JA
J. Alleblas
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This dissertation investigated how sociotechnical visions—defined as discursively articulated images of desirable futures—shape the development, design, and evaluation of sociotechnical systems through the moral objectives they contain. It focuses in particular on the roles of values and ideals in these visions, and on how such moralized visions interact with technological design, feasibility constraints, and processes of value change over time.
This dissertation sets out with the claim that contemporary societies face systemic crises—such as climate change, energy insecurity, and urban sustainability issues—that call for long-term direction rather than incremental problem-solving. Governments, engineers, and designers can use visions of desirable futures to guide sociotechnical change. These visions typically combine normative claims about what constitutes a good society with assumptions about which technologies and systems are necessary to realize that future. Despite their prominence, however, it remains insufficiently understood how the moral content of visions—especially abstract values and seemingly infeasible ideals—actually influences technological design and system development..... ...
This dissertation sets out with the claim that contemporary societies face systemic crises—such as climate change, energy insecurity, and urban sustainability issues—that call for long-term direction rather than incremental problem-solving. Governments, engineers, and designers can use visions of desirable futures to guide sociotechnical change. These visions typically combine normative claims about what constitutes a good society with assumptions about which technologies and systems are necessary to realize that future. Despite their prominence, however, it remains insufficiently understood how the moral content of visions—especially abstract values and seemingly infeasible ideals—actually influences technological design and system development..... ...
This dissertation investigated how sociotechnical visions—defined as discursively articulated images of desirable futures—shape the development, design, and evaluation of sociotechnical systems through the moral objectives they contain. It focuses in particular on the roles of values and ideals in these visions, and on how such moralized visions interact with technological design, feasibility constraints, and processes of value change over time.
This dissertation sets out with the claim that contemporary societies face systemic crises—such as climate change, energy insecurity, and urban sustainability issues—that call for long-term direction rather than incremental problem-solving. Governments, engineers, and designers can use visions of desirable futures to guide sociotechnical change. These visions typically combine normative claims about what constitutes a good society with assumptions about which technologies and systems are necessary to realize that future. Despite their prominence, however, it remains insufficiently understood how the moral content of visions—especially abstract values and seemingly infeasible ideals—actually influences technological design and system development.....
This dissertation sets out with the claim that contemporary societies face systemic crises—such as climate change, energy insecurity, and urban sustainability issues—that call for long-term direction rather than incremental problem-solving. Governments, engineers, and designers can use visions of desirable futures to guide sociotechnical change. These visions typically combine normative claims about what constitutes a good society with assumptions about which technologies and systems are necessary to realize that future. Despite their prominence, however, it remains insufficiently understood how the moral content of visions—especially abstract values and seemingly infeasible ideals—actually influences technological design and system development.....
Quantum Security Threat Discovery
A Value Sensitive Design Approach to Discovering Security Risks of Quantum Sensing at the Port of Moerdijk
Journal article
(2025)
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Steven Umbrello, Pieter E. Vermaas, Indika Kumara, Joost Alleblas, Stefan Driessen, Willem Jan van den Heuvel
This paper investigates the application of Security Threat Discovery Cards (STDCs) for identifying security risks in quantum sensing technologies within port security contexts. With the advent of quantum technologies, organizations and stakeholders face the challenge to explore and assess the impact of the applications these technologies will bring. This exploration faces the perceived incomprehensibility of quantum technologies, and suggests a preliminary step aimed at understanding these technologies. Our results suggest that organizations and companies considering the application of quantum technology can skip this preliminary step and independently identify their main risks of quantum applications in a nuanced manner. Our case is an exploration of quantum sensing application by Port security personnel with the STDCs. The research consisted of two independent empirical studies: a workshop with Port of Moerdijk personnel using STDCs and semi-structured interviews with security experts. The comparative analysis of the findings from these studies demonstrates the STDCs’ efficacy in revealing with the Port’s personnel assessment of nuanced risks beyond the experts’ foresight. For example, the interviews with experts raised concerns regarding governance, ethical implications, and the human factor in quantum technology integration. The workshop with personnel not only suggested similar concerns but also uncovered additional risks, including socio-technical threats and broader societal impacts.
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This paper investigates the application of Security Threat Discovery Cards (STDCs) for identifying security risks in quantum sensing technologies within port security contexts. With the advent of quantum technologies, organizations and stakeholders face the challenge to explore and assess the impact of the applications these technologies will bring. This exploration faces the perceived incomprehensibility of quantum technologies, and suggests a preliminary step aimed at understanding these technologies. Our results suggest that organizations and companies considering the application of quantum technology can skip this preliminary step and independently identify their main risks of quantum applications in a nuanced manner. Our case is an exploration of quantum sensing application by Port security personnel with the STDCs. The research consisted of two independent empirical studies: a workshop with Port of Moerdijk personnel using STDCs and semi-structured interviews with security experts. The comparative analysis of the findings from these studies demonstrates the STDCs’ efficacy in revealing with the Port’s personnel assessment of nuanced risks beyond the experts’ foresight. For example, the interviews with experts raised concerns regarding governance, ethical implications, and the human factor in quantum technology integration. The workshop with personnel not only suggested similar concerns but also uncovered additional risks, including socio-technical threats and broader societal impacts.
Many guidelines outline ethical principles for designing and deploying emerging digital technologies, like AI, in public services, but there is a gap between such principles and practices. We evaluate whether an educational intervention can enable public sector professionals to close this gap and implement responsible innovation. The educational intervention was based on Design for Values, a responsible innovation approach to integrate values into the design process. We employ a systems perspective to evaluate the effects of the intervention. While the educational intervention helps foster techno-moral virtues and enhance accountability, its success depends on the broader organizational context. Future research should explore the long-term embedding of Design for Values in various settings, using comparative and longitudinal methods to understand better the factors that influence its effectiveness.
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Many guidelines outline ethical principles for designing and deploying emerging digital technologies, like AI, in public services, but there is a gap between such principles and practices. We evaluate whether an educational intervention can enable public sector professionals to close this gap and implement responsible innovation. The educational intervention was based on Design for Values, a responsible innovation approach to integrate values into the design process. We employ a systems perspective to evaluate the effects of the intervention. While the educational intervention helps foster techno-moral virtues and enhance accountability, its success depends on the broader organizational context. Future research should explore the long-term embedding of Design for Values in various settings, using comparative and longitudinal methods to understand better the factors that influence its effectiveness.
Negotiating Visions of Waste
On the Ethics of Maintaining Waste Infrastructures
This chapter focuses on the maintenance of waste infrastructures in urban areas, arguing that waste infrastructures and their maintenance should be made more visible to allow for a more extensive, ethical engagement with waste. This contribution claims that cities need to approach the (re)design of municipal waste infrastructures through dynamic maintenance and reflexive repair, wherein waste, repair and maintenance are understood as discursive processes. Waste infrastructures and their maintenance are mostly invisible in daily interactions in cities in High-Income Countries, despite the diversities in waste practices, such as collection and processing. Invisibility is an intended outcome of the design and operation of these infrastructures, stemming from a nineteenth-century waste imaginary called ‘the tidy city’. Current municipal waste infrastructures are kept invisible, upholding beliefs and practices that disvalue waste. While visions have been proposed that challenge this disvalue, few of them have been able to materialise in stratified municipal waste management systems. This engagement is seen as a first step in challenging modern notions of dirt and waste. Visibility is a (new) design criterion for municipal waste infrastructures, a criterion that the authors relate to waste-affirming beliefs and practices, elaborating on anthropological perspectives on dirt and waste.
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This chapter focuses on the maintenance of waste infrastructures in urban areas, arguing that waste infrastructures and their maintenance should be made more visible to allow for a more extensive, ethical engagement with waste. This contribution claims that cities need to approach the (re)design of municipal waste infrastructures through dynamic maintenance and reflexive repair, wherein waste, repair and maintenance are understood as discursive processes. Waste infrastructures and their maintenance are mostly invisible in daily interactions in cities in High-Income Countries, despite the diversities in waste practices, such as collection and processing. Invisibility is an intended outcome of the design and operation of these infrastructures, stemming from a nineteenth-century waste imaginary called ‘the tidy city’. Current municipal waste infrastructures are kept invisible, upholding beliefs and practices that disvalue waste. While visions have been proposed that challenge this disvalue, few of them have been able to materialise in stratified municipal waste management systems. This engagement is seen as a first step in challenging modern notions of dirt and waste. Visibility is a (new) design criterion for municipal waste infrastructures, a criterion that the authors relate to waste-affirming beliefs and practices, elaborating on anthropological perspectives on dirt and waste.
Introduction to Topical Collection
Changing Values and Energy Systems
This paper is the introduction to a topical collection on “Changing Values and Energy Systems” that consists of six contributions that examine instances of value change regarding the design, use and operation of energy systems. This introduction discusses the need to consider values in the energy transition. It examines conceptions of value and value change and how values can be addressed in the design of energy systems. Value change in the context of energy and energy systems is a topic that has recently gained traction. Current, and past, energy transitions often focus on a limited range of values, such as sustainability, while leaving other salient values, such as energy democracy, or energy justice, out of the picture. Furthermore, these values become entrenched in the design of these systems: it is hard for stakeholders to address new concerns and values in the use and operation of these systems, leading to further costly transitions and systems’ overhaul. To remedy this issue, value change in the context of energy systems needs to be better understood. We also need to think about further requirements for the governance, institutional and engineering design of energy systems to accommodate future value change. Openness, transparency, adaptiveness, flexibility and modularity emerge as new requirements within the current energy transition that need further exploration and scrutiny.
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This paper is the introduction to a topical collection on “Changing Values and Energy Systems” that consists of six contributions that examine instances of value change regarding the design, use and operation of energy systems. This introduction discusses the need to consider values in the energy transition. It examines conceptions of value and value change and how values can be addressed in the design of energy systems. Value change in the context of energy and energy systems is a topic that has recently gained traction. Current, and past, energy transitions often focus on a limited range of values, such as sustainability, while leaving other salient values, such as energy democracy, or energy justice, out of the picture. Furthermore, these values become entrenched in the design of these systems: it is hard for stakeholders to address new concerns and values in the use and operation of these systems, leading to further costly transitions and systems’ overhaul. To remedy this issue, value change in the context of energy systems needs to be better understood. We also need to think about further requirements for the governance, institutional and engineering design of energy systems to accommodate future value change. Openness, transparency, adaptiveness, flexibility and modularity emerge as new requirements within the current energy transition that need further exploration and scrutiny.
Journal article
(2023)
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Freek Van Der Weij, Steffen Steinert, Ibo Van De Poel, Joost Alleblas, Anna Melnyk, Tristan De Wildt
Journal article
(2023)
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M. Sand, B. Hofbauer, J. Alleblas
After years of missing the agreed upon goals for carbon reduction, we might conclude that global climate policies set infeasible standards to halt climate change. The widespread non-compliance of many signees with frameworks such as the Paris Agreement indicates that these frameworks were too optimistic regarding the signees’ motivation to act. One of the suggested ways out of this impasse, is geoengineering, which is seen as a “techno-fix” of the non-compliance problem, relieving signees and other actors of some, or most, of their mitigation duties. This paper scrutinizes different approaches towards climate mitigation that focus on behavioral change or on technological solutions. We argue that these different approaches do not originate from categorically different theories of climate justice. Indeed, seemingly realistic and seemingly idealistic proposals do not disagree on the substance of climate justice, but about what is to be considered feasible. Furthermore, by applying this dialectic lens on ideal vs. non-ideal theorizing in the context of climate justice, we show that (backward-looking) residual responsibility is an overlooked aspect of geoengineering as a (forward-looking) non-ideal approach to achieve climate justice. We will outline three possible consequences of this moral residue: 1) Residual responsibility can provide grounds to demand compensation, 2) it can constitute other forward-looking responsibilities (e.g., the maintenance of geoengineering technologies) and 3) it provides a reason to employ other techno-fixes equal in effectiveness and risks that do not sidestep the problem of non-compliance.
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After years of missing the agreed upon goals for carbon reduction, we might conclude that global climate policies set infeasible standards to halt climate change. The widespread non-compliance of many signees with frameworks such as the Paris Agreement indicates that these frameworks were too optimistic regarding the signees’ motivation to act. One of the suggested ways out of this impasse, is geoengineering, which is seen as a “techno-fix” of the non-compliance problem, relieving signees and other actors of some, or most, of their mitigation duties. This paper scrutinizes different approaches towards climate mitigation that focus on behavioral change or on technological solutions. We argue that these different approaches do not originate from categorically different theories of climate justice. Indeed, seemingly realistic and seemingly idealistic proposals do not disagree on the substance of climate justice, but about what is to be considered feasible. Furthermore, by applying this dialectic lens on ideal vs. non-ideal theorizing in the context of climate justice, we show that (backward-looking) residual responsibility is an overlooked aspect of geoengineering as a (forward-looking) non-ideal approach to achieve climate justice. We will outline three possible consequences of this moral residue: 1) Residual responsibility can provide grounds to demand compensation, 2) it can constitute other forward-looking responsibilities (e.g., the maintenance of geoengineering technologies) and 3) it provides a reason to employ other techno-fixes equal in effectiveness and risks that do not sidestep the problem of non-compliance.
This paper looks at the positive effects of partial status anonymity in face-to-face co-creation workshops. Results suggest that especially during the early phases of co-creation, i.e. idea generation, participants experience more freedom to express themselves without self-imposed barriers. We observed positive effects in terms of (1) lowering or even suspending the perceived status among team members, (2) increased motivation, (3) freedom to speak and positive disposition to listen, (4) willingness to consider perspectives from other team members.
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This paper looks at the positive effects of partial status anonymity in face-to-face co-creation workshops. Results suggest that especially during the early phases of co-creation, i.e. idea generation, participants experience more freedom to express themselves without self-imposed barriers. We observed positive effects in terms of (1) lowering or even suspending the perceived status among team members, (2) increased motivation, (3) freedom to speak and positive disposition to listen, (4) willingness to consider perspectives from other team members.
Analyzing the Role of Values and Ideals in the Development of Energy Systems:
How Values, Their Idealizations, and Technologies Shape Political Decision-Making
This study examines an important aspect of energy history and policy: the intertwinement of energy technologies with ideals. Ideals play an important role in energy visions and innovation pathways. Aspirations to realize technical, social, and political ideals indicate a long-term commitment in the design of energy systems, distinguishable from commitment to other abstract goals, such as values. This study offers an analytical scheme that could help to conceptualize these differences and their impact on energy policy. In the proposed model, two spheres of interaction are highlighted: a material sphere in which values and technologies co-evolve, and an imaginary sphere in which ideals interact with idealized technologies. Furthermore, the relation between these two spheres can be understood in different ways. This study examines three cases that are illustrative of the different roles of ideals in the development of energy technologies and visions: (1) the evolution of safety in nuclear reactor design; (2) visions of atomic power in France; (3) the political idealization of a tidal power scheme in the Severn Estuary. Finally, the developed model implies more general insights for the development of sociotechnical systems. Amongst others, it shows why certain projects and technologies remain a political, but not a techno–economic option.
...
This study examines an important aspect of energy history and policy: the intertwinement of energy technologies with ideals. Ideals play an important role in energy visions and innovation pathways. Aspirations to realize technical, social, and political ideals indicate a long-term commitment in the design of energy systems, distinguishable from commitment to other abstract goals, such as values. This study offers an analytical scheme that could help to conceptualize these differences and their impact on energy policy. In the proposed model, two spheres of interaction are highlighted: a material sphere in which values and technologies co-evolve, and an imaginary sphere in which ideals interact with idealized technologies. Furthermore, the relation between these two spheres can be understood in different ways. This study examines three cases that are illustrative of the different roles of ideals in the development of energy technologies and visions: (1) the evolution of safety in nuclear reactor design; (2) visions of atomic power in France; (3) the political idealization of a tidal power scheme in the Severn Estuary. Finally, the developed model implies more general insights for the development of sociotechnical systems. Amongst others, it shows why certain projects and technologies remain a political, but not a techno–economic option.