SW News: Don't build the future poorly, says a new ethics handbook for big business and the tech sector that was released in partnership with the Vatican's culture and education department.

Technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and digital surveillance, according to the 140-page manual "Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies: An Operational Roadmap," has implications for the entire human society. This means that the tech sector and big businesses cannot overlook ethical considerations when developing their projects, goods, and services.

The manual was released by the Jesuit-affiliated Institute for Technology, Ethics, and Culture (ITEC) at Santa Clara University in California. Bishop Paul Tighe, the secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education and an Irishman, has written an introduction.

The handbook’s co-authors are Brian Patrick Green, director of Technology Ethics at the Markkula Center; José Roger Flahaux, former technology executive; and Ann Gregg Skeet, senior director of leadership ethics at the Markkula Center.
"The Vatican's involvement with this project may surprise some, but it is ultimately the result of meetings — 'encounters,' to use one of Pope Francis' favorite words — between the Vatican and the technological world," Bishop Tighe wrote in the manual.

The Vatican organization known as Tighe's Dicastery is in charge of creating human values within a Christian framework in order to advance Christian discipleship.  The handbook, according to him, is the product of "a desire to foster an inclusive discourse between the technology sector and the broader human population, whose future will be affected by decisions made by individuals who are managing innovation in so many ways. Participants in this discourse must be of all ethnicities, cultures, religious backgrounds, and none at all.

The manual is designed for corporate organizations. On technological challenges including artificial intelligence, machine learning, encryption, security, data privacy, and digital surveillance, it makes specific recommendations. Additionally, it offers a practical road map to guarantee that new technologies are adopted in accordance with moral standards.

The Institute for Technology, Ethics, and Culture, a brand-new project of the Markkula Centre for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, has just released its first book, the ethics handbook. The Vatican's Dicastery for Culture and Education helped to create the institute itself. ITEC brings together leaders from industry, civil society, academia, government, and religious traditions in order to foster deeper reflection on how technology affects mankind, Santa Clara University said in a statement on June 28.