Playground Meeting 26th September: the ethics of drone design

Please register so we can order your free vegetarian lunch!

Programme

• Short introduction Design for values
• Design for values in robotics 
• The ethics of drone design 
• Discussion on the ethics/design principles of drones
• Q&A

About Dylan Cawthorne and his book on the ethics of drone design

Dylan Cawthorne is an Associate Professor at the Drone Center at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. His goal is to make the world a better place using ethics, technology, art, and craft. He sees himself as a champion for the use of ethics and human values in engineering, and as an activist engineer. His main area of research is using value sensitive design methods and ethical principles to design and build prototype drones – as documented in his PhD thesis and forthcoming book. These drones are used in humanitarian and public healthcare contexts in Denmark, Africa, and beyond. He is interested in utilizing art, craft, and creativity to enhance engineering – and engineering to inform art. A common theme in his work is the support of de-centralized technologies and democratic, grassroots organizations and methods. In 2021, he won the Inspiration Prize from his university for his work with the United Nations Sustainable Development goals. You can read more about his background here.

This book presents a holistic approach to the design and use of drones. It argues that this powerful technology requires high levels of ethical analysis and responsibility—our moral progress must keep pace with our technological progress. Drone technologies support and diminish the flourishing of certain human values, impact power relations between individuals and groups, and add an additional element to the complex network of humans and objects in modern society. The book begins by introducing four prototype drones designed and built by the author: the healthcare drone, the search and rescue drone, the mapping drone, and the spiritual drone. After presenting the technological aspects of each drone, the author considers their social contexts and ethical aspects. What is the use plan of each drone? Where will it operate? Will it support the flourishing of humans and of nature? Should this drone be built? The next part of the book showcases several methods used to develop the prototype drones from the fields of engineering, ethics, and art: value sensitive design, ethical frameworks, capability caution, and speculative design. These methods reveal a more subtle and nuanced view of drones than the currently polarized characterization of “the good drone” or “the killer drone”. The book concludes with specific recommendations for drone engineers, companies, lawmakers, and citizens.

About the Robotics Institute

The TU Delft Robotics Institute unites all Delft University of Technology’s research in the field of robotics. Its main challenge is to get robots and humans to work together effectively in unstructured environments, and real settings.

Within the institute both the ‘hard’ robot disciplines (mechatronics, embedded systems, control and Artificial Intelligence) and the ‘soft’ robot sciences (human-machine interaction, user interaction, architecture, ethics, security and design) have a prominent presence. By joining forces, and aligning research, education and valorisation, TU Delft Robotics Institute takes a leading role in the creation of the next generation robots.