Ben Waber reviewed The Ethics of Invention by Sheila Jasanoff
Thought-Provoking but Uneven
3 stars
The meat of this book are chapters 1, 8, and 9, which investigate the inherent politics of technology, its socio-technical nature, and approaches to grapple with those challenges through different engagement and governance techniques. Jasanoff skews strangely techno-utopian at the end, and her exhortation that ethical concerns should consider every conceivable future scenario, no matter how far off or ungrounded, seems indefensible. The other chapters are essentially run throughs of different classes of technology and possible ethical issues, although they aren't systematically investigated and have little connective tissue.
