Introduction

Ethical concerns about new technologies may be divided into two broad categories: concerns about newly introduced technologies, and concerns about technologies that might be introduced in the future. It is sometimes thought that we should focus exclusively on actual technologies and that concerns about possible future technologies are ‘just science fiction’ – mere speculations about what might be the case, which distract us from a proper consideration of what is the case. A contrary point of view is that we should attempt to anticipate ethical problems in advance of the implementation of new technologies. Instead of adapting norms and practices to accommodate new technologies after these have become available, we should try to produce new technologies that are in keeping with the values and practices we currently adhere to. In order to anticipate the ethical problems that new technologies will raise, we need to try to anticipate which of the possible future technologies that raise ethical concerns are likely to become actual, and try to respond to these.

In this chapter, we will consider prominent ethical concerns that have been raised about newly introduced technologies and about technologies that might be implemented in the future. In the case of newly introduced technologies, we will focus on concerns about privacy, individual autonomy and threats to safety. These are far from the only ethical concerns raised by newly introduced technologies, but they do appear to be the ones that have provoked the most discussion in the media and in academic circles.