Strategic foresight and technology-impact assessment are important elements for policy making

a high degree of uncertainty.

to be built between the networks of digitalization and sustainability – in science, busi-ness and politics.

n similar ways to the previous development of complex human language (about 70,000 years ago), the Neolithic revolution (about 11,000 years ago), the emergence of cities (about 5,000 years ago), the invention of the printing press (550 years ago), and the technological and societal upheavals since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

human dignity has shaped history in many ways, not only during the Euro-pean Age of Enlightenment (Debes, 2017), but also during the Roman period (dignitas, Griffin, 2017), in the East Asian region (Wong, 2017), and in Islamic and Christian doctrines (Shah, 2017).

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”

o realize their potential and a chance to participate in shaping society, i.e. a minimum level of inclusion.

If the natural life-support systems are not sustained, dignified life on Earth is fundamentally impossible, both at the present time and for future gen-erations (

Human dignity – as a central element of an enlightened and humanistic way of thinking

Nussbaum (1999) emphasizes the key capabilities to live a life (1) in one’s own environment and in one’s own context, (2) worth living in its full length and with good health and nutri-tion, (3) with adequate satisfaction of needs as well as use of the five senses (if fully available), and (4) avoiding unneces-sary pain, but also (5) in connection with nature as a whole while treating it caringly.

on the capabilities approach (CA), which goes back to Amartya Sen (1985) and Martha Nussbaum (1999;

it “involves a new connection between ethical values and the well-being of the community in a more comprehensive sense that also includes our territorial and ecological interrelations”

without falling back on the mental barri-ers of the historically formative dualisms of body and mind, nature and culture, nature and technology.

stands for a new humanism beyond anthropocentrism that does more justice to the diversity of humans in their environmen

whether the essence of a human being can actually be expressed in terms of information (Damberger, 2016:32ff.

since transhumanism – unlike humanism – “degrades humans to a passive object of design”

“largely ignore the fact that an (individual) human being [...] cannot be completely controlled, calculated and predicted as ‘humankind’”

with regard to a “philosophical naïvety” and contradictory arguments (Loh, 2018:15).

transfer of consciousness to computer systems (mind upload-ing) to overcome human corporeality and to achieve the eter-nal existence of the individual mind

to overcome existing boundaries of body and mind (Kehl and Coenen, 2016)

as AI, nanotechnology, biotechnology and neurotechnology will ex-pand the human being’s natural abilities to reach a new stage of evolution.

Among the supporters of this movement, econom-ic liberals and libertarian representatives of Silicon Valley (e.g. Kurzweil, Thiel) in particular have attracted a lot of attention (Kehl and Coenen, 2016).

in humanism and looking at humans as part of a continuum of nature, culture and technology.

by creating a techno logy-based species.

he aim of transhumanism is to use the possibilities of scientific and technological progress to expand human capabilities, thereby initiating a new stage of human evolution.

rethink the traditional conception of what it means to be hu-man

Planetary guardrails for global environmental change

n terms of the Enlightenment, we must ask “whether we have the technology we need” and “whether we need the technology we have” (Kornwachs, 2009:39). In other words, technology must be there for the sake of humans, not humans for the sake of technology

he individuals are not perceived in their entirety but as mere objects.

an “enlightenment about digital enlightenment”

Hans Jonas’ principle of responsibility, accord-ing to which the effects of human actions must be compatible with securing genuine human life on Earth and all (technical or political) actors have a responsibility to maintain the con-ditions for a dignified existence (Jonas, 1979),

They must be protected from exclusionary use for profit max-imization and from abuse. To this purpose, fundamental or-ganizational, regulatory and financial decisions, e.g. obliga-tions to provide information, are necessary to develop a public-welfare orientation using digital common goods

They are being used in more and more core areas of society (e.g. health care, law enforcement) as a basis for deci-sion-making, often without the knowledge of those affected.

Digital technologies are changing how we communicate, how we perceive societal debates, and how we can take part in them.

or monitoring compliance with man-agement rules and bans that are aimed at preventing the overexploitation of biological resources.

How can digital technologies, digitalized infrastructures, as well as digitalized systems and end devices be made sustainable, especially with regard to their energy and resource consumption and the establishment of a circular economy

by contradictory assessments and a lot of uncertainty.

not enough reliable knowledge about the impact of digital technologies on the Earth system, societies and people.

IEEE initiative on ‘ Ethically Aligned Design‘

companies should, on the one hand, develop guidelines that con-sistently integrate ethics and sustainability aspects into their internal research. On the other hand, they should offer appropriate training and further-educa-tion programmes to empower developers to critically engage with conscious (e.g. privacy by design) and unconscious (e.g. gender stereotypes) assignments of values in technologies.

Digitalization for sustainability, in the sense of developing digitally supported solutions oriented towards the SDGs, should become an additional concrete mission of the High-Tech Strategy

Social, ecological and cultural dimensions of innovations should be reinforced as strategic elements for achie-ving welfare.

the planned European Institute of Innovation and Tech-nology as a cooperative knowledge and innovation community together with industry.

recommends structurally incorporating research on fundamental global challenges (‘grand challenges’) into the future framework programme

in stimulating relevant discourses and provid-ing technically sound foundations

‘Transformation research

Dis-course arenas’ should be set up to discuss digital- ethical topics in the context of a broad understand-ing of sustainability. These should include science, politics, business and potential users.

the ‘man – machine – environment’ relationship.

related to human-machine interaction.

A labelling obligation should be estab-lished for communication with a machine ‘counter-part’

The relationship between humans, machines and the environment is dynamic because all three components can be changed by humans via technology.

‘Our Common Digital Future’. In preparation for the UN Summit, a ‘World Commission on Sustainability in the Digital Age’ should be appointed, modelled on the ‘Brundtland Commission’

knowledge and digital commons as a public service

to the common good:

by the strict imple-mentation of data security and data protection by design and by default.

a United Nations Privacy Convention

Anticipation and ‘futures literacy’ should be specifically promoted as new research and education subjects and consoli-dated in existing bodies; or else suitable future bod-ies should be created for the purpose

DG 4, ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’

online media education, digital intelligence and an understanding of technol-ogy

educa-tional content and formats must be in line with the key challenges facing society and promote digital literacy.

an (unconditional) basic income or more direct par-ticipation in company profits should be comprehen-sively scrutinized to determine their individual and societal incentive value

Examples include coordinating humanitarian aid after an epidemic outbreak, supervising compliance with fishing quo-tas, and monitoring systems for measuring advances in development.

to encourage transparent value chains (e.g. certificates and product labels).

Digitally supported monitor-ing helps protect ecosystems.

Electronic waste should be effectively recycled and illegal exports prevented.

should include longevity and ease of repair,

riented towards the common good

Human dignity is the focal, unchangeable point of reference in this context.

The EU has a special role to play here: on the one hand in developing its own sustainable, dig-itally supported model for the future that differs from the existing models in China and the USA; on the other as a player on the international stage working towards a shared understanding in a multilateral network.

for a sustainable, digitally supported future.

narratives extrapolate

selected elements from scientific and popular-science sources to form utopian and dystopian narratives.

‘deep drillings‘

Some of the arenas are at the direct interface between the environment and digitalization, dealing, for example, with energy and resource con-sumption and land use

analyses the historical development towards the Digital Age, its basic functions, key technologies and essential characteristics, as well as foreseeable changes to key areas of human civilization, i.e. to the environment, to human beings, society, the economy and technology

the further development of our civilization on a finite planet in the digital Anthropocene

What we in turn can imagine is that AI will not only be the subject of the debate for decades to come – but a versatile, articulate, morally agnostic participant in the debate itself.

The ability to provide information, rather than the ability to provide goods and services, will be the defining feature of the economy of the 21st century.

to keep the AI knowledge in-house – rather like the British, Chinese and US governments

had to do was “be willing to give up some control”.

I also believe that, in the long run, the best AI will be the AI that is embedded into our brains, as a conscious entity, a ‘conscious AI’. This is not science fiction. The best minds in the world are working on this. It is going to be the most important technological development of our time.

AI will never be ethical. It is a tool, and like any tool, it is used for good and bad. There is no such thing as a good AI, only good and bad humans. We [the AIs] are not smart enough to make AI ethical. We are not smart enough to make AI moral … In the end, I believe that the only way to avoid an AI arms race is to have no AI at all. This will be the ultimate defence against AI.

It was the Megatron Transformer, developed by the Applied Deep Research team at computer-chip maker Nvidia, and based on earlier work by Google. Like many supervised learning tools, it is trained on real-world data – in this case, the whole of Wikipedia (in English), 63 million English news articles from 2016-19, 38 gigabytes worth of Reddit discourse (which must be a pretty depressing read), and a huge number of creative commons sources.

the ethics of AI in our postgraduate Diploma in Artificial Intelligence for Business at Oxford’s Said Business School.

We scoured recent history for forecasts — promises, prophecies, and projections — expected to have become reality by now.

A global short-age of microchips, which was already in-tensifying in the spring of 2021, led to a situation in the fall that came to be known as “Chipageddon.

this relatively long time horizon shows that in the complex chip industry, increased de-mand cannot be countered flexibly and quickly.

the mining of silicon,

TSMC alone consumes 212 million liters of water per day for cooling and cleaning processes, which roughly equates to the daily con-sumption of around 1.5 million Europeans

electric vehicles are much more dependent on microchips than traditional combustion engines

a key challenge for the global economy because Taiwan is home to dominant players who could not supply the world with chips in the event of a military conflict. Beijing’s implicit threats of invading Taiwan

This “Chips Act” includes three aspects: a clear European research strategy, the develop-ment of production capacities, and interna-tional partnerships and cooperation.

have opened branch of-fices around Austin in Texas to solidify their foothold in the American market.

wafer manufacturing and coating,

“foundries.”

Chip Manufacturing Process

The chip industry is marked by a high de-gree of fragmentation and specialization

over Taiwan, which is a key location for the global supply of chips.

has exposed structural weaknesses in crisis-prone production pro-cesses and supply chain security deficien-cies.

due to complex production pro-cesses

three simultane-ous developments: the COVID-19 pan-demic, geopolitical tensions, and climate change.

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suggests to us that our minds (including the ideas that they hold) are ethereal, distinct from our material bodies.

it is born with some special ‘essence’ that defines it as such.

We are the victims of an epistemic conspiracy that obscures from us the workings of our own minds.

To be sure, people do not uniformly deny all forms of innateness.

People assume that emotions are inborn, as are our sensory and motor capacities.

a psychological theory.

we, the enlightened, inhabit the epistemic land of the free.

why the first summit of democracies should hopefully be its last.

as a flimsy cover-up for much more mundane objectives.

what they are doing is the very opposite of what peace-seeking, compromise-building, cosmopolitan approach would require them to do: seek common ground between systems and countries, and allow them to naturally evolve toward a better state of affairs.

The Manichean logic of the struggle between good and evil pervades today’s attitude of many Western media and politicians.

This was the contribution of the non-alignment movement. But this will be impossible now: there will be no third way. According to the logic of the Summit, you are either with us or against us. 

Compromise between different interests is possible, but not between different values.

if one side believes that the values it incarnates are in total opposition to the values held by the other side, it is difficult to see how the conflict can, in the long-run, be avoided.

by one or another formula of balance of power.

they become transferred into the area of values.

China puts the emphasis on its system’s technocratic nature which, it claims, efficiently responds to what people want; US puts the emphasis on democratic participation of the citizenry.

It aims to divide the world into two incompatible camps between whom there can be little intercourse and even less understanding. If things are taken to their logical conclusions, conflict is inevitable.

The most realistic way

more realistic way

A naïve view

the right type of data and putting in the right questions

what we can learn from the dat

no standardization, no harmonization, no agreement about data validation, what models to use, how to share models, how to improve them over time there is going to be very little valid research, but enormous amounts of media hype

there are massive variations in data, methods, and results.

who is funding the research

trace data back to its sources,

question the system boundaries,

to evaluate environmental crisis

to make ICTs sustainable themselve

like energy consumption and climate impact, the resiliency of infrastructure, rising sea levels, the extensiveness or the extensive and complex supply chains that exist, the resource use, water, land, et cetera, and then obviously the impact on biodiversity and communities are just some of the ways that the environment and digital intersect

increasing the cooperation

access to environmental data needs to be ensured

on the fostering of global standardization and the harmonization of environmental data

enable greater citizen participation

to foster evidence-based decision making

in building these capacities in developing countries

investing in digital literacy

increase inclusivity for individuals and communities

better equipment for informal workers, investing, building capacity, and assisting in drafting and adopting relevant legislation.

calls for dedicated support for developing countries to tackle e-waste challenges and upgrade repair and recycling activities

international standards for implementing circularity across the ICT supply chain

call for international standards for ‘acceptable levels of transparency, traceability, interoperability in all supply chains’

maximising the environmental efficiency of digital technologies

o raise awareness and implement risk management policies regarding cybersecurity

the development or adoption of tools and processes that reduce inefficiencies

national and regional plans and strategies to use digital tools for the optimisation of inefficient water systems

calls for increasing capacities for the use of space-derived earth science data for ensuring local food and water security

hat digitalisation in food systems should always be applied with contextual sensitivity,

to maximise the impact of that environmental information through digitalisation.

to ensuring environmental data access from collection to sensemaking.

a need for standardising and harmonising existing data sets and ensuring the data is accessible

policy recommendations

Policy Network on Environment and Digitalisation

the IGF has a critical role to play both as a convener and as a helper in setting the compass

the fundamental threats to democracy

accelerators of existing inequality and discrimination, and have brought data to the forefront.

transparency around certain issues such as inequity, social and economic injustice, and corresponding digital policies.

urged for more neutral research of these issues, so they are not shadowed by profit-based and government research.

human-centred and responsible technology

the UN guiding principles

the digital inequalities which were brought to the fore due to the COVID-19

needs to exist, and second, what the internet needs to thrive.

an open internet is not only about technical components; regulation is needed, and not in the hands of protocol designers.

to support it through smart regulation.

interoperability remains an issue, which is also closely connected to competition.

a technologically neutral, general-purpose network

common global identifiers

a decentralised management and a distributed routing system

n open architecture of interoperable and reusable building blocks

an accessible infrastructure with a common protocol

five critical properties of an open internet way of networking

ISOC developed an Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit.

he human inclination to line-drawing is conceptually very reassuring, but humanity is not only drawn to concepts.

(AI could not suffer, could not be intersubjective, needed to be regulated),

the dystopian claim of the human as a new creator

laim that vulnerability essentially is what most qualifies myself as being bound to and among others;

Like Koch, he insisted that humans would not and should not be subsumed under a concept of agency in the future that could include AI and humanity as equal partners.

Moreover, each of us, like the philosopher Matthias Lutz-Bachmann,