IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2021 - 8

Editorial
Needs of PIT
In summary, two claims have been advanced.
First, that there is a social construct in the form of an
intrasubjective agreement formed through interaction
called " the public interest. " Second, that there
are actions, behaviors, and processes performed by
individuals acting in a professional capacity, such as
lawyers, journalists, teachers, doctors, technologists
among other professionals, that are in, and can promote,
or can improve this " public interest. " Accepting
these two claims, it is then pertinent to ask if there are
actions that can be pursued which are inimical or deleterious
to the " public interest. " These could be, for
example, those that are harmful to collective action,
like poisoning the well of common knowledge, or
actions that are harmful to social justice, environmental
sustainability, and public health and wellbeing.
There are two observations that follow from this.
The first is professional: while numerous careers and
occupations, as already noted, seek to promote the
public interest, they also have formal associations
specifying, reviewing, and accrediting standards of
ethical behavior. Certainly, we need much better
than shabby, shady performative governance by
sado-populists [24] who abnegate responsibility
and eschew accountability. The second is linguistic:
although, as previously discussed, the phrasing
" promote the public interest " or " to be in the public
interest " is understood, the negation is not so readily
available. Other than saying something is " not in the
public interest " (so it might yet be in someone else's
interest), there is no expression to label behavior
that is actively and deliberately inimical to the public
interest. We can talk about doing something for or
in the public interest; however, it seems challenging
and less likely that we are able to talk about doing
something against the public interest.
The corollary of these observations-if we are
to address existential threats and develop socio-technical
initiatives in the public interest-is the requirement
for a transdisciplinary scientific program. This
program would serve, in the first instance, to develop
better language-and it is not just that language matters
[25], but social construction through repeated
interaction is not-cannot be-a one-sided effort,
but a bidirectional one, requiring appropriate language,
translation, and fluency [26]. It would also
seek to hold relevant professional groups accountable
for their actions, regulations, and policies,
8
specifically in cases resulting in sustained damage to
and violation of the (collective, humanist definition
of) public interest. We need socio-technical design
endeavors that promote and encourage collective
action, removing restrictive policies that are demoralizing,
prohibitive, and ultimately counter-productive.
The solution lies in empowering, as opposed to
restricting, citizens through embracing and advancing
the idea of citizen assemblies and deliberative
sessions that allow for challenges and issues to be
identified and scrutinized in a collaborative manner,
ideally resulting in socio-technical and other recommendations
that generate the desired outcome(s)
and are representative of what really should be
understood as " the public interest. "

 References
[1] J. Gordon, Suburban Sweatshops: The Fight for
Immigrant Rights. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard
Univ. Press, 2005.
[2] R. Farthing, K. Michael, R. Abbas, and G. SmithNunes,
" Age appropriate digital services for young
people: Major reforms, " IEEE Consum. Electron. Mag.,
vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 40-48, Jul. 2021.
[3] P. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of
Reality. London, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1966.
[4] E. Ostrom, Governing the Commons. Cambridge,
U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990.
[5] V. Ostrom and E. Ostrom, " A different approach to the
study of public administration, " Public Admin. Rev.,
vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 203-216, 1971.
[6] J. Ober, Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and
Learning in Classical Athens. Princeton, NJ, USA:
Princeton Univ. Press, 2008.
[7] B. Friedman, P. Kahn, and A. Borning, " Value sensitive
design and information systems, " in The Handbook of
Information and Computer Ethics, K. Himma and
H. Tavani, Eds. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley, 2008,
pp. 69-101.
[8] T. Winkler and S. Spiekermann, " Human values as
the basis for sustainable information system design, "
IEEE Technol. Soc. Mag., vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 34-43,
Sep. 2019.
[9] K. Bellman et al., " Socially-sensitive systems design:
Exploring social potential, " IEEE Technol. Soc. Mag.,
vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 72-80, Sep. 2017.
[10] L. J. Robertson, R. Abbas, G. Alici, A. Munoz, and K.
Michael, " Engineering-based design methodology for
embedding ethics in autonomous robots, " Proc. IEEE,
vol. 107, no. 3, pp. 582-599, Mar. 2019.
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2021

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