EAGER: Values in Design in the Future Internet Architecture

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This EAGER project contributes to a longstanding goal of factoring societal values into the design and creation of information technologies. It offers a novel model for fostering collaboration between experts in social analysis and in science and engineering. The model is being honed and tested in the context of large Future Internet Architecture (FIA) projects. These projects are ideal test beds because, like the existing Internet, they must aspire not only to meet criteria of technical excellence but to meet societal expectations for the future to promote and embody values such as innovation, productivity, security, human development, openness, broad and equitable access, accountability, privacy, and more. This EAGER model is intended not to replace existing cross-disciplinary collaborative models but to supplement them. Intellectual Merit: From an assembled multi-disciplinary team of 10-15 experts in social analysis of IT and digital media, sub-groups of approximately 3-4 will participate in FIA-PI meetings. At these meetings, team members serve as analysts and consultants. They will help to identify junctures of values-critical technical decision-making, locate design features that differentially call values into play, articulate rich conceptual understandings of relevant values, operationalize values for implementation, consider implications for law and policy, and where possible, to design verification strategies. All of the above, constitute components of a general family of approaches known as Values-in-Design (VID). Broader Impacts: The model holds distinctive promise because it facilitates repeated exposure to complex technical systems-under-development to a rotating cross-section of experts in social analysis. These activities constitute an opportunity rarely, if ever, provided in discipline-oriented institutions. As such, it facilitates more effective matching of expertise and interest with particular problems, at particular phases of design. In the longer term, the goal is to engender ongoing collaborations and, ultimately, systems and mechanisms that reflect and are deeply responsive to societal values.