3TH1CS - A reinvention of ethics in the digital age?

   3TH1CS -

   A reinvention of ethics in the digital age?

EDITED BY PHILIPP OTTO AND EIKE GRÄF

Should we ban war robots or are they something we might want?

What can computer games tell us about our morals?

Is it OK to love a robot?

What is ethical design in the digital world?

How do we need to regulate the algorithms that impact our lives?

The digital transition puts our ideas about morality to the test, presenting us with new questions in all areas of life: politics, economy, social life, communication, entertainment. In twenty contributions, experts from Europe, America and Asia rise to the challenge of finding answers to some of the new issues confronting us.

The authors offer new perspectives on topics like robots for eldercare, autonomous vehicles, personal drones or data ethics. They present their ideas on how we, as a society, can deal with the digital challenges to our ethics and values. Their contributions provide insights into highly topical reflections on what is morally right in our digital era. Above all, they are an invitation to think and to join the discussion.

3TH1CS -

A reinvention of ethics in the digital age?

Edited by 

Philipp Otto and Eike Gräf

And this is the direct link to the book: 

http://irights-media.de/publikationen/3th1cs/  （戳“阅读原文”直接跳转）

You can find the press kit here: 

https://irights-lab.de/en/press-kit-3th1cs-a-reinvention-of-ethics-in-the-digital-age/

Berlin, 23rd October 2017

“3TH1CS – A reinvention of ethics in the digital age?”

iRights.Media publishes an ambitious collection of ethical reflections about our digital lives

Smart weapons, autonomous cars, algorithmic decision making, elder care robots: a digital world poses many ethical questions. Where are the most problematic areas? How should we deal with them as a society? And where do we need new thinking?

The 20 chapters in the newest book from the Berlin-based publisher iRights.Media give answers to these questions and open a discussion which will surely run for many years. The chapters have been written by a range of carefully selected experts from nine different countries. While many contributors are academics from various disciplines, the book also features journalists, industry experts, activists, designers and one public official.

3TH1CS is an answer to the need for a broader debate about ethics in the digital age. Philipp Otto, the founder of iRights.Media and co-editor of the book, states: “The digital revolution and the rapid change that it brings to our lives challenge many of our tried and tested laws and customs. Ethical reflections are an incredibly important resource to shape our digital world in a positive way.”

 From: Factory  Fifteen

Ethics has received increasingly more attention in academia and other expert communities recently. However, the coverage of ethical topics directed towards a large public is often focused on problems of some sort, such as algorithmic discrimination, fears about “killer robots” or the dangers of automated vehicles. 3TH1CS aims to take a constructive approach. Each chapter covers a topic that is relevant for our society. The essays show the ethical challenges that arise and give insights into the inspiring work of those who deal with them. The expert contributions illustrate the conceptual efforts that are needed, for example, to develop a robot with a morally desirable behaviour. The book is an invitation to explore how ethical principles are applied to important aspects of the digital revolution, to get informed, and to get involved in the discussion.

One of the principal aims of 3TH1CS is bridging the gap between expert deliberation and the large public. As co-editor Eike Gräf points out: “We want as many people as possible to see how fascinating these issues are. Therefore, style matters. With 3TH1CS, our aim was making the most readable and appealing collection of advanced thoughts regarding digital ethics that we could.”

3TH1CS is available in German and in English, both as a print edition and in several digital formats on

 http://irights-media.de/publikationen/3th1cs/

The date of publication is the 25.10.2017. For further information please contact Eike Gräf, graef@irights-media.de

https://irights-lab.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/3TH1CS-Info-EN.pdf

“3TH1CS – A reinvention of ethics in the digital age?” 

Background information about the book  

Our world has changed. Digitalization profoundly changes how we work, play, live, communicate and relate to each other. Almost every aspect of life nowadays has some digital element to it.

Digitalization changes our life

Ethics is the subdivision of philosophy that addresses the principles and the evaluation of human conduct. Much care and profound reflections are needed to make explicit and justify what is ethically desirable and what is not. The digital transformation brings a lot of opportunities and pitfalls in this regard—and it puts many questions in front of us. We should address these questions properly in order to build the right environments that allow us to lead moral lives. And we need to define together what constitutes such a moral life in the digital society. The rules that currently govern our lives, our laws and customs, have for the greatest part been developed in a time before the internet. The contexts, the situations, and our lives in general have changed.

We chose twenty topics that keep ethicists, researchers of various disciplines, politicians and citizens busy, and of which we think that they are worthy to be vividly debated. We invited different experts each to address one of those topics with their own ideas and perspectives.We asked them to present their personal stance on the respective issue, to point out provocative observations, or to make a claim that sparks a debate.

Samantha E. Edwards

We received inspiring contributions and we hope that the contributions will gain traction and become part of a larger discussion that goes beyond the realms of academia and other expert communities. The world is changing at an incredibly rapid pace. Wherever reality challenges our current system of values, ethics becomes increasingly important to guide our actions. We think that everybody should be invited to take part in the deliberations about ethics for the digital age.

Against this backdrop iRights.Media is publishing this book under a Creative Commons license, because we aim for our texts to be freely shared and utilized.

www.iRights-Media.de | info@iRights-Media.de |

https://irights-lab.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/3TH1CS-Contents.pdf