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- Convenors:
-
Neil Stephens
(University of Birmingham)
Samantha Vanderslott (University of Oxford)
Apolline Taillandier (University of Cambridge)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the intersection of philanthropy and technoscience, with a particular interest in transformations within philanthropy (e.g. philanthrocapitalism or Effective Altruism), the coproduction of philanthropy and technoscience, and philanthropy as technoscience.
Long Abstract:
Philanthropy, science, and technology have long been tightly entwined. Recently however, ‘new’ philanthropic movements such as Effective Altruism have made headlines, through the recent disgrace of ‘crypto-king’ Sam Bankman-Fried, and the relationship between ChatGPT creator Open AI and Effective Altruism, revealing tight connections between the tech sector and new forms of philanthropy. While there is a wide philosophical literature criticising the utilitarian, anti-democratic or imperialist dimensions of efficient philanthropy, how outcomes-oriented and evidence-based philanthropy work in practice have been little analysed. In this panel we want to study the interactions between philanthropy and technoscience, asking how philanthropy makes technoscience to do good, and to do good in a more effective way. We are open to contributions in STS and other areas of social sciences and employing a variety of methods (historical, ethnographic etc). We would be especially interested in receiving proposals on issues related (but not limited) to:
- The coproduction of philanthropy and technoscience
How do philanthropic actors, and philanthropic practice produce technoscience when determining moral problems, urgencies and priorities, and devising ways of doing good efficiently? How are claims about who should give, how much, to which cause are shaped by, and contribute to producing technoscientific imaginaries, and how do these in turn reshape philanthropic imaginaries of the good society?
- Philanthropy as technoscience
How does philanthropy make claims of expertise in technical fields (such as economics, ethics, finance), and metric work (ranking, categorisation, impact measurement)? How does it reshape whole fields of technoscience as a means of increasing the moral or economic value of philanthropic action as a way of intervening in, and remaking the world?
We welcome papers on all these topics, and transformation in philanthropy and technoscience more broadly.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Rianne Riemens (Radboud University)
Short abstract:
This paper analyzes the “tech-for-good” discourse of Silicon Valley billionaires and their foundations. They present an optimistic perspective on the role of Silicon Valley in the climate crisis, overstating the potential of technofixes and understating the economic and political interests at stake.
Long abstract:
Tech moguls Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates use their not-for-profit organizations to present themselves as wealthy individuals that want to “do good”. Increasingly, these funds - the Bezos Earth Fund, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation - have been focused on the climate crisis. In the light of the conflation of climate politics, philanthropy and corporate interest that these funds represent, I ask: how do the funds and the individuals behind them claim to play a role in the climate crisis? What political message and vision on a better world can be found in their plans?
The aim of the paper is to develop a closer understanding of the worldview expressed by green tech philanthropy and of the personas of tech moguls through a close visual and textual analysis of tech-for-good discourse (websites and press conferences). I forward a critique of Silicon Valley’s climate ideology as it takes shape in the form of CEO activism. What is being sold, I argue, is a vision of these philanthropists as political advisors, ethical business partners and environmental crusaders, as well as a technocratic approach to climate crisis solutions. Finally, I relate these philanthropical practices to (new) ideological movements such as longtermism, effective altruism and effective accelerationism. The future visions that are materializing in Silicon Valley present, I argue, a limited, "ecomodernist" understanding of the climate crisis, overstating the potential of and need for technofixes, while imagining green energy sources as immaterial and inexhaustible.
Albert van Wijngaarden (Cambridge University)
Short abstract:
Many geoengineering projects that explore the possibility to mitigate the effects and/or causes of climate change by intervening in the climate system rely on venture capital and philanthropy. In this paper I will explore the ethical issues that arise from this for various kinds of proposed ideas.
Long abstract:
Many geo-/climate engineering ideas to mitigate the effects and/or causes of climate change by intervening in the climate system have become somewhat normalised and are now seriously considered as part of global mitigation strategies. This is especially the case for projects that seek to drawdown and store atmospheric carbon, but also for previously highly controversial schemes to reflect solar radiation. Although many such research projects are still in a theoretical phase and reliant on modelling work, some have started with expensive outdoor experiments or are already even in trial phases. Apart from some institutional and governmental support for more accepted ideas, most of the funding for the development of these projects is derived from philanthropy and venture capital. In this paper I will explore some of the ethical issues that arise from this investment. In this, I will differentiate between Solar Radiation Management and Carbon Sequestration ideas, arguing that philanthropy in the former is far more problematic than in the latter. Ultimately, my analysis comes to the conclusion that the meta-category of geoengineering has become not just incomplete or lacking (as many others have argued) but also highly problematic when looking at issues like funding. For, by treating for-profit enterprises and non-profits that work on ideas that could be considered as for the global good as belonging to the same group, we not just risk commercialising the climate, but also to give philanthropists a potential new Anthropocene role as governors of Earth's climate.
Marc Mölders (Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz)
Short abstract:
Philanthrocapitalist organizations might believe in technical superiority, but not in automatic implementation. Using examples of philanthropic geoengineering projects, the thesis is pursued that even supposedly clear cases of technosolutionism are flanked by elaborate non-technical persuasion work.
Long abstract:
Philanthrocapitalist organizations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Omidyar Network or Arnold Ventures, are indeed trying to solve major social problems with technology. However, branding them as "solutionist" easily overlooks the fact that the bulk of their persuasive work does not rely on functioning technology alone. These organizations may believe in the superiority of technical solutions, but not in their automatic implementation. This can be seen empirically in a variety of lobbying activities, but also in efforts to convince potential users of the advantages of philanthrocapitalist solutions in practical trainings. The Degrees Initiative funded by Open Philanthropy is a particularly instructive case in point. It is committed to further research into the geoengineering variant "Solar Radiation Management" (SRM). This example will be used to elaborate the thesis that technosolutionism gains its real power through its non-technical persuasion. Geoengineering has now made it onto the IPCC agenda. The Degrees Initiative is developing projects in countries of the Global South in order to research possible consequences there. Only recently, this organization launched "Grants for social science research on solar radiation modification", which are intended to address "numerous and diverse social and political challenges". Such projects face a wide range of resistance in a differentiated society. Of course, the enormous sums of money involved in this type of philanthropy do help. Nevertheless, according to the thesis, it is not a simple conversion of money into influence, but a planned, but also laborious organization.
Maya Indira Ganesh (University of Cambridge)
Short abstract:
This presentation articulates the epistemic connections between the Moral Machine project and My Goodness, two projects from MIT Media Lab that advanced utilitarian approaches to ethical decision-making in statistical and data-driven systems in AI applications.
Long abstract:
How should an autonomous vehicle be programmed to make decisions in the case of a crash that potentially jeopardises multiple human lives? Can these human lives be considered equally worthy of saving? These questions have animated a briefly popular academic and industrial field of inquiry, the ethics of autonomous driving. A similar set of questions animates a conundrum thought to be associated with philanthropic giving: which set of human lives are worth more in saving from disease, deprivation, and disaster? Both share a similar foundational concern: what is the most efficient, effective data-driven measure by which the answer –the more valuable human life - might be arrived at? They also share another connection; Moral Machine and My Goodness are two projects from MIT Media Lab’s now-disbanded Scalable Cooperation Group marrying utilitarian approaches to ethics with data-scientific approaches to autonomous driving and philanthropic giving respectively. This paper maps the shared political, epistemic, material, and discursive transformations of ethics and morality into matters for data-scientific ‘reason’; and how gamification is a key epistemic modality in resolving ethical conflict. Eventually, ‘the ethical’ as a matter of friction and complexity in interior and collective struggle is fast disappearing as AI picks up pace.