Professor Joroen van den Hoven has thoroughly worked on the doubts that we all have in the face of the rise of artificial intelligence and other technologies that seem to escape human control, and if one thing he has learned from his years of study is that "We cannot face today's problems with the ethics we have developed over thousands of years."
Van den Hoven explains, in this new episode of the ReImagine Talks video podcast, that we continue to use the ethical framework that we established "around the bonfire, when we were all very close." In his opinion, the values of that time need an update. "We have to scale our ethics to deal with completely different problems" than then, he says.
Van den Hoven is a professor of ethics and technology at the University of Delft, the Netherlands, where he also directs the Center for Digital Ethics. The European Commission has elected him as a permanent member of the European Group for Ethics in Science and New Technologies. Thanks to his work, the EU is a pioneer in guaranteeing the privacy of internet users.
Van den Hoven believes that public administrations must better control the digital products and services offered on the market. "We cannot assume," he says, "that each person will be able to take responsibility for the acts he or she performs with innovative technology." Therefore, “we should not throw things into society that we have not carefully thought about and cannot defend in terms of intrinsic values.”
Artificial intelligence, for example, presents us with dilemmas that we did not have before, such as the possibility of impersonating a personality. Without reinforced ethics, Van den Hoven fears that the use of this technology will cause more problems than benefits. That is why he advocates for "ethics and morals to have a preeminent place in the training of engineers and administration and business professionals."
La Vanguardia exclusively publishes the video podcasts produced by the ReImagine Europa think tank, and this think tank dedicated to ethics bravely faces the numerous moral shortcomings we have to make good use of the latest technical advances, especially in the digital sphere.
Just because a product is new and innovative - says Van den Hoven - does not mean that it is good for us, that is, that it prioritizes long-term collective progress instead of short-term private benefit.
The professor, despite everything, is optimistic and is convinced that with a new ethical framework, new technologies will strengthen our societies and our democracies.
