A critical review of the intersection between design, ethics and technology : the social importance of designers and how ethics can truly be promoted through design

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Linköping University | Department ITN Master’s thesis, 120 credits | Design Spring 2020 | LiU-ITN-TEK-A--20/016--SE

A critical review of the

intersection between design,

ethics and technology: the

social importance of designers

and how ethics can truly be

promoted through design.

The development of autonomous transportation as a use case to

demonstrate designers’ social responsibility and facilitate a

discussion on the role of design for questions of social significance.

Jana Voykova

Supervisor: Prof. Stefan Holmlid Examiner: Prof. Jonas Löwgren

Linköping University SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden +46 013 28 10 00, www.liu.se

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Abstract

In his speech during the 2016 Speculative Design Symposium, held at the University of California, San Diego, Benjamin Bratton1_{rightly argued that the job of 21}st_{century design is}

to undo (much of) the design of the 20th_.

A number of recent controversial designs and practices in the business and public sphere have suddenly made ethical design (design ethics2_{) a hot topic in the design community.}

This master thesis is a highly critical and fairly philosophical examination of the design profession in the context of the current socio-technical landscape. It analyses the

convergence between the fields of design, ethics and disruptive technology. Autonomous transportation is taken as an example to illustrate what circumstances (should) drive

designers’ social engagement. Hopefully, it also accommodates for a productive reflection on the place of ethics in a broader social context. By utilising speculative and critical design approaches, the thesis aims to stimulate, provoke and ideally maintain a public discourse on the direction of development of technology and modern societies, and inspire designers to be more critical to the vocational portrayal of their profession.

Keywords: ethical design, design ethics, critical design, speculative design, ethics, morality, technology, disruptive technology, innovation, autonomous vehicles, smart cities.

1_{Benjamin Bratton is an American sociologist and Professor of Visual Arts of the Center for Design and}

Geopolitics at the University of California, San Diego.

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1. Background and Motivation

Changing our nature to fit the world, rather than the other way around, is actually the deepest form of disempowerment. It distracts us from reflecting critically on the world and deadens the impulse to social and political improvement. Michael Sandel3 During the international conference of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos,

Switzerland in January 2017, Johnson Control’s4_{CEO Alex Molinaroli made an enticing}

observation about why technology is so challenging today. His statement was interesting not because he was the only person to express this view, or because it was a breakthrough discovery, but because it is worth reflecting on where it comes from, what it means and why we hear it so often today. Technology, in Molinaroli’s words (which I am paraphrasing), is moving faster than people and so our perception of what is possible constantly changes which puts us in a state of reluctance to move along with it. In other words, the pace of evolution of technology is so fast today, that people simply cannot comprehend it or catch up it and eventually, they lose interest in trying to do so.

In his book The case against perfection: Ethics in the age of genetic engineering (2007), Michael Sandel provides what, in my view, constitutes a great explanation of our current technological puzzlement. He writes that ‘when science moves faster than our moral

understanding, as it does today, men and women struggle to articulate their unease’ (Sandel, 2007, p. 9). In this context, as naïve as this question might sound, I think it is critical to ask: who steers technology and why is it so difficult for us to keep up with its pace of

advancement? Is it not we, humans who decide what technology does and how fast it moves? I find statements like Molinaroli’s problematic because, while being true, they imply a sense of inevitability and inertia about our technological evolution, which humans cannot slow down, fathom, or influence in any way. This, in its turn creates the illusion that the future only has one possible and viable direction to take: the one which technological, business, political or scientific communities determine, and we cannot, or worse — shouldn’t challenge it.

3_{Michael Sandel is an American political philosopher and professor in political theory at Harvard university Law}

School.

4_{Johnson Controls is an international company, headquartered in Ireland which produces fire, security and}

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Many people say that 21st_{century is the most fascinating time to live in. While I agree with}

them in a certain measure — compared to earlier decades, the present age is much more favourable for a good portion of the world’s population, science has made staggering progress, and there is, at least in theory, more balanced global economic and political cooperation, 21st_{century is also a time of massive social disruption and great bewilderment}

about what the future holds. We seem to be assuming that all challenges that we face in our modern societies should and will be resolved with innovation and technology. We also seem to be assuming that both innovation and technology are inevitable and if someone dares to take a step back and suggest that we should be more careful with how we design technology and what we demand from science, they are instinctively labelled as narrow-minded enemies of progress and evolution.

It is not disputable that technology was the catalyst for many processes that lead to tremendous improvements in various facets of life — revolutionary ways to learn, work, entertain, travel, faster means to communicate and share information, immediate access to innovative consumer products, at least for the privileged classes. However, contrary to the idea which too often gets emphasised in the public domain, technology is neither a neutral, nor a net-positive phenomenon. Often times, disruptive technology comes with a list of side effects and trade-offs, which are conveniently omitted from the advertising campaigns and dressed-up as agents of the greater good. Eventually, these trade-offs become the quid pro quo which explains the intrinsically broken design of most of the off-springs of the third modernity5_{and our instinctive acceptance of it.}

5_{In his book Towards the Third Modernity (2008), the French sociologist Alain de Vulpian revises the cultural,}

social and political changes that we have witnessed in the last two centuries. He identifies the period after the Second World War and the mass consumption that came with it as the First Modernity, the years after the 1960s when people sought to set free from the authority of local institutions and corporations as the Second Modernity. The Third Modernity is the digital era which started taking shape after the 2000s. Vulpian discusses the change in attitudes which mark each of these periods, for example the move from a highly religious to an atheistic society, the sexual revolution, the different outlook on marriage, moral norms and political rule, individualism, humanism, environmental awareness.

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Figure 1. One of the major reasons why technology is so puzzling today, in my opinion, is that, the way we develop it puts to the test our perceptions of what critical aspects of civic life, such as power, knowledge, privacy, trust, freedom, behaviour, really mean. We literally find ourselves in a state of constant confusion about what is going on.

Unsurprisingly, there is an extreme polarisation of opinions when it comes to technology — some people fanatically believe in its ability to save humanity of, if not all, at least a great majority of the problems we struggle with today, others are more skeptical of technology’s capacity to serve as a panacea and instead, apply, what I call “a common-sense-logic” to it. This, by no means suggests that this second group, to which I belong, does not appreciate scientific and technological evolution and instead proposes that we give up all progress made and go back to 18th_{century lifestyles. But when our striving for constant innovation leads us}

to a threshold that continually stretches our moral understanding, undermines what being human means and makes us wonder if it is a good or a bad thing, it becomes imperative that we stay cognizant to these processes.

Sadly, I think we have already crossed a number of thresholds with the developments in genetic sequencing, with the design of algorithms that tirelessly monitor our habits, thus extracting valuable information about our cognitive abilities and personalities, with devices that demand our attention at all times, and with robotic systems which humanity and the environment will supposedly benefit from immensely, but which are nonetheless

accompanied by dubious ethical repercussions. Is there even a limit? In a reality where literally anything is possible and there are no boundaries, it’s difficult to say whether there is anything at all which we shouldn’t do. Where is our scientific knowledge and boundless

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curiosity going to lead us? What line do we yet have to cross before we realise that we have gone too far? Sometimes advancements of science and technology which, at first glance, seem harmless and virtuous, like artificial insemination and surrogacy for example, can have serious ethical and economic implications, which can lead to the establishment of dangerous power dynamics. These are questions which are connected with the role of markets in civic life and which I will revisit later on in this thesis.

Similar ethical dilemmas apply in even stronger measure when it comes to more recent developments based on artificial intelligence and machine learning6_{. At the 2017 Summit}

conference of Singularity University7_{(I think the word university here is used in an}

extremely superficial sense), Maarten Steinbuch8_{announced that by 2045, we will overcome}

death and ageing will be regarded as a disease. His proclamation produced alarmingly ecstatic applauses from the audience. Steinbuch’s prediction might be wildly optimistic but nonetheless too serious to be dismissed lightly. Before we get too excited about the unlimited opportunities of science and technology, I think we should ask ourselves: who will be able to reap the fruits of human curiosity (or stupidity, depending on how we look at things)? Certainly not everyone who lives on planet Earth and is going to be born in the following decades will be entitled to immortality, especially in a reality of scarce natural resources and an all the more likely climate catastrophe. As Michael Sandel maintains throughout his book

The case against perfection: Ethics in the age of genetic engineering (2007), ‘the

fundamental question is not how to assure equal access to enhancement but whether we should aspire to it’ (Sandel, 2007, p. 16). Sandel argues, accurately I believe, that the trouble with artificial enhancements lies not so much in the denying of those methods to classes who cannot afford them, but in the dehumanisation of those who can and will. Chance in life becomes choice and we distort our appreciation for effort, achievement, freedom and responsibility. The bigger problem with this however, according to Sandel, is ‘the Promethean aspiration to remake nature to serve our purposes and satisfy our desires’ (Sandel, 2007, p. 27).

6_{Although these terms are widely known, for the sake of clarity, I will provide a definition later on in this thesis.} 7_{Singularity University, located in Silicon Valley, is a private venture institution founded in 2008 by Ray}

Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis, and sponsored by big technology conglomerates like Google, SAP and Deloitte, with the mission to create “a global learning and innovation community using exponential technologies to tackle the world’s biggest challenges and build a better future for all”. It offers programs and courses to organisations and individuals in artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnology.

8_{Maarten Steinbuch is a professor in Systems- and Control and head of the Control Systems Technology group of}

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Regrettably, the sound observations of intellectuals like Michael Sandel have not echoed clearly enough in our scientific, political and social communities. In 2005 Ray Kurzweil, one of the founders of the aforementioned Singularity University and a highly esteemed public figure, published a book called The Singularity is Near: When humans transcend biology. With the not so subtle confidence of a prodigy of his generation, Kurzweil explains his futuristic visions and fascination with machines and technology from a very early age. His determination to, by means of science and technology, overcome the ‘profound limitations’ of human biology and cognition, as he repeatedly declares in his book, and the affluent position he has assumed, are horrifying at least on two accounts: 1) he seems to be neglecting the complexity of the human mental and physical nature by treating it as something

transient which we are obliged to surpass, and 2) this antihuman and remarkably egocentric position, as Douglas Rushkoff9_{points out, is ‘driving the philosophy of the most capitalized}

companies on the planet’ (Rushkoff, 2019, p. 135). Instead of raising public outrage, as it should have, Kurzweil’s inclinations were celebrated and admired by critics, publishers and contemporaries. He was called “one of the most important thinkers of our time”, “a brilliant scientist and futurist” and having “adamantine intellectual integrity”!

As much as I find bioengineering to be a key element in the discussion about scientific evolution and the (technological) future of humanity, my thesis will examine the

development of a disruptive technology which will allegedly have a more immediate and humbling impact on our societies and cities, namely autonomous10_{transportation. I will do}

that in order to contextualise my research on the social importance of design and find the place of ethics in our public affairs.

The proponents of autonomous vehicles, smart homes and connected cities, seem to be viewing innovative technologies as the silver bullet that will eliminate present-day challenges in highly urbanised areas. They promise grand improvements in terms of optimising space, minimising road accidents, addressing climate change, increasing human efficiency, and single out technology as the oracle which holds the answers to all our problems, even the purely political ones. Still, they miss to steer the public conversation towards the more

9_{Douglas Rushkoff is Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at City University of New York, author of}

books and comics, columnist, host of a podcast, commentator for CNN. He lectures on media, technology, economics, culture and ethics.

10_{I will be using the terms autonomous and self-driving throughout this thesis because these are the most}

common terms used to describe the technology in media and industry. However, the technology is better

described by the term automated because the current level of automation achieved does not eliminate completely the need for human intervention (which is the meaning of autonomous). The terminology and levels of

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important risks which new technologies bear and the way they reengineer essential human faculties.

At this point in my introduction, one might ask: what does autonomous transportation have to do with design and ethics? The short answer is: more than meets the eye. It might not be a popular view, but designers have always been major contributors to how societies are shaped and matters like autonomous vehicles should occupy their attention namely because they won’t just revolutionise transportation but redesign social life in its entirety. As Ezio Manzini explains in his book Design when everybody designs (2015), ‘in a world in rapid and

profound transformation, we are all designers’ (Manzini, 2015, p. 1) What Manzini means is, that the ability to design is an intrinsic human ability but one that needs cultivating.

In a time of overwhelming social and environmental turbulence, designers are the social agents equipped with the tools to gather political, economic, and business experts along with citizens to resolve social challenges together. Furthermore, designers are not simply artistic creatures who care about colour theory and alignment. They are professionals whose skills can and should be used to truly address social problems. ‘Information and communication technologies’, Manzini writes, ‘rapidly penetrating into society, they have been quickly “normalized.” (Manzini, 2015, p. 16).

In this predicament, which I call “a technological mess”, design is simply a handy instrument and designers — a convenient cog in the wheel. It seems to me that designers have forgotten their social role as gatekeepers which Victor Papanek11_{brilliantly identified in his book} Design for the Real World (1971). We — designers, citizens, technologists, policy makers,

have failed to ask the hard questions that are salient to understanding the real-life impact of the designs we have helped create.

Although this is a question with an obvious answer, I do think we have to enquire: should designers also be ethicists and more importantly, how? We might get confused about the answer because the image of designers as mere followers of the trends which powerful players in society dictate, is constantly being reinforced in industry and media. As Matthew Beard and Simon Longstaff12_{point out in their paper Ethical by design: Principles for good}

11_{Victor Papanek is a designer born in Austria and emigrated to the United States during the Second World War.}

He dedicated his practice to critique of contemporary design culture and used design as a political tool to create a more democratised and socially responsible design, especially for marginalised societies.

12_{Dr Matthew Beard is an Australian moral philosopher with background in military and applied ethics. He is an}

ethics university lecturer and a fellow at The Ethics Centre, a non-profit organisation in Australia. Dr Simon Longstaff is an Australian philosopher who holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Cambridge. He is the Executive Director at The Ethics Centre, fellow at the World Economic Forum and a respected advisor on questions related to political philosophy, applied ethics and strategic business development.

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technology, ‘the fact that we can do something does not mean that we should’ (Beard and

Longstaff, 2018, p. 4) but this view seems to be dangerously unpopular in scientific and business circles today.

The intersection between the fields of design, ethics and disruptive technology is namely the backbone of my thesis research. As far as design is concerned, my focus is twofold: on the one hand, I will examine the social importance of the design profession and the ethical obligations designers have; on the other hand, I will explore how design can draw the public attention to an unpopular outlook on current social phenomena whose future impact may not necessarily be of a positive character.

From a technological perspective, I will analyse the development of autonomous

transportation in terms of its social importance and ethical implications. It will serve as a use case to illustrate under what circumstances the social responsibility of designers emerges and how it can be articulated. In this discussion, I will try to find the place of ethics in our professional and public life and hopefully accommodate for a productive reflection on what we can do to truly promote ethical behaviour not only in design, but in a broader social milieu. Therefore, my argumentation will touch upon a fairly wide range of aspects which I regard critical to yielding an objective assessment of these topics.

Ethics is a term which denotes what is the right, good thing to do and what one should do. ‘Ethics allows us to judge the world — what should happen? Of all the ways you might act, which is the best? Which of all the possibilities should you bring into reality? What ought one to do?’ (Beard and Longstaff, 2019, p.16). There is often a disagreement both in scientific communities and society at large regarding the difference between ethics and morality. I think Andrew Crane and Dirk Matten13_{offer a great definition, which explains the}

distinction between the two:

‘Morality is concerned with the norms, values and beliefs embedded in social processes which define right and wrong for an individual or a community. Ethics is concerned with the study of morality and the application of reason to elucidate specific rules and principles that determine right and wrong for a given situation. These rules and principles are called ethical theories’ (Crane and Matten, 2010, p. 8). In this sense, morality precedes ethics. Therefore, when I discuss ethical behaviour in design and technology, I refer to the moral principles we should follow as human beings.

13_{Andrew Crane is a former Professor in Business Ethics in the Schulich School of Business at York University in}

Canada and current Director, Center for Business, Organisations and Society at the University of Bath School of Management in Bath, UK. Dirk Matten is a Professor at the Schulich School of Business where he holds the Hewlett-Packard Chair in Corporate Social Responsibility. He is a visiting professor at the University of London, the University of Nottingham and at Sabancı University in Istanbul.

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Additionally, this thesis draws a parallel between ethical behaviour and social responsibility, both in the context of design and the technology/business/public spheres, thus, I will be using these two terms as synonyms.

By applying a strongly critical lens both to the design profession and the direction which society’s evolution is taking (by way of discussing autonomous transportation as a socio-technical case study), I will try to steer the public attention to a more pragmatic perspective on current global events and offer a highly critical revision of the vocational portrayal of the design profession.

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2. Research Questions

People often want to know what design is. The question is what design isn't. One of my pet peeves is that people, when you say the word design, they think oh, you mean the beautiful part, the sexy part, the handsome part. It's not about that. It isn't about how it looks. It's about how it works, how it feels, how it changes the person's life, that’s what design is about. It's not about the aesthetics. It's about the outcome. So, design in its simplest form is the humanization of a technology that has become commoditized. The problem is that businesses must understand design to improve the processes and their outcome. John Maeda14 The fields of design, ethics and technology are so vast that each of them separately can be researched infinitely. Even when we narrow down our focus to the social purpose of design or the ethical considerations and social impact of autonomous vehicles, these topics can still take years to examine and a myriad of factors to consider. For this reason, my thesis aims to bring academic knowledge contributions to the area where these three fields converge, with the ultimate and ambitious goal to challenge the public conversation and the rushed

fascination with the potential of new technology as a limitless resource and, by means of speculative and critical design, secure a room for a more sensible outlook on present societal challenges.

The backdrop of this discussion is the position which designers should take within society and how they, having the power to reach a wide audience with their work, should use this power to educate, question, inspire, provoke and bring forward questions that are fairly unpopular in the design community but nonetheless vital for the welfare of society.

14_{John Maeda is a former president of the Rhode Island School of Design. He holds degrees in electrical}

engineering and computer science from MIT, MBA from Arizona State University and a PhD from the University of Tsukuba in Japan. He is the author of several books among which The Laws of Simplicity, Creative Code and

Redesigning Leadership. Maeda is currently the head of computational design and inclusion at the company Automattic which stands behind open-source projects like WordPress, Akismet, Tumblr.

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Figure 2. The purpose of this thesis is to intersect the fields of design, ethics and technology in order to argue for a future that is right by design.

2.1 Research question #1: the social responsibility

of designers

With regard to the convergence of design, ethics and technology, this thesis will aim to answer two research questions which might be perceived as rather dissimilar. Although the connection between them might not be immediately apparent, I would argue that they can and should be seen as akin (explanation of this will be provided further below). The first of these two research questions is:

1. How do design practitioners perceive their social responsibility and the social importance of their profession, and how can they demonstrate this responsibility in their practice15_?

15_{Here “practice” is meant to denote ‘the work situation of design professionals, in which they typically work for a}

client, to a brief which may include the point that the clients’ offerings are part of the designed solutions, with commercial constraints of time, means, and budget’ (Stappers & Giaccardi in The Encyclopedia of

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Social responsibility is a loose term which pertains to a wide array of aspects. This makes it

quite challenging to describe. In more recent times, with the growing presence of the private sector in social life, academic research has focused on defining what corporate social

responsibility (CSR) means. Although my research is not going to specifically deal with CSR, I will be analysing business ethics further on and therefore, the term CSR has a relative bearing on my perception of social responsibility.

Singh and Singh define corporate social responsibility as ‘the obligation of decision makers to take actions which protect and improve the welfare of society as a whole along with their own interests. Its suggests two active aspects of social responsibility — protecting and improving. To protect the welfare of society implies the avoidance of negative impacts on society. To improve the welfare of society implies the creation of positive benefits for society’ (Singh and Singh, 2013, p.17).

Aleksander Kobylarek offers an interesting perspective on social responsibility, analysing the term in the context of scientific research and academia. I think his interpretation of scientific social responsibility is very useful in a thesis which analyses how we perceive scientific and technological progress. Kobylarek argues, rightly I think, that scientific responsibility can be understood in implicit and explicit sense. In implicit terms, socially responsible science is concerned with the responsibility to produce truthful and unbiased knowledge which

enriches academic research. In explicit terms, socially responsible science ‘should be looking at how particular areas (knowledge, academics, educational institutions) can or should fit in with the needs of the non-scientific community’ (Kobylarek, 2019, p.6).

In other words, socially responsible science is ‘a thorough and expert verification of knowledge which can be the starting point for practical action – designing and altering reality, correcting errors, avoiding mistakes, predicting, constructing comfort zones, and finally making further development of the world possible (ibid.). The opposite of socially responsible science, as defined by Kobylarek is ‘creating fake science and constructing the gullible theories detached from reality and an inadequate vision of the world around us…in order to justify some ideology or some practical enterprise designed purely for profit, such as alternative medicine (Kobylarek, 2019, p.7). In that sense, science shouldn’t be seen as an absolute value because its dependencies on financial support for example, can sometimes harm its credibility and distort its objectives.

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When I talk about social responsibility and ethical behaviour, I refer to the more general delineation of the term. In order to make it more concrete, though, I will be using the definition, provided by the Pachamama Alliance organisation16_:

“Social responsibility is an ethical theory, in which individuals are accountable for fulfilling their civic duty; the actions of an individual must benefit the whole of society. In this way, there must be a balance between economic growth and the welfare of society and the environment. If this equilibrium is maintained, then social responsibility is accomplished. Every individual has a responsibility to act in a manner that is beneficial to society and not solely to the individual”.

An important addition to this definition, is that the welfare of society should not necessarily be understood in utilitarian17_{terms because the preferences and interests of the majority are}

not always in line with upholding our moral values (for example, if a great majority endorses taking drugs, this doesn’t automatically make the act morally permissible).

The assertion which I will try to verify through my research as far as my first research question goes, is that designers do realise how big a social responsibility they bear, however, they are often not in a position to defend their social responsibility because the business and economic models which contextualise their work, either have little actual regard to ethical principles or neglect ethics as a background endeavour, confined to the realms of philosophy (I should however clarify that I do think there are some designers who, for one reason or another, have a more cynical understanding of the social status of their profession as an elitist occupation and they don’t necessarily perceive themselves as having to be socially responsible. That view is rather rare, though). In other words, I will argue that designers are not given enough freedom to demonstrate their social responsibility because of significant deficiencies in our current social fabric but personal circumstances and dependencies should not be used as a justification for unethical behaviour.

16_{The Pachamama Alliance is a non-profit organisation established in 1996 in support of the Achuar indigenous}

tribe in the Amazon rainforest whose culture was threatened with the exploitation of their land by the oil industry.

17_{Utilitarianism is an ethical theory which commands that ‘the morally right act or policy is that which produces}

the greatest happiness for the members of society’ (Kymlicka, 2002, p.10). Utilitarianism was popularised by the 18th_{century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham who believed that people have two masters: pain and pleasure,}

and the morality of people’s actions is determined by minimising pain and maximising pleasure for the greatest number. Although the idea to always seek to maximise happiness is sometimes hard to contest, utilitarianism disregards individual rights and liberty, and endorses illegitimate preferences and principles, things which egalitarian and democratic societies, at least in theory, hold dear.

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To a great degree, this is a result of the popular worldview that design has no place at the decision-making table where the fate of the society is settled, and design can only aid social affairs insofar as visual appeal to consumers is sought after. Consequently, I will argue that this worldview is wrong. This is one of the reasons, according to me, as to why there is a harsh contrast between social design and mainstream design, the former of which is seen as ethical design, while the latter is understood in a strictly business sense.

Until those two kinds of design are reconciled and ideally merged together, any attempts at designing ethically will be just an irregularity, a trend which will not change much about the status quo.

2.1.1 Can we measure social responsibility?

Since social responsibility and ethical behaviour, to which it is closely related (as explained earlier, I am using the two terms interchangeably), are quite broad and sometimes vague terms, it is a challenge to specify reliable criteria to assess and measure them. Furthermore, agreeing on a common definition of behaviour also seems to be difficult for the research community. From a biological standpoint, behaviour is studied through observation, while in psychological and social science contexts (which study mainly human behaviour),

questionnaires and interviews are a more popular method. Jana Uher, of The London School of Economics and Political Science presents five different definitions of “behaviour”. I find the following one to be most precise:

“The internally coordinated responses (actions or inactions) of whole living organisms (individuals or groups) to internal and/or external stimuli, excluding responses more easily understood as developmental changes” (p.108) (Uher, 2016, p. 5).

The British researcher Jake Lomax describes behaviour as synonymous with action. He borrows the definition given by Davis et al. to define it:

“Anything a person does in response to internal or external events. Actions may be overt (motor or verbal) and directly measurable or, covert (activities not viewable but involving voluntary muscles) and indirectly measurable; behaviours are physical events that occur in the body and are controlled by the brain” (Davis et al. 2015) (Lomax, 2020, p. 3).

If we unite those two definitions, we can conclude that behaviour is a deliberate or subconscious mental process (thinking, attitude), translated into actions or inactions.

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Lomax provides a simple yet useful framework (the Mechanisms of Social Change) to track behaviour change. It is based on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which Aristotle used to describe important characteristics of human action:

• Who — the actors of an action/inaction; • What — the action/inaction performed;

• Where — the contextual setting of the action/ inaction; • When — the timing of the action/inaction;

• With what — pointing to the resources used;

• Why — the underlying reason for the action/inaction;

• How — the way the action/inaction is performed (how much, how often).

I think this framework can be used as a set of measurement criteria when assessing an individual’s or an organisation’s social responsibility, although this measurement will not be definitive.

In their paper Are “ethical” or “socially responsible” investments socially responsible? (2006), Hellsten and Mallin express their concern that it has been unclear what the ratio between individual and organisational ethical and moral commitments should be when socially important questions are addressed and how much this is a contradiction in terms. They raise some important considerations like what particular actions or inactions of corporations are to be regarded as ethical or unethical; whether markets can also be seen as public servants as they supply commodities and productivity-stimulating products, not purely look to expand their own profits. Hellsten and Mallin bring up the question about the motivations of companies to invest in ethical behaviour, if they do it out of altruistic emotion or to polish their image, and if certain ethical practices in one country can be conflicting with those in another. ‘The social responsibility of business can be defined in a number of ways philosophically, morally and practically, but measuring social responsibility remains a major challenge’ (Hellsten and Mallin, 2006, p. 398).

I acknowledge that ethics is not a straightforward discipline and it is not easy to put a numeric value next to social responsibility but on the other hand, I don’t think there is room for much dispute on what a morally permissible or morally abhorrent action is in many circumstances (for example employing people in exploitative conditions, doing genetic modifications, allowing child labour, disrespecting natural resources, disregarding people’s dignity (human trafficking), bribing, can hardly be seen as grey-area actions).

In this sense, I believe we should describe, understand and agree on what we mean by social responsibility rather than measure it. All people bear a social responsibility, not only

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and social responsibility is not a pie out of which every person should take 10%, for example, in order to fulfil their civic duty. It has more to do with the fact that we are human beings, rather than designers or technologists or politicians, etc.

We may indeed be able to measure social responsibility, but this is not what this thesis will do. Rather, it will provide my perspective on what social responsibility means and what factors around it, impact how much it can be upheld.

2.2 Research question #2: social and ethical

implications of autonomous transportation

The second research question which I will address in this thesis is:

2. What are the ethical and social implications of autonomous transportation and how can design be used to aid the public understanding of important social phenomena?

As mentioned earlier, the development of autonomous vehicles will be considered as a use case to show a specific technological context where designers’ social responsibility is brought forward to stimulate a critical perspective on the way society is built. In view of this, my discussion on autonomous transportation will not concern the purely technical (engineering) side of the technology but rather its ethical and social worth.

Further to this, I will not give much attention to the conditional factors that will enable the success of the technology — like the necessity to redesign urban infrastructure, the change of perspective when it comes to human-machine interaction or the changes needed to

legislation and safety standards. These are obvious steps for the technology to function as expected and I don’t think it’s very productive to discuss them when my critique and

consideration of the social and ethical limitations of the technology contests the very concept behind its development.

Questioning the very existence of the technology and the motivations behind it is not a popular approach in the research field and I also see it as a great example to verbalise my comprehension of the social role of designers within a wider social environment.

With my research on this second research question I will try to verify the assumption that disruptive technologies, (and autonomous transportation, more specifically) come with obvious drawbacks that shouldn’t be taken light-heartedly. I will make the claim that these drawbacks should be brought to the public discourse more definitively than they currently are in order to allow a more objective representation of the technology and consequently

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engage citizens more effectively in decisions which will affect them personally. My understanding is that at present, the technology is not portrayed objectively by the companies that develop it, and people in general either have a skewed perception of the social consequences and benefits of the technology, or are not interested enough to

proactively look for the information which is absent from the social space, thus disengaging themselves from important social conversations.

Relevant to this question are phenomena like corporate social responsibility and business ethics, as well as social justice and the power dynamics which private and public institutions administer on society. Those aspects will be deemed crucial to my argumentation; however, this thesis will not claim any capacity to resolve such complex social, political and economic problems. They will be brought to the discussion in order to show that design can and should draw the public attention to questions which often fall outside of the public discourse but have great relevance for the future of society.

2.3 Connection between the research questions

While I have made clear that this thesis will examine the convergence between the fields of design, ethics and disruptive technology, the connection between the research questions may not be evident at first glance. Although they are very distinct in a sense and I will discuss them somewhat separately throughout the thesis, my argumentation will aim to explain how they are related and why they both have a place in my research. If we think about design beyond its purely aesthetic functions, we can say that everything is design: design and create are synonyms, and everything around us is designed in a certain way.

When addressing the social importance of designers and their responsibility to work ethically, questions with enormous social impact, like autonomous transportation are extremely relevant to this discussion for at least two reasons: 1) social responsibility presupposes a relationship between people and groups of people; thus, when we talk about designers’ social responsibility, we don’t mean responsibility towards abstract ideologies but towards other human beings; in that sense, questions like autonomous transportation are revealing of what drives designers’ social responsibility as these are creations which have tangible consequences for people; 2) such questions directly affect the way we conceive of ethics and morality, and determine the social context in which designers create. The examination of the two questions and the yielded outcomes will hopefully supply a

meaningful academic material and seek to validate the position I have taken with regards to the social role of designers, namely, to assess critically their surroundings rather than simply resolve business problems.

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2.4 Delimitations

Due to time and resource constraints, as well as the nature of the topics I chose to analyse, this thesis is not going to present an exhaustive research either on the social role of designers and the social importance of design or the ethical and social limitations of technology and autonomous transportation. However, it will aim to bring up prospects which are not traditionally discussed when addressing design and technology ethics. That said, this thesis should be rather seen as a design philosophy than a strictly scientific piece: while the undertaken research does not constitute a skewed vision of the yielded outcomes or the previous research done in the field, it is analysed rather critically which presupposes a certain degree of bias in my argumentation. Furthermore, the zoomed-out perspective which I will demonstrate throughout the thesis might be interpreted as an unnecessary stray from the central topics discussed. I believe this view is mistaken because the backdrop

argumentation I will outline, while not being complete, is vital for understanding the point this thesis is trying to make.

Given these limitations, as long as autonomous vehicles are concerned, insights will not be gathered from important stakeholders, such as governments, technology companies, automotive manufacturers, ethicists, sociologists, economists etc., although an attempt to engage some of them has been made. Instead, the perspective of some of these stakeholders will be discussed in the context of the literature research and analysis as part of the project. As far as the social importance of designers is analysed, the results presented on this

research question should be seen as a qualitative sample. It is unrealistic to expect that the constrained research done in the course of a short period of time (4 months) is a thorough representation of a subject matter which hinges on quite complex factors.

In essence, by applying a critical approach to the intersection of the areas of design, ethics and technology, this thesis will rather raise questions than provide straightforward answers and offer a holistic outlook on the present social context of design, ethics and technology. The analysis and discussion, or parts of them, can then be taken further and developed in the course of a doctorate thesis, for example. A summary of the delimitations is provided below.

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This thesis will NOT:

• Supply a roadmap for how design will be given a more important role in society

although possible steps towards this will be explored in the research process;

• Provide a solution to tackling current societal challenges which led to the

development of disruptive technologies like autonomous vehicles (urbanisation, congestion, pollution, road accidents, sustainable production). However, these aspects will be outlined in the thesis to a certain extent and possible alternatives will be suggested;

• Resolve ethical and moral dilemmas in society as this is a conversation which

design alone cannot address; not to mention that these questions have been part of the philosophical debate for centuries;

• Outline an ethics code which will save the world from corporate greed and make

designers martyrs of the greater good. This thesis claims no such thing. The principles of ethical behaviour, although being controversial and sometimes hazy, they already exist, and designers are seen, by no means, as the single upholders of our moral laws.

What this thesis will do is:

• Examine how designers perceive their profession and social responsibility, and

explore how designers’ social engagement can be displayed in practice;

• Use critical and speculative design to demonstrate how design can raise the

public awareness to challenges of social importance;

• Urge designers and other professionals to be more critical in their work (and life); • Discuss the social and ethical limitations of autonomous vehicles in a broader

socio-technical context and use the technology as an outlet of designers’ social responsibility;

• Ideally inspire reflection as to what a desirable future society may look like and

encourage the general population to seek more accountability from public and private power structures by deliberate decisions and actions in their daily lives.

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3. Method

Designing that does not already Future, Fiction, Speculate, Criticise, Provoke, Discourse, Interrogate, Probe, Play, is inadequate designing. Cameron Tonkinwise18

In order to answer my research questions and achieve the outcomes I have set out to achieve with this thesis, I am going to apply a combination of methods in my research. I will use desk research as a starting point to gain background knowledge about the previous research of the main topics of my thesis and select theories which will aid my own argumentation. I will conduct interviews and surveys so as to find an answer to my specific research questions.

As a culmination of my research, I will apply speculative and critical design in a virtual exhibition format as a way to verify my predictions around the research questions and share my critique with an audience outside of my academic cohort. In general terms, my master thesis can be described as a Research through design-inspired project. This means that its purpose is to produce academic knowledge contribution which can serve as a basis for subsequent exploration in the respective research field.

3.1 Research through design (RtD)

Research through design (RtD) denotes a ‘practice-based inquiry that generates

transferrable knowledge’ (Durrant et al., 2017). As Sir Christopher Frayling19_{argues, there}

has been a misconception and doubt among designers and craftspeople as to how research fits into their respective design practices. Traditionally, research is referred to as something concerned with generating abstracted and unpractical knowledge, with words rather than deeds, while art and design are seen as pragmatic endeavours which produce tangible results. Frayling rightly points out that divorcing craft and design from social, technical and cultural context, disregards the intrinsic connection between art and design on the one hand, and cognitive science and research, on the other. The image of the artist as ‘an expressive lunatic’ whose craft is rooted in feeling and instinct rather than thinking and research, is just

18_{Cameron Tonkinwise is the Director of Design Studies and Doctoral Studies at the School of Design, Carnegie}

Mellon University. He teaches and researches design philosophy and design for sustainability.

19_{Christopher Frayling is former rector of the Royal College of Art in London and professor in history of art and}

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as misleading, as is the assumption that a scientist is ‘a critical rationalist’ who does textbook research in laboratories and universities. ‘Doing science is much more like doing design’ (Frayling, 1993, p. 4). The point which Frayling essentially communicates, is that it is

‘conceptually strange and artecidal20_{to separate art and design from all other practices’ since}

what we perceive as “practice”, namely action which follows reflection and reflection which

follows action, can be found both in art and design, and in research and science. In view of

this, research through design is an appropriate method to apply in my research to the extent that my discussion on the social role of designers aims to show that artistic professions like design should not be seen as detached from analytical occupations which rely on scientific research. In my thesis, this goes to say that the research done as part of a design project can make valuable contributions to the scientific research community by proposing an

unconventional perspective on how design should be seen in the wider social landscape. Frayling summarises the research that is done in art and design in three categories, borrowing the idea from the English art historian and critic Sir Herbert Read’s “teaching through art”:

• Research into art and design — historical research but also research into a variety

of theoretical perspectives on art and design: social, economic, political, cultural, technical, ethical;

• Research through art and design — material explorations but also development

and action research: for example, customising a piece of technology to do something nobody has considered before and communicating the results, here the focus is on what is being communicated through the activities of art, craft and design, the end product is knowledge which is both embedded in the artefact but also stands outside of it;

• Research for art and design — the gathering of reference materials rather than

proper research, where the end product is the artefact and the visual and imagistic communication is key.

In more recent years, RtD was recognised as a methodology to ‘integrate interaction design with technology and behavioural science in support of HCI21_{education and research’}

(Zimmerman et al., 2007, p.1) because ‘in the past decades, interaction design and other forms of design were growing their academic basis’ (Stappers and Giaccardi, 2017). The primary concern was the lack of understanding about how design research can contribute to

20_{Frayling uses a reference to the Scottish politician Stuart McDonald, which I assume is a wordplay derived}

from the word “suicidal”.

21_{HCI or Human-Computer Interaction is a field that emerged in the 1980s to denote and examine the problems}

that people had with using computer systems, deciphering instructions and recovering from errors. In this sense, it is closely related to humans’ psychological and cognitive abilities (Bannon, L. J. and Ehn, P., 2012).

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HCI research by adding the perspective of design thinking into this research field. According to Zimmerman et al., design thinking in RtD is ‘the application of a design process that involves grounding — investigation to gain multiple perspectives on a problem; ideation — generation of many possible different solutions; iteration — cyclical process of refining concept with increasing fidelity; and reflection’ (Zimmerman et al., 2007, p. 2). RtD equips designers with the ability to address so called “wicked problems” which are by definition not approachable using scientific or engineering modes of enquiry, by integrating true

knowledge (performing the upfront research for a design project) with how knowledge (the technical opportunities demonstrated by engineers)’ (Zimmerman et al., 2007).

The creation of design artefacts as an outcome of an RtD project enables us to envision a future preferred state as opposed to the current one. The design research which is done as part of RtD projects is different from the design research done in commercial settings to the extent that it produces ‘knowledge that others can use in other areas than the producer of the knowledge is working on’, rather than create a specific solution to be used in the real world (Stappers and Giaccardi, 2017). In other words, as Zimmerman et al. describe it, ‘design researchers focus on making the right things, while design practitioners focus on making the

commercially successful things’ (Zimmerman et al., 2007, p. 7). In an RtD context, the

artefact ‘creates the possibility for people and products to engage in interactions that were not possible before, and these can come into existence — indeed, become observable — through the design’ (Stappers and Giaccardi, 2017).

Stappers and Giaccardi, like Frayling, draw a distinction between research for design and research through design. In the former, the gathering of scientific and technological

information is crucial for the solution for which the design is made (doing research is part of doing design), in the latter, doing design is part of the research and the design activities facilitate the interaction between an artefact (prototype) and people. Zimmerman et al. propose a definition of RtD which is well-suited to explain the purpose of this master thesis: ‘a designerly enquiry focused on making of an artefact with the intended goal of societal change’ (which is referred to as ‘social design’ or ‘critical design’ elsewhere) (Zimmerman et al., 2010, p. 311). They define RtD as an opportunity for the research community ‘to focus on research of the future…allowing us to consider the ethics of what we design’ (Zimmerman et al., 2010, p. 310).

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3.2 Limitations of RtD

As the academic literature on RtD shows, there is still a level of uncertainty around various aspects of the methodology such as what structure should be followed in an RtD project, what type of knowledge is to be conceived, how it should be communicated and to whom, and how the knowledge contribution is to be applied to other fields of research.

Furthermore, RtD ‘is a term that is used primarily in academic work in the design

communities’ (Stappers & Giaccardi, 2017) but often its purpose is to drive social change and start a discussion about an issue outside of the academic realm. The distinction between research done in RtD and research as part of a “real-life design practice”, where the artefacts created as part of each of those processes serve very distinct purposes, only make it more difficult for RtD to actually be applied in real-life, in my opinion. I also don’t necessarily agree with the widespread notion in RtD that the created artefact (prototype) should be in an unfinished form and sometimes even purposely unusable in real life even though I do

understand why there is a need to differentiate a commercial product from an RtD artefact.

3.3 Speculative and critical design

As mentioned above, RtD is sometimes also referred to as speculative and critical design. The purpose of my master thesis and the topics of my research make the use of speculative and critical design an obvious method22_{to achieving the goals of the project. As Ivica}

Mitrovic of the University of Split, Croatia writes in her paper Speculative — Post-Design Practice or New Utopia (2016), speculative and critical design practice points to the 1960s and 1970s and the radical architecture and design movement whose purpose was to re-think the profession through a political and social prism. As much then as today, speculative and critical design revolts against the modernist technological progress and consumerist ideology. Mitrovic rightly points out that it remains yet to be seen whether this speculative practice will become ‘the new, post-design practice or yet another utopia and historical reference’ (Mitrovic, 2016, p. 12). My application of the speculative and critical design approach accompanies both my theoretical argumentation and the design artefacts that I created as an expression of my critique. It also enables me to share my untraditional view of the convergence between design, ethics and technology with a wider audience thus verifying my assumptions.

22_{Dunne and Raby prefer to describe speculative and critical design as a position that designers take on, rather}

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Speculative and critical design are popular methods when formulating critique towards social phenomena like the role of technology in everyday life. These terms, both within and outside of the academic space, are often used interchangeably, or unified in the abbreviation SCD, and sometimes referred to as design fiction. In actuality, the differences between them are very subtle and they serve one and the same purpose. As James Auger23_{notes, ‘they all}

remove the constraints from the commercial sector that define normative design processes; use models and prototypes at the heart of enquiry; and utilise fiction to present alternative products, systems or worlds’ (Auger, 2013, p. 1). Gert Pasman of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands describes design fiction as ‘a practice which applies design as an instrument to generate awareness, raise concerns or challenge values about (the use of) new, emerging and future technologies, products and services’ (Pasman, 2016, p. 512). Nevertheless, it seems that design fiction belongs more to the world of art, cinema and literature, and rather celebrates technology than questions it. A common tool in design fiction is film and video which depict ‘an idealized and utopian world, in which people interact fluently and effortless with large amounts of data through the use of interactive applications’ without reference to ‘any social meanings or implications that might distract’ (Pasman, 2016, p. 513).

Design fiction is often mentioned in line with the work of the science-fiction writer Bruce Sterling. His definition of the term is ‘the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change’ (Dunne and Raby, 2013, p. 100). But the focus of design fictions is narrower than what speculative and critical design (SCD) concentrates on. Design fiction deals with single objects rather than entire worlds, social and political trends. It is more of a technological storytelling with design objects and a reference to the already known than a construction of ‘glitchy, strange, disruptive’ (Dunne and Raby, 2013, p.100) socially oriented critiques of the present.

The term critical design was coined by the British designers and researchers at the Royal College of Art in London Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby in the 1990s as an opposition to affirmative design (mainstream design) — design that reinforces the status quo. In their book Speculative everything (2013), Dunne and Raby describe critical design as ‘an attitude that uses speculative design proposals to challenge narrow assumptions, preconceptions and givens about the role products play in everyday life’ (Dunne and Raby, 2013, p. 45).

Critical design is sometimes tarnished as mere complaining and negativism towards already established and accepted lifestyles or attitudes within the society. This is a mistaken

perception because critical design aims to make us think and question whether the already

23_{James Auger is an Associate Professor at the Madeira Institute of Interactive Technologies, Portugal. His uses}

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established is indeed the right/best way to go about something. It allows us to envision and demand better futures from industry, society and political spectrums. Critical design

provides constructive alternatives to how the present could be instead of raising critique for the sake of being critical. As Dunne and Raby maintain, critical design reveals critical thinking about design itself, but it is also ‘directed at the technology industry and its market-driven limitations, and beyond that, general theory, politics and ideology’ (Dunne and Raby, 2013, p. 46). The designer is the facilitator and catalyst of this type of conversations rather than a self-righteous moralist. He/she constructs a space where this conversation is possible and desired. Instead of preaching from a higher position and providing the answers, by means of critical design, designers encourage the audience to ask the questions, make the effort and think themselves. Critical design is idealistic, it shows that change is in the power of people; to quote Dunne and Raby, ‘sometimes we have more effect as citizens than as designers’ (Dunne and Raby, 2013, p. 37). It can be expressed in many ways, it borrows from other artistic disciplines like cinema, literature and music, but critical design is not art. Usually, the result is unsettling, sometimes bewildering and disturbing but unlike art, critical design needs to be closer to the everyday, ‘if it is too weird, it will be dismissed as art, if too normal, it will be effortlessly assimilated’ (Dunne and Raby, 2013, p. 54). As Dunne and Raby suggest, critical design doesn’t aim to replace mainstream design or provide a map, a solution. It is not a prediction but rather a compass which shows direction with many possible solutions.

Speculation is a key ingredient of critical design; this is why the terms critical and

speculative design are usually used conversely (or merged together, as I will do in the rest of this thesis). By creating prototypes (or provotypes as they are also referred to), designers provoke and encourage the audience to re-think the reality we live in and project either a future that is more desirable or one that we fear might become a reality (depict a dystopian future, as I will do in my application of SCD in this thesis). Dunne and Raby see speculative design as the bridge between the real and the imagined reality. We need this bridge because we normally think of speculation and fiction as something that doesn’t belong to the

everyday. By placing the actual and the fictional (speculative) reality in one room, we can envision them together which is essentially the first step towards conceiving a different and attainable social and political order. In this sense, speculative and critical design has the potential to exit the academic and the artistic fields and enter the mundane and ordinary which is where actual change can happen.

‘Further, SCD strives to encourage designer-user dialogue and public debate about

preferable societal development, among others with help of creative, narrative and aesthetic methods’….A main communicative feature in SD and CD can be connoted by the term ‘discourse’, which e.g. implies the goal to raise questions and encourage debate, not to provide answers or create solutions. The term ‘discourse’ refers to postmodernist Michel

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Foucault. Foucault discusses the relation between discourse, power and knowledge. A discourse displays ways of organising and producing knowledge, while language is a crucial mean of exerting power, for example by influencing what is true, acceptable and practical. Discourse power is executed by controlling communication, for example defining who is ill or healthy, what is legal or prohibited, what is a useful or inadequate product, etc.

(Johannessen et al., 2019, pp. 1624-1625). ‘Proposing a critical attitude of the designer has roots in design history. The ideas of William Morris, and the mid-19th century Arts and Crafts movement in Britain, were based on values challenging those of the contemporary industry (Raizman and King, 2003). Morris’s ethos refused capitalist and consumerist ideas, an ideal that later became an inspiration for the Weimar schools of craft and after that the Bauhaus. Tharp and Tharp describe anti-design and radical design, two avant-garde

postmodernist movements of the 1960s and 1970s, as predecessors of SCD (Johannessen et al., 2019, p. 1626).

Table 1. In their book Speculative everything, Dunne and Raby describe speculative design as the A/B manifesto. In the A column we find the principles behind mainstream design while the B column describes the principles that drive speculative design.

A B

Affirmative Critical

Problem solving Problem finding Provides answers Asks questions Design for production Design for debate Design as solution Design as medium In the service of industry In the service of society Fictional functions Functional fictions

For how the world is For how the world could be Change the world to suit us Change us to suit the world Science fiction Social fiction

Futures Parallel worlds The “real” real The “unreal” real

Narratives of production Narratives of consumption Applications Implications

Fun Humour

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A B

Concept design Conceptual design

Consumer Citizen

Makes us buy Makes us think

Ergonomics Rhetoric

User-friendliness Ethics

Process Authorship

3.4 Limitations of speculative and critical design

Undoubtedly, speculative and critical design is a constructive philosophy not only for designers but for other professionals, too. However, there are certain pitfalls to SCD which are worth pointing out. Although it does allow for the merging of the everyday with the imaginary and provides a space where public discourse on important topics can happen, there is the risk that what has been reflected on and considered within those spaces, remains there after the event (even though the purpose of the critiques/speculations is the exact opposite). I agree with Dunne and Raby that change starts with the individual, however, change on societal and political level doesn’t happen either individually or within a few hours/days. Already accepted behaviours are hard to alter.

Unfortunately, speculative and critical design, just like RtD, have not (yet) grown substantially outside of academia. The rigid distinction between speculative and critical design on the one hand, and mainstream design — whose purpose is to ‘make money for the industry and ‘solve problems for industry, address client’s needs, and conform existing cultural, economic and technical expectations of society’ (Johannessen et al, 2019, p. 1628) on the other hand, restricts the real impact SCD can successfully achieve.

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Table 2. Comparison between mainstream design and speculative and critical design (SCD), Tharp & Tharp, a contracted version of Dunne and Raby’s A/B manifesto.

MAINSTREAM DESIGN SPECULATIVE AND CRITICAL DESIGN

Attitude Normative Critical

Foundation Information Speculation

Mindset Pragmatic; Productive Idealistic; Dreaming

Purpose Commercial: Satisfy industry’s need

to make money

Discursive

Spur debate on the development of society

Goal Develop solutions: Provide answers by

solving problems

Explore ideas: Find problems by asking questions

Intent Serve a user: In seriousness provide

clarity

Provoke an audience: Use ambiguity to make satire

While I agree with Estelle Hary and Bastien Kerspern that ‘reaching for clients with a design fiction or speculative design posture sounds a bit paradoxical’ (Mitrovic, 2016, p. 77), we need to move this conversation from academic research to the business realm if we are to achieve real change. Critical attitude naturally begins within academia and it is education’s privilege to support and stimulate critical perspectives strongly enough in design students so that they continue to apply them in their practice after they graduate. Still, bringing up what is plausible, probable, desirable or dystopian shouldn’t be a single, occasional event but a position/mindset that is interwoven in the whole practice of designers. We need to find the balance between making speculative design too mainstream to the point when it has become just a label for something else (the so-called innovation trap24_{), and the unfolding of its}

power to truly change the status quo. Speculative design has also sometimes been chastised for its ‘Eurocentrism’, in other words criticising from a privileged Western position.

‘Critical designers at the Royal College of Art for instance, imagine what they believe to be dystopian scenarios in a distant future, when in fact people in other parts of the world are already living versions of those lifestyles’ (Cameron Tonkinwise in Mitrovic, 2016, p. 24). ‘SCD seemingly has many norms of its own, and most topics revolve around the

‘domestication of technology’ and can be classified as ‘white man’s’ problems’ (Pierce in Johannessen et al, 2019, p. 1630).

24_{Matt Ward, Head of the Design Department at Goldsmiths, University of London talks about the hype around}

technology and how it disrupts markets. In this process, “visionaries”, people who can imagine the unimagined are crucial for businesses and investors which might make speculative design attractive in this space. However, as Ward points out, ‘the big worry is that critical and speculative design become the advertising arm of venture capital’ (Mitrovic, 2016, p. 20).

A critical review of the intersection between design, ethics and technology : the social importance of designers and how ethics can truly be promoted through design