The effects of digital technologies on freedom and democracy have garnered increasing attention in recent years. Many have raised concerns about surveillance capitalism, technofeudalism, and general threats to constitutional democracies—with a special convergence on the worry that uncontrolled power of online platforms undermines people’s freedom. However, it remains unclear how ‘freedom’ should be understood, what the relation is between freedom and uncontrolled power, and to what extent these worries extend beyond online platforms. In this dissertation, I argue that these problems are best answered by appealing to a neo-republican account of freedom as non-domination, where ‘domination’ is understood as a condition of living under an agent’s uncontrolled power. In the context of AI systems used in core societal sectors such as healthcare, I show that domination of a system’s (in)direct end-users by the system’s developers occurs in at least three ways: (1) the distribution of decision-making power, (2) technical limitations of AI systems, and (3) underlying societal structures that empower developers and disempower end-users. To safeguard freedom in the digital age, I propose that AI development requires the explicit intention to 'design for non-domination'. This requires us to consider the broader societal contexts within which these systems operate, such as current regulatory initiatives and the political economy.@en

Difficulties arise in the making of predictions, since ideas and views on the future are often based on current conditions and, with only minor adjustments, it is simply expected that those conditions will continue into the future. With the goal of supporting experts in their scenario analysis this thesis is part of a pilot between the analysis network on national security (Analistennetwerk Nationale Veiligheid) of the Netherlands and the Technical University Delft. It explores if system dynamics is an useful approach in the modelling and simulation of changes in state power dynamics. It does so by researching literature on national power and through the analysis multi-scale geopolitical model to simulate over 217 countries. Exploratory modelling and analysis has been performed on the power dynamics of The United States, China, and Russia. This thesis concludes that system dynamics is an appropriate approach in the modelling and simulation of geopolitics and shifts in power dynamics. But, that uncertainties in the relationships between variables, missing data, and the modelling choices made to overcome these issues make it very difficult to built a good causal model to support expert scenario analysis.

Due to the increasing use of Blockchain technology, patent offices are receiving a high number of applications for the protection of intellectual property rights of Blockchain technology applications. The protection of Blockchain technology applications is problematic however, due to the limited connection between emerging high technology and intellectual property law. This thesis aims to create a validated decision-making framework that might aid patent attorneys, and entrepreneurs by extension, to determine an effective protection strategy for protecting intellectual property (IP) rights of Blockchain technology applications, given the characteristic of the technology to be protected. Based on literature and the law, a theoretical decision-making framework will be constructed. This decision-making framework will translate input variables, Blockchain technology characteristics per case, into an effective strategy concerning the protection of a technology with those characteristics. The theoretical decision-making framework will be adapted and validated by comparison with patents, prosecution guidelines, cases in the granting procedure and infringement litigation. By referencing outcomes of cases to proposed strategies, the decision-making framework can be scrutinised on its applicability which will result in a validated framework. In the future, the framework could be adapted so that it might be used in other fields of technology so as function as a tool to close the generic gap between emerging high technology and intellectual property law.

Technological progress and innovation have significantly contributed to global economic growth, societal advancement, and higher living standards. However, there is growing concern over the future that lies ahead because of increasing robotisation and progress in artificial intelligence (AI), which are feared to cause significant loss of labour demand. The body of posterior economic scientific work addressing this topic mostly concludes on a positive note. Namely, recent technological advancements have resulted in a net increase in labour demand, but this demand is redistributed to different tasks and occupations. Yet, future oriented research, most notably by Frey and Osborne (2017), has sparked a debate on the future of work due to estimations that indicate that over 40% of jobs will become automatable in the next 20 years. Therefore, the societal question remains: Robots and Artificial Intelligence, the new economic motor or downfall of the working class?...

The European Commission introduced PSD2 with the purpose to promote innovation by increasing competition and participation of non-banks in the payments industry. Amongst others, PSD2 requires banks to allow a way for third-party providers to have direct access to a current account’s data if authorized by the customer. This forces banks to open up their databases which calls into life a particular stream of questions about how technologies should be designed in order to preserve privacy. Therefore this research was dedicated to designing a framework of general principles for the inclusion of privacy in innovation within the financial industry, in particular for the incumbent bank.

The Value Sensitive Design approach was utilized in order to provide this framework through a qualitative explorative case study. In the conceptualization stage of VSD, privacy was defined through a literature review. For the empirical investigation, data was collected through semi-structured interviews with eleven experts from three of the four types of stakeholders. Values that were identified in literature were qualitatively validated by scoring their importance relative to each other. For the technical investigation, the most important values were translated into design requirements by utilizing the value hierarchy method. The application of VSD to innovation in finance is the theoretical contribution of this research.

Privacy was conceptualized as complex and interrelated with other values. Values related to privacy in the case of PSD2 were also identified in several literature streams. Through a qualitative validation, the final set of values to be reflected by technology designed after PSD2 was determined which shows that privacy is the value of greatest importance to be included in financial innovation. Also, based on the insights experts brought forward during the interviews, five ethical challenges that come with the implementation of PSD2 were identified. The applicability of the value hierarchy method was demonstrated by translating the value privacy into six design requirements. These six design requirements addressed the end-user’s ability to make an informed decision for consent, ex-ante privacy assessment through standardized licensing procedures and a shared license database, the possibility for end-users to manage information disclosed through APIs and the limitation of information referring to transaction’s counterpart that did not consent.

As blockchain technology became more established in the financial arena, federal health IT officials, vendors and developers started looking at its potential and its use in the healthcare sector. Lately, there has been a major hype around the potential of the technology. It is described as a disruptive technology that could enable business model innovation with increased transparency, new models of partnerships and possible disintermediation. Business modelling was recognized as a potential tool to help the healthcare sector to determine a technology implementation strategy by involving all the important stakeholders in a value-driven dialogue about the way in which the technology should be utilized.

This research focused on exploring the potential of the blockchain technology for business model innovation with the use of business model patterns as a theoretical construct. From the scientific perspective, research contributed to a better understanding of the role of business model patterns as a construct with multipurpose character. The construct was used in a role of classification device to gain an understanding over the technology associated business model logics and in a role of instruments of scientific inquiry to explore potential technology implications. A two-way relationship between the disruptive technology and business models was considered. As a result, tokenization was proposed as a new business model pattern, specific to the blockchain technology. Moreover, value patterns (patient empowerment, privacy by design, security by design, transparency by design) were recognized as an important matter that is potentially impacting future business models. In the second step, business model patterns were evaluated in the context of e-Health industry specific moderators. A Discussion with the implication of the technology from the business model innovation perspective was provided.

The purpose of this empirical study is to gain insight in how Autonomous Weapons are perceived by the general public and the military and which moral values they consider important when Autonomous Weapons are deployed in the near future. The Value-Sensitive Design method is used to structure the study. This thesis proposes a design for a Moral Machine for Autonomous Weapons as part of the technical investigation phase of the study.