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w3ctag / design-principles

A small-but-growing set of design principles collected by the TAG while reviewing specifications
https://w3ctag.github.io/design-principles
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New principle: Ethical Principles #338

Closed mprorock closed 2 years ago

mprorock commented 2 years ago

The topic of Ethical, Social, and Environmental principles as being of key importance for inclusion in specs/notes and other guidance to developers was brought up in review of the DID spec during discussion around objections to the DID spec.

This should likely include reference to the Ethical Web Principles

OR13 commented 2 years ago

@mprorock thanks for raising this issue.

As noted on the other linked issue: https://github.com/w3ctag/design-principles/issues/239

These objections were not raised during the TAG review: https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/556#issuecomment-763900128

However, I am supportive of refining guidelines such that future work and TAG reviews can refer to guidance that has been developed through a collaborative consensus driven process.

We attempted some related language here, https://github.com/w3c/did-imp-guide/pull/27 however, much of the proposed language was rejected, and the conversation clearly demonstrated that technical experts do not agree on how ESE principles apply to abstract data models such as RDF, JSON or HTML

Stronger requirements from the TAG could assist future working group members develop language specific and relevant to their specifications.

Its important to remember, "We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us"...

The AI community has been contemplating what shape GPT-3 will create:

The digital identity community wondering what shape mDL will create:

OR13 commented 2 years ago

At the crux of some of the toughest ethical questions is how much are "values worth"... for example, bitcoin could be the most expensive environmentally destructive decentralized database ever created, but if it prevents a journalist from being censored or an organization from being cut off from the financial world...

.. some folks might view that cost as "worth it"... while others will feel it is "not worth it".

Similar concerns emerge related to credential technology, particularly expensive device bound credentials:

What are the social implications of these technologies?

Should the next version of https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/ preemptively add a section on digital exclusion and device bound credentials, and in particular, the risks associated with non uniform adoption various groups of interest (education level, income, racial demographics, gender identity, etc).

bumblefudge commented 2 years ago

I think device-bound and biometric-bound identity technologies are dangerous and regulators are struggling to resist them for lack of alternatives. Building alternatives that are "tenable" or sustainable from an economic point of view is very urgent to many human rights agendas-- it's hard to measure any of these dimensions in isolation, so a big +1 to incorporating ethical and social dimensions cross-cutting any environmental considerations. https://twitter.com/ReclaimYourFace/status/1442764514743623686

OR13 commented 2 years ago

Related new issue: https://github.com/w3ctag/design-principles/issues/339

OR13 commented 2 years ago

@mprorock perhaps we can sort out some concrete proposal here.

We have:

We seem to need:

Perhaps with a pre configured paragraph in respec... Similar to this section: https://www.w3.org/TR/webauthn-2/#sctn-privacy-considerations

"The ethical, social and environmental principles in [W3C Ethical Web Principles] also apply to this specification."

"Implementers of this specification are encouraged to consider how adopting this technology aligns with or deviates from the [W3C Ethical Web Principles], deviation or risks should be explicitly identified and addressed."

rhiaro commented 2 years ago

The Design Principles doc was recently updated and now includes references to the EWP as well as linking to EWP in the abstract and intro to section 1. Does that help? The distinction between the two documents is supposed to be that EWP is a high level, more abstract set of principles while the DP are more concrete/specific/implementable things.

"Ethical, Social and Environmental Considerations"

+1 I'd love to see this! (In the past I've framed it, tongue-in-cheek, as a 'Dystopia Avoidance Questionnaire' to go along side the Privacy & Security questionnaire.)

mprorock commented 2 years ago

@rhiaro that EWP section is quite helpful, the second part I think is more what I was after

+1 I'd love to see this! (In the past I've framed it, tongue-in-cheek, as a 'Dystopia Avoidance Questionnaire' to go along side the Privacy & Security questionnaire.)

This is nail on the head - happy to help contribute and/or take a stab at a section on this if it isn't overstepping?

torgo commented 2 years ago

We think this issue is closed as we've linked from the design principles to the ethical principles and will continue to add such cross-links as appropriate as we continue work on both documents..