Towards a Societal Tech Impact Assessment
Technology impact assessments are not new, quite the contrary. However, they usually focus on the impact of new technologies on an individual rights basis. But new technologies, digital business models and regulatory apporaches also have a massive impact on society as a whole, for example on accessibility of information, distribution of wealth and equality of opportunity.
In the face of ever faster development cycles for new technologies, policymakers and civil society are increasingly falling behind and taking a reactive role instead of being proactive. The impact of their work happen when the damage has already been done - and when the tech industry has long been working on new developments. What is missing is a systemic, foresighted look at the impact of new technologies and their regulatory approaches: a societal technology assessment that we can conduct before new technologies are rolled out on a broad scale.
With an ideas grant from the Robert Bosch Stiftung, we examine how a societal technology assessment can be designed, what formats and methods it might uses, and how it can influence sociopolitical debates.
With this project, we take the 12 Feminist Tech Principles and test how we can translate them into a deployable framework.