Ethics and pervasive ICT: panel

In this panel, 6 of 13 contributors to a recent book on ethics and pervasive information and communication technologies, or PICT [1], will make short presentations on their areas of expertise. About half of the panel's time will be reserved for open discussion. Pervasive ICT is similar to ubiquitous computing (or ubicomp), pervasive computing, everyware, and ambient intelligence (AmI); it includes many different concrete artifacts, including tabs, pads, and boards [2]; dust, skin, and clay[3]; and, of course, smartphones. Three characteristics distinguish PICT: • It is, or could be, anywhere and everywhere -- buildings, billboards, floors, restrooms, purses, pockets, coffee makers, pacemakers, eyeglasses, and the kitchen sink. • It detects, collects, organizes, acts upon, and transmits information, often wirelessly on the Internet. • Its presence and operation is often undetected by casual users, whether hidden physically (e.g., computer chips embedded in automobiles) or functionally. Functional invisibility occurs when a function of use of the technology is not announced (e.g., tracking online behavior), announced in a cryptic fashion (as in most terms of use), or becomes ambient through a process of familiarization, such as when smartphones become as ordinary as wallets and Facebook becomes a way of life. Ethical challenges posed by PICT are new and emerging, as are the technologies themselves. The book and this panel are exercises in anticipatory ethics -- "ethical analysis aimed at influencing the development of new technologies" [4]. The panel will be organized as follows: 1. Introduction to the panel--Pimple 2. "Gaps and Lags: Ethics and Regulation of eHealth"--Seelman 3. "Vulnerable and Marginalized Populations and PICT"--Jones 4. "The Sum is Greater Than Its Parts: Emergent Failure Modes in Interconnected Automated Systems"--Searing 5. "Values Levers: Practices That Encourage Ethics in Design"--Shilton 6. "PICT and Responsibility: Theory and Practice"--Miller 7. "Principled Pervasive ICT"--Pimple 8. Open discussion