TERM I
Design Ethics
The class introduced us to the philosophy of technology and the central theme of our relationship with technology. Many questions were explored and answered like: Are we determined by technology? If that is the case, how? And to what extent? Do we determine technology or should the issue be explored in a radically different way?
This following answers helped me in reflecting on what it can mean to be a professional designer and on the ethical entailments of a digital project.
What is the project about?
With a distributed and applied-design approach, Ruben and I started exploring ways to grow and consume Lemna minor (Duckweed or Water lentils). It is an aquatic freshwater plant with promising traces of proteins and properties of bioremediation. Our initiative, Lemna is an open-source Discord channel that touches upon a series of urgent contemporary scenarios like the future-food alternatives, rural futures and shared-learning. Since its brief kick-off, it’s already resulted in a series of approaches comprising development of a Growth incubator, a hybrid medium monitoring device and a series of consumable products. The project is currently on-going while exploring various transitions towards biologically-revitalised futures.
What are the relevant values for your project for you as a designer?
Shared-knowledge, Authenticity, Transparency and Accountability
And for the project sponsor?
Consciousness, Responsibility and Integrity
And for the community?
Self-Reliance, Curiosity and Open-ness
What conflicts between values might arise?
Dependability v/s Alternatives
Convenience v/s Sustainability
Security v/s Curiosity
Commonality v/s Self-reliance
Spontaneity v/s Rationality
These are the questions that could arise when one looks at these conflicts through these lenses:
1. Rights lens: autonomy, dignity, duties, etc.
What happens with the data gathered from the monitoring tools?Who owns the right to own or share this data?
2. Justice lens: equality, diversity, fairness, etc.
Who has access to these tools or ways to fabricate them?
3. Utilitarian lens: harms and benefits, consequences, balance for different stakeholders. Also future generations!
What if the tool is used to monitor, control or gather non-consensual and unethical data?
4. Common good lens: communities, institutions, individual vs. the common.
Would these tools promote self-reliance and promote healthier lifestyles?
5. Virtue lens: character, habits, will we be proud of this?
Is a healthier lifestyle going to contribute to a better economy and society, and to what extent?
6. Global ethics: is our perspective Eurocentric or 'colonialistic'?
Does collecting data from plants and nature satisfy the human idea of control and security?
20 questions from the Ethics Professor
Jump 10 years into the future. How has your solution aged?
The community and network has widened and has developed more tools around the similar approach of shared-knowledge.
What is the worst that can happen with your solution?
Someone uses it to monitor, control or gather non-consensual and unethical data.
What arguments would a strong opponent of your solution bring forward?
Quality Analysis, Spontaneous alternatives, Market-ready products.
Does the solution represent the person you are? Why/why not?
Yes, the outcomes of consciousness, self-reliance and transparency towards self, reflect very well within the tools developed within Lemna.
Does your solution represent the future you want to strive towards? Why/why not?
Yes, a future where citizens are more active and politically conscious, towards tools and policies that better their quality of life.
Imagine your solution is analog and not digital.How would the experience be?
Parts of solutions at Lemna are already analog. Focusing on future-food alternatives, we developed a series of consumable products that only need a spoon to be savoured.
Is there anything in your solution that makes you uncomfortable? What? Why?
Communications through and between multiple protocols/components can get messy and take a while to fully understand. Individual digital components have to be rewired and reconfigured in a bottoms-up approach to be debugged.
Have you thought about the costs if it were to go wrong? What could they be?
Data infringement, Intellectual property violations, Illegal surveillance etc.
What small changes could ethically improve your solution?
Funding or sponsorship in some ways could improve the system by helping to devise a platform from scratch instead of using other data-hosting websites. The approach could give users more reliance and freedom over the data gathered and analysed.
Could your solution be a part of an episode in Black Mirror? Try to imagine the plot
The data that is gathered and monitored on the platform could just help the plants/nature into developing some digital consciousness and ways of communication of their own. While the ‘users’ are distracted with life under the autonomy of the device, nature in turn starts monitoring data from humans during times of installation and data maintenance. Over a long and slow period of time, this data gets stored and communicated through embedded mycelium networks across the planet, only to manipulate and eradicate the human race entirely.
Imagine that you yourself were the user of your solution or are affected by it in one way or another. Would it be a good or bad experience?
Subjective. When it comes to maintenance and debugging it could get quite overwhelming. Tasting the fruition of clean-food and results of self reliance have a joy of their own.
Have you personally met the people who are affected by your solution? Why not? Would it have made a difference in the development phase?
The Lemna network is still quite limited. We have met some of the people involved in the channel while interacting with the people who have worked and researched around similar solutions.
Would it be okay if the principles in your solution were made into general applicable principles? What could go wrong?
In my opinion it’d be good for the betterment of species but at the same point it's quite debatable. It is infact a devil v/s angel’s debate because to be able to appreciate a certain valuable thing you need to have the contrary of the same in the society.
Do you strengthen or challenge the status quo with your solution? Is that good or bad?
Lemna challenges the current status quo of the society in many good and bad ways. It helps in filtering food that ends up on our plate through variables that control the ‘bought’ food like quality control, policies and government-devised regulations.
Who has the most and least power in your solution?
The user has the most control and power while the companies involved in manufacturing of the electrical components and sensors have the least.
Does your solution create increased inequality?Why/why not?
The solution in fact creates more equality as it gets more widespread and global.
Does your solution make people do things they otherwise wouldn't have done? Is that a problem?
The ideologies around open-data, sustainability and regenerative diets have become prominent and wide spoken recently. As the climate crisis is peaking, more and more people are becoming part of the conversation around environmentally low-impact and individually high-impact solutions. It's not a problem but a shift instead.
