Room at the Bottom” from 1959.
- 7.
PRACTIS: PRivacy-Appraising Challenges to Technologies and EthIcS. The project partners were the Interdisciplinary Center for Technology Analysis and Forecasting (ICTAF); Tel Aviv University (Israel); University of Lodz (Poland); Research Centre in Informatics and Law of the University Faculties of Notre-Dame de la Paix (FUNDP) (Belgium); Interdisciplinary Centre for Comparative Research in the Social Sciences (ICCR) (Austria); Nexus, Berlin (Germany); and Finland Futures Research Centre, University of Turku.
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Hauptman, A. (2019). Illuminating the “Dark Side” of Emerging Technologies. In: Meissner, D., Gokhberg, L., Saritas, O. (eds) Emerging Technologies for Economic Development. Science, Technology and Innovation Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04370-4_12
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