The limits of ethical prompts

Starting a big project next week, working as a designer-in-remote-residence, helping our client establish and steer a responsible design programme. Lots of planning and prep, including immersing myself in ethics toolkits, card decks, canvases etc to see what we could use.

Some of them are pretty decent, but I’ve found the significant majority are just lists of prompt questions, perhaps grouped into loose categories. Colourful, good InDesign work, but not much content beyond this.

Ethical prompt questions have their place: asking ourselves tricky questions is far better than not asking ourselves tricky questions. But we need to be sceptical of our ability to see our own blindspots. Answers to the question ‘Are we missing something important?’ will – you guessed it – often miss something important.

By all means use toolkits, ask ethical prompts. But be willing to engage with people outside the conference rooms too: people not like us; people more likely to experience the harms of technology. ‘We got ourselves into this mess, so it’s on us to get out of it’ is an understandable view, but can lead to yet more technocracy. Let’s bring the public into the conversation.