Responsible Digitalization or the Digitalization of Responsibility? Work, Technology and Responsibility Practices
摘要
Around new technologies with large potential impact, such as artificial intelligence, there is often a call for responsible innovation. This requires early involvement of stakeholders to identify relevant values, in order to make sure that those values can be taken into account in the design. However, it is not always clear to what extent such adaptations in the design find a place in the practices surrounding the use of the new technology in work environments. For example, if artificial intelligence is made explainable, why and how would users have an incentive to make use of such a feature? In order to better understand these issues, I argue that we should focus not only on responsible design, but also on the way in which new technologies reshape responsibility practices in organizations, including for example seeking, receiving and challenging advice, searching for information, or communicating decisions. I discuss several examples of the impact of digitalization on responsibility practices, based on which I distinguish four different relations between digitalization and responsibility practices. This then leads to a research agenda with relevant questions surrounding this topic. By engaging in this type of research and understanding the actual responsibility practices, the practical feasibility of responsible digitalization would be increased.