When we first invented the car, its adoption was slow and we had plenty of time to figure out what rules of the road would be necessary. A century later, we invented the self-driving car and we can’t fully bring it to market because the rules aren’t in place.
We’ve entered an era when technology moves faster than our ability to create rules around it. I doubt we will ever go back to a slower pace, at least not in our lifetime. So what shall we do?
One answer is to once again become comfortable relying on values. In the absence of rules, values fill the gap. We need to bring ethical considerations to new technologies, starting at the ideation stage. We need to ask “Is this good for humanity?”
Technology is neither good nor bad, but what we do with it can be one or the other. Let’s adopt a values-based approach to technology.
The Ethical Leader 