Humanitarian expertise for new technologies
The importance of the socio-humanitarian component in the development of technology is growing. This is what the Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov drew attention to at the congress of young scientists, which is taking place in Sochi: “Technologies are increasingly affecting a person, changing his place in society and the relationship between people. When we talk about technology, we often mean natural science or technical knowledge and to a lesser extent think about the socio-humanitarian component, which is becoming increasingly important today. For example, when implementing the Federal Scientific and Technical Program for the Development of Genetic Technologies, we face questions not only of genomic editing, selection, and so on, but also questions of ethics, morality and legal regulation, ”the head of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science emphasized. Scientists BSTU named after V.G. Shukhov are already working on this problem.
Among the projects we have announced for the Priority 2030 program is the Center for the Humanitarian Expertise of Technological Projects (Using Artificial Intelligence Systems). Its leader is Vladislav Sheleketa, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of the Department of Theory and Methodology of Science, works side by side with "techies", and therefore perfectly understands that, while promoting progress, one must not forget about the socio-cultural significance of its influence on society. In modern society, the project developers believe, more and more place is taken by digitalization and the development of artificial intelligence. But, the introduction of any innovations occurs without expert assessment, without taking into account how the introduction of the next know-how will affect each specific person. Therefore, the goal set by the authors is designated as carrying out a qualitative and quantitative assessment of technological projects through the developed system of qualimetry for assessing humanitarian risks from the introduction of technologies into the human environment, including using artificial intelligence systems. By the way, in Russia this area is innovative - there is not a single such center in the Russian Federation at the moment. To discuss the tasks of the project at the beginning of 2022 at BSTU im. V.G. Shukhov, a round table is planned with the invitation of the partners of our project (and this is the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Lomonosov Moscow State University, the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities and Technologies of the Samara State Technical University, etc.), as well as experts in this field and media representatives.
The round table will be devoted to the problems and prospects of the humanitarian expertise of technologies with the participation of scientists from Russian universities, scientists from the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as representatives of the authorities and the clergy. The participants of the small scientific symposium will discuss the concept of humanitarian and ethical examination of technological projects, including those related to the digitalization of society and humans, as well as problems of the conceptual basis and criteria for assessing technologies and various options for mechanisms of humanitarian expertise. The main outcome of the meeting may be the creation of the Center for the Humanitarian Expertise of Technological Projects on the basis of the BSTU named after V.G. Shukhov.
To prepare for this, the participants will create a working platform where humanities scientists from universities and institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, scientists from technical departments and departments of theory and methodology of science, as well as public and scientific organizations will interact. They will have to develop possible models of humanitarian and socio-economic expertise of technologies.