The Case for Globally Beneficial Technology

Abstract

To whom do the fruits of advanced technological innovation belong? To their inventors, to the organizations and participants that make such discoveries possible, or to still larger groups of people, encompassing, potentially, all of humanity? This question sits at the heart of the present investigation. The arguments developed here focus on an expansive reading of the entitlement to benefit from technological breakthroughs: we argue they should be designed, developed and distributed in ways that benefit everyone. This central claim, which encompasses technologies such as advanced forms of artificial intelligence (AI), is grounded in an exploration of five moral arguments which involve human rights, beneficence, contingencies of birth, the global tree of knowledge, and global economic justice. Taken together they underpin the argument for globally beneficial technologies.