The Ethical Balance of using Smart Information

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are internationally agreed goals that allow us 15 to determine what humanity, as represented by 193 member states, finds acceptable and desirable. 16 The paper explores how technology can be used to address the SDGs, and in particular Smart 17 Information Systems (SIS). SIS, the technologies that build on big data analytics, typically facilitated 18 by AI techniques such as machine learning [1], are expected to grow in importance and impact. 19 Some of these impacts are likely to be beneficial, notably the growth in efficiency and profits, which 20 will contribute to societal wellbeing. At the same time there are significant ethical concerns about 21 the consequences of algorithmic biases, job loss, power asymmetries, and surveillance, as a result of 22 SIS use. SIS have the potential to exacerbate inequality and further entrench the market dominance 23 of big tech companies, if left uncontrolled. Measuring the impact of SIS on SDGs thus provides a 24 way of assessing whether an SIS or an application of such a technology is acceptable in terms of 25 balancing foreseeable benefits and harms. One possible approach is to use the SDGs as guidelines 26 to determine the ethical nature of SIS implementation. While the idea of using SDGs as a yardstick 27 to measure the acceptability of emerging technologies is conceptually strong, there should be 28 empirical evidence to support such approaches. The paper describes the findings of a set of 10 case 29 studies of SIS across a broad range of application areas, such as smart cities, agriculture, finance, 30 insurance and logistics, explicitly focusing on ethical issues that SIS commonly raise and empirical 31 insights from organisations using these technologies. 32