Stakeholder-informed ethics for new technologies with high socio-economic and human rights impact

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - SIENNA (Stakeholder-informed ethics for new technologies with high socio-economic and human rights impact)

Periodo di rendicontazione: 2019-10-01 al 2021-03-31

The SIENNA project was an European Commission-funded project in the Horizon 2020 programme with a budget of € 4.0 million and a running time of three and a half years (1 October 2017 – 1 April 2021). It involved a consortium of thirteen organizations from the European Union and other parts of the world including North America, South America, Africa and Asia. It aimed to develop, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, ethical, legal and human-rights analysis of three technology areas with significant anticipated socioeconomic impact, in order to ensure enhanced consideration of ethical and human rights issues for these technologies:

• human genomics
• human enhancement
• artificial intelligence & robotics

The precise objectives of the SIENNA project were the following:

Objective 1: To develop ethical frameworks based on social, ethical and legal analyses that address major present and future ethical issues in (a) human genomics, (b) human enhancement and (c) AI & robotics. These frameworks will take into account existing legal and ethical frameworks as well as stakeholder and public opinion, including the public’s acceptance and awareness of these technologies.

Objective 2: To translate and adapt these ethical frameworks, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, so as to produce four practical tools and resources for each technology: (a) operational guidelines for research ethics committees for these technologies, (b) codes of responsible conduct and other ethics tools for researchers who develop these technologies, (c) proposals for revisions of existing ethical frameworks, and (d) proposals for revisions of existing legal frameworks, all of which should have acceptance and approval of relevant stakeholders.

Objective 3: To generalize the approaches for developing, translating and adapting ethical frameworks that were established in (1) and (2) so that they can be applied to other new and emerging technologies, and to obtain acceptance from relevant stakeholders for these generalised approaches.

This project is important to society because it considers the ethical and human rights aspects of three major emerging technology areas that will have important socio-economic impact in the European Union and the rest of the world. It is one of very few projects with this focus and the ability to influence EU policy and practices regarding these three technologies. It aims to foster implementation of high ethics standards at EU and international level through general ethical guidelines for society, codes of responsible conduct for researchers who develop these three technologies and end users who use them, and suggests improvements to existing ethical and legal frameworks. The project also provides new approaches for developing, translating and adapting ethical frameworks for new and emerging technologies, and such approaches now hardly exist and are needed. The project is unique in its breadth, international scope, policy implications, use of innovative new methodologies for analysis and the formulation of new tools.

During the project (October 2017 - March 2021), all planned tasks were successfully completed. All objectives were met, the deliverables were completed, and milestones were met. We carried out extensive ethical, legal and human rights assessments of AI & robotics, human enhancement and human genomics, developed elaborate proposals and tools for better ethical and legal guidance for these technologies, and developed generalized methods for ethical and legal assessment and guidance of emerging technologies.

The project engaged in extensive exploitation and dissemination. Results were communicated through the project website, a newsletter, policy briefs, social media, academic publications and talks, public talks, webinars and workshops and conferences. We reached an estimated 5+ million people with the project, covering all stakeholder groups. We also engaged in extensive exploitation efforts aimed at supporting key stakeholders to support and utilize our proposals and methods. We have received much approval and endorsements for our results from key stakeholders, and in our assessment we are attaining good uptake. One key uptake is that our proposals for research ethics and ethics by design for the fields of artificial intelligence and human enhancement are being adopted by the European Commission in the new Horizon Europe ethics review procedure.

The SIENNA project has produced many unique reports. It is possibly be the first project to:

- Provide an extensive overview of existing ethics codes and research ethics protocols for human genomics, human enhancement and AI & Robotics in EU member states as well as internationally.
- Provide a comparative legal analysis of legislation for the three fields in EU member states and internationally, especially in relation to human rights issues.
- Perform foresight analyses covering human genomics, human enhancement and AI & Robotics and utilize these foresight analysis for the identification of potential future ethical issues in these fields
- Perform comprehensive ethical analyses of the three fields, covering both fundamental ethical issues and ethical issues in relation to specific products and application domains, and covering both present and potential future developments
- Conduct quantitative surveys in 11 countries, including in EU member states (7 countries), and one country each from North America, South America, Africa and Asia. the USA, to obtain public’s awareness and views of the three technology areas.
- Conduct expanded focus groups (“panels of citizens”) in five EU member states to obtain qualitative data to further understand the views of the general publics on these three fields of technologies
- Develop ethical frameworks, guidelines and research ethics protocols for the three fields that include input from a wide range of stakeholders as well as consultations of the public
- Develop generalized methods for legal analysis, ethical analysis, and the development of ethical frameworks and guidelines and research ethics protocols for emerging technologies

The project has an envisioned impact in four areas. First, to foster implementation of ethics standards at EU and international level for the three technology areas (genomics, human enhancement, and AI & Robotics) through operational guidelines for research ethics committees, codes of responsible conduct and other ethics tools for developers, and improved versions of existing ethical and legal frameworks. We have managed to develop such instruments together with stakeholders, and some key stakeholders have been adopting them. A second proposed impact pertained to new approaches for developing, translating and adapting ethical frameworks for new and emerging technologies and promoting responsible conduct of research and innovation. We have developed and disseminated such approaches, and they are currently having impact. For instance, our approaches are being used in new EU and national research projects. Third, we aimed to attain impact through extensive stakeholder engagement through workshops, interviews, advisory board roles and webinars. We have indeed engaged with hundreds upon hundreds of stakeholders through these means. And finally, we have attained impact through our elaborate communication and dissemination activities, having reached, by our estimate, over 5 million people.

SIENNA logo and illustration

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - SIENNA (Stakeholder-informed ethics for new technologies with high socio-economic and human rights impact)

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