Research project

Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies (ESDiT)

Understanding the impact of disruptive technologies on society and humans.

The ESDiT project will bring a new way of looking to understand the impact of disruptive technologies on society and humans through new models and approaches based on the interpretation of ethical values and moral concepts, this would provide guidance to technology providers and end users on how to see and analyze new developing digital technologies that have a significant impact over society.

The overall aim of the research program is to develop a comprehensive philosophical understanding of the socially disruptive technologies (SDTs) of the 21st century and in particular their challenge to the very concepts and values that we normally appeal to in our moral thinking. These concepts and values form the basis of our current moral, political, and anthropological order. There is an urgency to this aim, as we need to develop new moral frameworks to guide these technologies for the betterment of humanity.

This prestigious 10-year research program has been granted under the NWO Gravitation Scheme – the single largest competitive grant scheme that NWO offers, recognizing the key importance of certain areas of research, and acknowledging the quality of the research teams currently involved. The ESDiT program aims to develop new approaches and methods which help to understand social and ethical aspects of societally disruptive technologies, such as AI, robotics, IoT, bio-engineering, or climate engineering. The consortium explores how to innovate the ethics of technology itself, so that ethics may be future-proof in critically evaluating and guiding the development and introduction of societally disruptive technologies

Collaborative Partners

  • Eindhoven University of Technology
  • University of Twente
  • Utrecht University
  • Wageningen Agrotechnology and Food Sciences
  • Technische Universiteit Delft

Researchers involved in this project

Subsidy Provider