I missed this when it was first released back in March: UNESCO has published a survey on ethical implications of emerging technologies, “Ethical Implications of Emerging Technologies”:
The ethical, legal and societal implications of ICTs are one of the three main priorities of UNESCO’s Information for All Programme and UNESCO was recently designated as the Facilitator for the implementation of Action Line C10 “Ethical Dimensions of the Information Society” of the Geneva Action Plan adopted by the World Summit on the Information Society.
Moreover, UNESCO encourages the definition and adoption of best practices and guidelines addressing ethical issues for decision makers, media and information professionals, and all major stakeholders concerned by the issue of Info-Ethics.
It aims at providing an outlook to the ethical implications of future technologies in the area of information and communication as well as at alerting to the increasing power of these emerging technologies and draws attention to their potential to affect the exercise of some basic human rights.
I’ll have more comments after I’ve had a chance to read it over…
MichaelZimmer.org 