Papers by Nina María Frahm
Science and Engineering Ethics, 2024
In this editorial to the Topical Collection "Innovation under Fire: The Rise of Ethics in Tech", ... more In this editorial to the Topical Collection "Innovation under Fire: The Rise of Ethics in Tech", we provide an overview of the papers gathered in the collection, reflect on similarities and differences in their analytical angles and methodological approaches, and carve out some of the cross-cutting themes that emerge from research on the production of 'Tech Ethics'. We identify two recurring ways through which 'Tech Ethics' are studied and forms of critique towards them developed, which we argue diverge primarily in their a priori commitments towards what ethical tech is and how it should best be pursued. Beyond these differences, we observe how current research on 'Tech Ethics' evidences a close relationship between public controversies about technological innovation and the rise of ethics discourses and instruments for their settlement, producing legitimacy crises for 'Tech Ethics' in and of itself. 'Tech Ethics' is not only instrumental for governing technoscientific projects in the present but is equally instrumental for the construction of socio-technical imaginaries and the essentialization of technological futures. We suggest that efforts to reach beyond single case-studies are needed and call for collective reflection on joint issues and challenges to advance the critical project of 'Tech Ethics'.
Journal of Responsible Innovation, 2023
This article situates Responsible Innovation (RI) as part of a larger shift in science and techno... more This article situates Responsible Innovation (RI) as part of a larger shift in science and technology governance demanding a ‘social fix’ for innovation, which we argue amounts to a new spirit of technoscience. Inspired by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello's analysis of the development of a ‘new spirit of capitalism’ from late twentieth century, we observe the rise of a new governance rationality in technoscientific innovation which places society, its needs, and desires at the center of scientific and technological development. This shift has significant implications for the field of science and technology studies, and the modes of critique that STS scholars mobilize in understanding and intervening in the politics of sociotechnical change. The new spirit of technoscience calls for a reassessment of familiar formulas of STS critique, with a renewed symmetrical approach to the prescription and production of democracy for science and technology governance.
STS Encounters, 2023
More than any other region attempting to get ahead in the global AI race, the EU has emphasized a... more More than any other region attempting to get ahead in the global AI race, the EU has emphasized a commitment to ‘AI-ethics’ and invested significant work in the development of principles and rules for the ethical governance of AI. This paper examines the production, performance, and politics of AI-ethics in the EU through a close, co-productionist reading of how the “European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies” has framed AI and its desirable relationship to humans. Our analysis shows that the making of AI-ethics in this context extends far beyond the settlement of principles and norms for AI. Instead, we argue that AI-ethics is, at the same time, performing authoritative acts of ontological classification that cut the human clean from AI to render it controllable and manageable. These ontological politics, we show, serve to embed AI within long-held imaginaries of European unification beyond market harmonization and re-configure how the EU imagines to achieve an ‘ever closer union’ among its members in the innovation era. Different to attempts at deeper integration through the mobilization of science, the turn to AI-ethics presents a novel rationale through which the EU legitimizes its authority to govern, suggesting a constitutive role for ethics in the EU’s contemporary integration efforts.
Science and Engineering Ethics, 2023
Like many ethics debates surrounding emerging technologies, neuroethics is increasingly concerned... more Like many ethics debates surrounding emerging technologies, neuroethics is increasingly concerned with the private sector. Here, entrepreneurial visions and claims of how neurotechnology innovation will revolutionize society—from brain-computer-interfaces to neural enhancement and cognitive phenotyping—are confronted with public and policy concerns about the risks and ethical challenges related to such innovations. But while neuroethics frameworks have a longer track record in public sector research such as the U.S. BRAIN Initiative, much less is known about how businesses—and especially start-ups—address ethics in tech development. In this paper, we investigate how actors in the field frame and enact ethics as part of their innovative R&D processes and business models. Drawing on an empirical case study on direct-to-consumer (DTC) neurotechnology start-ups, we find that actors engage in careful boundary-work to anticipate and address public critique of their technologies, which allows them to delineate a manageable scope of their ethics integration. In particular, boundaries are drawn around four areas: the technology’s actual capability, purpose, safety and evidence-base. By drawing such lines of demarcation, we suggest that start-ups make their visions of ethical neurotechnology in society more acceptable, plausible and desirable, favoring their innovations while at the same time assigning discrete responsibilities for ethics. These visions establish a link from the present into the future, mobilizing the latter as promissory place where a technology’s benefits will materialize and to which certain ethical issues can be deferred. In turn, the present is constructed as a moment in which ethical engagement could be delegated to permissive regulatory standards and scientific authority. Our empirical tracing of the construction of ‘ethical realities’ in and by start-ups offers new inroads for ethics research and governance in tech industries beyond neurotechnology.
Nature Biotech, 2021
Emerging neurotechnologies raise important governance questions related to, for example, dual use... more Emerging neurotechnologies raise important governance questions related to, for example, dual use, brain data privacy, and manipulation of personal autonomy. Although many public sector research initiatives have implemented measures to address these issues, similar systematic measures in the private sector have yet to emerge. This gap is critical, as neurotech innovation today is largely driven by a set of companies that are subject to growing public scrutiny1,2,3,4,5. Here we detail lessons, emerging practices and open questions for responsible innovation in the private sector that are the result of three years of policy deliberations that began with a 2018 conference in Shanghai convened by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and led to the release of the “OECD Recommendation on Responsible Innovation in Neurotechnology” last year6. The principles therein cover opportunities and challenges for better innovation practices in company settings—including the use of ethics advisory boards, company-level principles, and ethics-by-design approaches—with broad relevance beyond neurotech to digital medicine and corporate R&D activities in today’s era of ‘tech-lash’. We argue that it is time for a radical shift in the conversation about governance of emerging neurotech: effective governance must focus on the private sector as a central actor early on—before trajectories are locked in and scaling takes off—and requires a new set of policy perspectives and collaborative tools to do so. These tools must complement existing efforts in public-sector research ethics, post hoc product regulation and corporate social responsibility. They must also reflect the growing recognition that we cannot rely on industry self-regulation alone to steer innovation activity in socially desirable directions.
Science, Technology & Human Values , 2021
Long presented as a universal policy-recipe for social prosperity and economic growth, the promis... more Long presented as a universal policy-recipe for social prosperity and economic growth, the promise of innovation seems to be increasingly in question, giving way to a new vision of progress in which society is advanced as a central enabler of technoeconomic development. Frameworks such as "Responsible" or "Mission-oriented" Innovation, for example, have become commonplace parlance and practice in the governance of the innovation-society nexus. In this paper, we study the dynamics by which this "social fix" to technoscience has gained legitimacy in institutions of global governance
Cambio 16, 2020
We propose a strategy for the immediate regeneration of soil and land in the Balearic Islands whi... more We propose a strategy for the immediate regeneration of soil and land in the Balearic Islands which is based on a plan of massive regreening and the development of urban agriculture and Ecoliteracy projects across society. Designed as a collaborative, cross-sector initiative, it will install a culture of responsible innovation for our land and children.
Science, Technology and Society, 2020
This article aims to reflect on the role of Science, Technology and Society (STS) research(ers) i... more This article aims to reflect on the role of Science, Technology and Society (STS) research(ers) in co-constructing Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in the Global South. By reporting on RRI research in the Global South, here the Indo-Dutch NWO-MVI project on rice straw burning in Punjab, we make an argument for approaching RRI as a symmetric process of knowledge production mobilised by local actors and researchers alike. For STS researchers to responsibly engage with local innovation systems, their activities need to go beyond knowledge provision and towards facilitating the ownership and circulation of local meanings and means to responsibly innovate. Rather than understanding RRI as a fixed framework to govern innovation practices, this article reflects on RRI as an approach that combines research with intervention. We propose that following the principle of symmetry can turn RRI into a productive tool for the mobilisation of embedded local principles that can organise innovation systems in a responsible way. In particular, symmetry allows the re-location of meanings and practices of innovation as well as the re-negotiation of multiple notions of responsible governance.
OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working papers 2019/05, 2019
Novel neurotechnology offers significant potential for the promotion of health and economic growt... more Novel neurotechnology offers significant potential for the promotion of health and economic growth. Spearheaded by large national and international flagship initiatives in brain science and fuelled by a clear medical need, research both in the public and private sector has made considerable strides towards novel neurotechnology, services and markets. At the same time, neurotechnology raises a range of unique ethical, legal, and policy questions that potential business models will have to address.
This document is the result of analytical work on the opportunities and challenges of implementing responsibility frameworks into neurotechnology translation at major brain research initiatives and in the private sector. The report draws on: (1) the discussion at the BNCT workshop “Minding Neurotechnology: delivering responsible innovation for health and well-being”, 2018, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; and (2) commentaries by workshop participants. The Workshop provided a forum for innovators to discuss strategies for delivering responsible innovation in neurotechnology.
The Neuroethics Blog, 2017
There is a growing consensus about the need to better align neuroscience and neurotechnology (NS/... more There is a growing consensus about the need to better align neuroscience and neurotechnology (NS/NT) with societal needs, values, and expectations. In particular, researchers and policy-makers are increasingly calling for better international coordination of neuroscientific research and neuroethical consultation. One major challenge for establishing international governance principles in NS/NT is the difference in national and regional cultures of integrating society into research and innovation, which is a crucial prerequisite to achieving a sustainable and socially robust agenda. A comparative perspective on European and American brain projects and key reports reveals such substantial differences. In Europe, the main emphasis has been on ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ frameworks and corollary public engagement mechanisms for neuroscience. In contrast, the U.S. has focused primarily on ‘Ethical, Legal, Social Implications’ (ELSI) frameworks and bioethical expert assessments, with a smaller role for lay publics.
Op-ed, 2019
It has become an obsession du jour to discuss how Big Tech should be governed to make it more res... more It has become an obsession du jour to discuss how Big Tech should be governed to make it more responsible and ethical—and for good reason. Privacy breaches happen almost on a daily basis, algorithms become increasingly biased towards gender and race, and tech companies are accused of socializing losses and privatizing profits by displacing local communities around the world. Two basic approaches characterize these discussions: The first treats governance as a matter of designing a better technology product for the user—an idea propagated by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The other views it as a matter of passing antitrust laws that empower the consumer—a major component of US senator Elizabeth Warren’s presidential bid.
It’s been two months since Chinese scientist He Jiankui shocked the world with the announcement t... more It’s been two months since Chinese scientist He Jiankui shocked the world with the announcement that his lab had created the first genetically edited babies. Since then, much of the public furor surrounding the news has died down, even as He has been fired by the Southern University of Science and Technology. There is one important takeaway from the controversy that seems to have gone overlooked in the CRISPR ethics discussion: defining the ethics of editing human life should not be left to scientists alone.
Conference Presentations by Nina María Frahm
Academy of Management Proceedings Vol. 2019, No. 1, 2019
Highly innovative companies, the pacemakers of economies and societies in the 21st century, have ... more Highly innovative companies, the pacemakers of economies and societies in the 21st century, have recently faced increasing public controversy and governmental scrutiny. In light of various scandals-ranging from alleged roles in election meddling, to data leaks and privacy issues, to the testing of autonomous vehicles and rogue experiments on human genome editing-citizens, policy-makers, and corporate leaders alike are calling for greater corporate responsibility in innovation practice. Yet, existing scholarship on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has paid little explicit attention to the ways in which innovations disrupt social orders and political systems. In this paper, we explore how CSR innovation can address the social and political consequences of innovation. We draw on theories from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and especially the notions of "politics of technology" and "responsible innovation" to identify shared conceptual interests in 6 domains: the boundaries of accountability, affected communities, responsiveness and inclusiveness, socio-cultural embeddedness, citizenship, and the concentration of power. We conclude with some tentative thoughts on implementation options of responsible innovation in corporate settings as part of CSR. Our work provides new opportunities for understanding companies as inclusive organization through the lens of innovation. ,
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Papers by Nina María Frahm
This document is the result of analytical work on the opportunities and challenges of implementing responsibility frameworks into neurotechnology translation at major brain research initiatives and in the private sector. The report draws on: (1) the discussion at the BNCT workshop “Minding Neurotechnology: delivering responsible innovation for health and well-being”, 2018, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; and (2) commentaries by workshop participants. The Workshop provided a forum for innovators to discuss strategies for delivering responsible innovation in neurotechnology.
Conference Presentations by Nina María Frahm
This document is the result of analytical work on the opportunities and challenges of implementing responsibility frameworks into neurotechnology translation at major brain research initiatives and in the private sector. The report draws on: (1) the discussion at the BNCT workshop “Minding Neurotechnology: delivering responsible innovation for health and well-being”, 2018, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; and (2) commentaries by workshop participants. The Workshop provided a forum for innovators to discuss strategies for delivering responsible innovation in neurotechnology.