On the 15th of April, we had the honour to host a workshop titled "Beyond Just Privacy: Addressing Ethical Questions in XR Spaces (EU Projects Experiences)"as part of the work in the project on developed Ethical and Privacy Guidelines for XR in the off-highway machinery domain in the UserLab of the University of Luxembourg. The goal of the workshop was to bring in the expertise of our "sister" projects DIDYMOS-XR, SUN-XR and ShareSpace - winners of the same Horizon Europe Call. In all of these projects, ethics and privacy are treated with great importance not just as background concerns, but as key factors that form the entire process of technological developments. We were also fortunate to have on board a project that places ethics at the core of its efforts through the development of the Code of Conduct of Immersive Technologies, the XR4Human project. It was a challenge to coordinate the schedules of so many incredibly busy people, but we made it happen, and the result was a very productive (and intense!) day of discussion. We tackled a range of pressing topics, including:
- How can we effectively reach relevant populations and ensure that those we consider as primary users are not left behind? What should we do if people are afraid of our technologies or are reluctant to participate in our studies?
- How do we navigate high-risk scenarios (like in off-road heavy tech or medical devices)? How can we balance auditability with privacy?
- How can we use the right metaphores or mediums to help technology developers understand ethical concerns they way we do?
- How to address ethically problematic "grey areas": practices that may be legally "OK", but are ethically questionable? What role can legislative efforts play in closing these gaps, and what evidence do legislators need?
- What are the potential adversarial/supportive effects of XR on the future of work, and what role does the calibration of trust play in this equation?
... and must, much more!
A huge thanks to Anastasia and the team of the University of Luxembourg for initiating and organizing this event!
