Norberto Patrignani

Polytechnic University of Turin | polito · Scuola di Dottorato (Graduate School)

This chapter reflects on technology and its relationship with time and human limits, including whether there are any limits in cyberspace. ICT is now developing very fast. It is modifying both human beings’ ways of doing things as well as who they are as people. Similarly, how human beings perceive time has also recently been changing rapidly. Peop...

This chapter looks back in history as well as forward, in terms of where computing is heading. The chapter concentrates on the co-shaping of society and technology. To portray this co-shaping clearly, there is an exploration of the history of computing from its early days, throughout the Second World War, to three distinct periods: host computing,...

This chapter investigates how information sharing and transmission have modified substantially notions of both space and time. Today, people are experiencing a sense of rapid expansion in information availability and use: their capacity to cope with this growth and the processing of data is often challenging for them. The urgency, importance, and t...

The book comes to a close with a final chapter. This chapter takes a stance on the planetary and human limits to computing. It takes a look back over the historical developments in technology in general as it has helped to support human life, with an emphasis on the ideas of energy researcher and environmentalist, Daniel Spreng. In historical terms...

This chapter introduces the four people whom the authors consider as foundational to their thinking—they call them pneumatophores. It is a recognition of the main thinkers and doers who have inspired this volume: Carlo Petrini, the founder of the Slow Food movement; Alexander Langer, the challenger of the Olympic motto with its focus on higher, fas...

This chapter describes Slow Tech ideas that are directed mainly towards young engineers: it investigates what are some of the main influences on the professionals who are developing information technology. It is a chapter that can be of special support to industrialists and people working in the commercial sector. Today’s greater awareness of compl...

In this chapter, the focus is on perspectives about the time needed for change. Five case studies concentrate on human limits, historical developments, speed, and time. For example, the Lotka-Volterra model which examines the relationship between prey and predators indicates just how long-term phases and developments can be. A longer-term view high...

This chapter is the real core of the book. It describes the main characteristics of Slow Tech, a good, clean, and fair ICT—a responsible, sustainable, and ethical approach to ICT. Slow Tech is proposed as a compass for new directions in technology design and use and is inspired by three fields—a reversal of the values implicit in the Olympic motto,...

This book chapter reflects the content of one of the 2017 IFIP summer school’s workshops. This workshop’s focus was chiefly around whether one should forget about privacy as a basic human right. The workshop was co-led by members of the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP)’s working group on social accountability and computing....

In developing a semi-automated decision support system using cutting-edge visual technologies to aid police intelligence analysts (the VALCRI project) it was recognised that addressing ethical, privacy and legal issues would need to be considered from the start. From the beginning, experts in these fields were embedded in the project and externally...

There is a widespread perception that our business and innovation models must change to be better aligned with societal expectations and pressures on our planet’s resources and resilience. This perception has increased since the 2008 financial crisis, as has an awareness that traditional models of business success, based only on financial and regul...

In Part 2 published in the January 2018 issue of IEEE Technology Policy and Ethics, the authors provided additional insight into the importance of the Slow Tech Journey and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and shared a case study of Apple's C SR policies and practices based on a review of a variety of artifacts gleaned from several sources. T...

This book makes an important contribution to the recent evolution in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that are human-centred and socially desirable, environmentally sustainable, and ethically acceptable. It introduces the concept of moral, equitable and environmental limits in the ICT domain and proposes a Slow Tech approach to face...

This paper addresses the challenges of designing sustainable Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems. The complexity of ICT systems, the number of stakeholders involved (technology providers, policy makers, users, etc.), and the extension and global scale of ICT supply chain are the main challenges at the core of the complex relation...

Part 3: Privacy in the Era of the Smart Revolution

In Part 1 of this article published in the November 2017 issue of IEEE Technology Policy and Ethics, the authors provided a background to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethics in the information, communications and technology (ICT) industry along with a description of the Slow Tech journey and the importance of educating students in good...

There is a need for action research in secondary and higher-education curriculum to focus and expand on the Slow Tech journey for Good, Clean and Fair technology business practices. These practices support our environmental and societal need for greater corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the development of information and computer technology...

This paper presents a consensus view on Responsible Innovation by a group of industry practitioners, each with high level management experience in driving innovation from within industrial companies operating in different sectors. The authors argue that, while a substantial body of academic research on Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI) of pot...

This paper addresses the challenges of teaching computer ethics to engineers. The computer professionals are identified as the starting point of the stakeholders network of ICT and as a consequence it is underlined the importance of computer ethics courses for engineers. To this purpose, a simple four-steps methodology is proposed for teaching comp...

This paper proposes a reflection on cloud computing among users, organizations, policy makers, and providers. In particular the focus is on the social and ethical implications for organizations developing a strategy for cloud computing. Also the new roles and responsibilities of the CIOs are analyzed within the complexity of the stakeholders' netwo...

Celebrating achievements is an important social ritual. Tracks and themes at conferences such as ETHICOMP 2015 provide opportunities for the careful discussion of challenges facing society in terms of information and communication technology (ICT). This topic provides the underpinning rationale to the body of papers presented throughout the entire...

Purpose – This discussion paper focuses on a notion of information and communication technology (ICT) that is good, clean and fair that the authors call Slow Tech. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the Slow Tech approach in order to explain how to create a suitable bridge between business ethics and computer ethics. Design/methodology/appr...

This paper studies the impact of the information and communication technologies (ICT) used by organizations in their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy. In particular, it analyses the impact of the most recent technological development, Cloud Computing, on the corporate users that adopt this service. What key issues need to be addressed...

The article introduces the term Slow Tech (a good, clean, and fair ICT) in the context of the historical evolution of Computer Ethics. Whilst Computer Ethics scholars concentrated on the consequences of the use and deployment of ICT into society, the Slow Tech approach proposes the introduction of a new design paradigm of the technologies themselve...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how Slow Tech can support the celebration of the 20-year series of ETHICOMP conferences, with its ethical and societal focus, building on earlier descriptions of Slow Tech. The paper takes Slow Tech’s ideas a step further to explore how a roadmap and concrete checklist of activities can be developed...

Cet article entend analyser l’impact des outils informatiques utilisés par les organisations sur leur stratégie de responsabilité sociétale (RSE), notamment de la technologie informatique la plus récente que constitue le Cloud computing, du point de vue des utilisateurs, à savoir des entreprises qui se servent de l’informatique en tant que service....

Purpose – This paper aims to provide an overview of clean information and communication technology (ICT), including a brief review of recent developments in the field and a lengthy set of possible reading matter. The need to rethink the impact of ICTs on people’s lives and the survival of the planet is beginning to be addressed by a Slow Tech appro...

This paper addresses the difficult task of implementing the concept of Slow Tech, that is, information and communication technology (ICT) that is good, clean and fair, in a business environment. It investigates the democratic, environmental, and social challenges currently facing ICT vendors. More specifically, it examines the opportunities availab...

This chapter examines briefly the notions of time and speed. It introduces the notion of Slow Tech: information technology that is good, clean and fair, and places an especial emphasis on technology that is clean. This chapter does not delve deep into the Slow Tech concept. Rather, it highlights a set of arguments about why speed is not always impo...

This handbook will help practitioners and policy makers to identify effective tools, practices and policies that aid them in establishing fertile grounds for cleantech start-ups and sustainable business creation, to foster a more sustainable society and regional economic growth. Primary best practice examples have been identified in more than thirt...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the term Slow Tech as a way of describing information and communication technology (ICT) that is good, clean and fair. These are technologies that are human centred, environmentally sustainable and socially desirable. Design/methodology/approach – The paper's approach is based on a qualitative di...

A clear definition of the new role and responsibilities of computer professionals in the Information Society is due to Lessig. With his model based on four poles for the governance of complex systems, and in particular with his dazzling 'code is law,' he made a fundamental contribution to the recognition of the basic role of computer experts in des...

The process will be open and inclusive and will involve the entire Italian community of ICT stakeholders through the network of contacts of AICA. The event in Torino on November 2013 can also be seen as the first event dedicated to this goal and the starting point of this process. It is also interesting to note that, independently, at continental l...

Digital revolution is taking us into the Information Society so quickly that the entire Information and Communication Technology (ICT) world has no time to reflect on new social and ethical issues. In particular this dramatic change put computer professionals in a position full of opportunities but also with new responsibilities. Computer professio...

The more integrated technology becomes in our everyday lives and businesses, the more vital it grows that its applications are utilized in an ethical and appropriate way. Ethical Governance of Emerging Technologies Development combines multiple perspectives on ethical backgrounds, theories, and management approaches when implementing new technologi...

With an increasing focus on the inclusion of considering the ethical and social impact of technology developments resulting from research in the European Union, and elsewhere, comes a need for a more effective process in technology development. Current ethics governance processes do not go far enough in enabling these considerations to be embedded...

Based on an analysis of the current literature on nanoethics, this paper proposes to identify three different models for ethical governance of nanotechnology, respectively called 'conservative model', 'inquiry model' and 'interpretative model'. The propositions of the EGAIS1 Research Project in terms of ethical governance of nanotechnology are rela...

In this paper we introduce a definition of post-Turing ICT with an initial analysis of its sustainability. At the beginning of the history of computing the attention was concentrated on the single machine: a device able to read and write a memory and able to execute different actions depending on the internal state. It was only in the 1960’s that t...

This chapter provides the introduction to this 2011 issue of the Politeia journal dedicated to the relationship between sustainability and information and communication technologies (ICT) in the long term. It outlines the content of six papers and examines their similarities and trends. Its main themes are built around how social accountability for...

L'iniziativa promossa dall'Associazione Dschola, dal progetto Arduino con la collaborazione dell'Associazione Docabout e e di CSP-Innovazione nelle ICT, ha l'obiettivo di divulgare un uso consapevole ed etico dell'informatica e dell'elettronica attraverso l'introduzione sperimentale della piattaforma Arduino nelle scuole piemontesi. Il documento de...

One of the main problems of a contemporary ethics of technology and of the institutional structures of democratic governance enabling it to be implemented is the lack of an adequate ethics of collective action. More precisely there is a need for a ethics of co-responsibility - as opposed to an ethics of the individual role responsibility - in the f...