Paper short abstract:

Technologies materialise arguments for certain forms of life over others. STS scholars are suited to clarify what is at stake in their design and deployment. Rhetorical design analysis in STS, unbound from purely technical expertise, can help produce more democratic modes of critical transparency.

Paper long abstract:

I work with the assumption that all designed objects communicate a rhetorical argument for certain modes of doing, behaving, thinking and feeling in the world. This is simply by virtue of the fact that something has been designed this way, rather than that. As such, those involved in the design of technologies must be cognizant of the types of arguments they are materialising. As these arguments are unavoidable, clarification is key. STS scholars can help articulate the parameters of these arguments, explicate blind spots, and envision alternatives - during the design process, or after public release. This is a form of critical ethical transparency beyond purely technical transparency.

I have recently been working with Foucault’s ethical writings to (re)consider the subject positions we assume when we enter into rhetorical dialogue with technologies. How is this technology materialising its ideal user? What is it asking of us? How does this limit conduct? And at the expense of what? These critical ethical questions exist on the ontological terrain of the individual, rather than in technical expertise or in philosophical a prioris. Here, ethical evaluation becomes democratically constituted, offering a chance to refuse the potentially homogenising and hegemonic impacts of ‘ethical’ technological interventions imagined by corporate, capitalist, state, and other powerful actors today.

I am a Lecturer in Data, AI and Society in the Information School, University of Sheffield. I research the ethical design and deployment of digital technologies, specialising in sociotechnical theory, power, digital well-being, and the philosophy of interdisciplinary collaborations.