Human and ethical risks of digitalization

Abstract

Digitalization as a direct expression of global information business is the reason for modern civilization’s transformation. The total commercialization of information technologies’ super-productivity turns humans into progress »costs«, devaluing their creative power, morality and ethics. Therefore, the object of this study is to be a person in the face of growing ethical risks caused by ever-accelerating digitization and information processes. The purpose of the work is to identify the problems of ethics and ethical risks as specific and most significant for the digital society. It also shows the main approaches to their solution. An analysis of a person’s consumer attitude to technical achievements reveals the reasons for spirituality destruction as the basis of human integrity. This is due to changes in communication forms – language, art, education, and religion. Digitalization as open information makes it possible to specify ethical risks as a reflection of a human’s life situation. Values and meanings play a crucial role. Digitalization’s ethical risks are identified: privacy, inclusiveness, security, trust, and fairness. The main approach to preventing digitalization ethical risks is the establishment of a techno-humanitarian balance or the development of adequate cultural regulators (human-centricity, overcoming digital inequality) that oppose the growth of destructive power of new technologies in relation to universal human values and humaneness. The methodological basis of the study was the philosophical discourse of consequentialism. This determines the main condition for technology development to find a balance between risk and benefit and cultural and philosophical reflection. The theoretical conclusions contained in this work open up new opportunities for science to concretize practical approaches to solving moral problems and ethical risks in human existence. This is in the era of digital culture transformation.