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Risk, Uncertainty and Ignorance in Technological Design

RI 2016: Section 3.2.1

The next web lecture by Prof. Rafaela Hillerbrand is about risk, uncertainty and ignorance in technology and how they can be dealt with. What are the possible side-effects of new or existing technologies? We will be using the example of climate change to elaborate on this.

A key notion which we introduce in this web lecture is the precautionary principle: simply put, it states if there is a potential for harm from an activity, and if there is uncertainty about the magnitude of impacts, then anticipatory action should be taken to avoid harm, even if we do not know how likely a negative impact is and how severe this could be.

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