AnticipatoryLedgers · Anticipatory design and ethical framework for Distributed Ledger Technologies (blockchain or DAG) and applications (smart contracts, IoTs and supply chain)
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2018-09-01 → 2020-08-31
- EU contribution
- €170,122
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Anticipatory design and ethical framework for Distributed Ledger Technologies (blockchain or DAG) and applications (smart contracts, IoTs and supply chain)
AnticipatoryLedgers had an explicit goal of connecting design with ethical deliberation and policy negotiation to respond to the challenges of algorithmic governance and pervasive automation enabled by distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) and their convergences with ML, AI, IoTs. The main challenge was to mitigate the erosion of social agency and public engagement in algorithmic futures by defining and testing an anticipatory framework (later described as an “exploratory sandbox”) for connecting the work on policy and governance with the work on the code and automation. We used a unique combination of participatory design methods with emphasis on public engagement that was inspired by citizen science projects to research the use of prototypes in policy (governance-by-design ideas). The work on the prototypes of smart contracts helped us critically evaluate the possibility of anticipatory governance of emerging and disruptive algorithmic infrastructure. The project involved participants as stakeholders through role-playing and simulation to co-design and provide feedback on the code but also regulation of future blockchain services and infrastructure. Through prototyping workshops and stakeholder panels we documented the process and later defined the framework as an “exploratory sandbox”. While the 2019 workshops provided feedback from the participants that served to improve the sandbox, the final 2020 workshops provided structured data from the participants on issues of regulating algorithmic services that we visualized. The exploratory sandbox proved to be a useful model for engaging citizens in the early development of algorithmic services that will influence the governance of their communities. It helped us identify and anticipate the potential threats and issues for further policy assessment and design considerations. The project fully achieved its objectives and milestones for the period. It delivered the Ethics Approval and Data Management Plans in 2018 - 2019 and also achieved the two main research goals of creating a framework and defining scenario of emerging blockchain futures that supports anticipatory governance in 2019 – 2020.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The proposed research analyzes the current “blockchain paradox,” also described as a “governance crisis” in the emerging DLTs (Distributed Ledger Technologies), as a challenge of connecting prototyping practices with policy analysis and ethical deliberation, which is also an important goal for the STS (Science, Technology and Society studies) scholarship reflecting emerging technologies. The research will contribute to the fields of Design methods, STS scholarship and DLTs development by offering a method for involving stakeholders in the DLT design, which combines prototyping, reflection and stakeholder panels. In this attempt to integrate technology, ethics and governance we plan to identify and categorize the assumptions behind various coins and DLTs’ protocols and reflect upon their connections to current social and political realities. The objective is to create, test and evaluate an experimental framework described as “anticipatory design” of DLTs applications, which involves the public and various stakeholders directly in the design process rather than only the adoption and implementation of “smart contracts”. This experimental, design and policy driven research will and focus on private health/body data, but also sensor data related to the environment as “oracles” and “escrows” in the smart contracts over Ethereum and IOTA platforms. With anticipatory design of “smart contracts” we will evaluate the neglected issues of DLTs governance (accountability, shared responsibility, division of powers or solidarity), but also ethical principles (deontological versus utilitarian rules and laws) and future scenarios and use cases (smart contracts with AI, smart contracts for wearables or IoTs with a focus on environmental sensors).
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA · SalamancaCoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union