My friend Fabrizio Barca has a rare combination of characteristics: a first-rate intellect, an impressive network in policy making circles, and a keen interest in justice. He has lately become intrigued by inequalities: what they are, how they are changing, what we can do about it. So, he started a group called the Forum on inequalities and diversities. The Forum recently released a report called 15 proposals for justice (Italian only), which is making waves. The report gives prominence to the consequences of technical innovation on inequalities and justice.
So, here is the idea. @nadia and I would like to organize a small meeting to look in more depth at the issue of how equality and justice are encoded in technological choices. Specifically, it would be interesting to look at the main technologies being developed in the NGI debate (blockchain folks, decentralists, the fintech crowd etc.), and see how each impact on indicators of equality and justice. Putting in the same room technologists, economists and social scientists should allow for a more holistic perspective. For me, the interesting question is: are some technologies more likely to lead to an outcome of increased justice than other technologies? If there are, we might consider
Hopefully, we can provide some material to the people in charge of the next round of NGI Open Calls, and whoever is looking to fund new technologies that are human-centric, trust-enhancing and so on.
We are talking Brussels, October 2019. What do people think? @teirdes, would you be interested? What about @zelf? Others?