Roundtable: The Ethics of Humanitarian Technology: Looking Back & Taking Stock

Chair: Kristoffer Liden

Participants: Katja Lindskov Jacobsen, Larissa Fast, Ning Wang, Kristin Bergtora Sandvik and Nathaniel Raymond, TBD

Increasingly, in fields of global governance grappling with the regulation of emergent technologies  (cyberspace, AI, robots) there is talk of an ethics fatigue,  and of ethics washing. Tech ethics is criticized for being an escape from binding regulation;  as  lacking in sanctions, unable to deal with violations, misframed and oblivious to military and corporate power structures; and as produced through un-representative and insufficiently inclusive and participatory processes with little attention to the quality and coherence of ethical principles and their articulation. What does this mean for a field of practice which has in recent years embraced ethics as a way to deal with the consequences of humanitarian technology, the rise of the innovation paradigm and more recently the wholesale digital transformation of the sector?  The roundtable reflects on what ethics has managed to deliver – and has the capacity to deliver in the future.