A/IS creators shall adopt increased human well-being as a primary success criterion for development.
## BackgroundFor A/IS technologies to demonstrably advance benefit for humanity, we need to be able to define and measure the benefit we wish to increase. But often the only indicators utilized in determining success for A/IS are avoiding negative unintended consequences and increasing productivity and economic growth for customers and society. Today, these are largely measured by gross domestic product (GDP), profit, or consumption levels.Well-being, for the purpose of Ethically Aligned Design, is based on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) ”Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being” perspective that, “Being able to measure people’s quality of life is fundamental when assessing the progress of societies.” There is now widespread acknowledgement that measuring subjective well-being is an essential part of measuring quality of life alongside other social and economic dimensions as identified within Nassbaum-Sen’s capability approach whereby well-being is objectively defined in terms of human capabilities necessary for functioning and flourishing.Since modern societies will be largely constituted of A/IS users, we believe these considerations to be relevant for A/IS creators. A/IS technologies can be narrowly conceived from an ethical standpoint. They can be legal, profitable, and safe in their usage, yet not positively contribute to human and environmental well-being. This means technologies created with the best intentions, but without considering well-being, can still have dramatic negative consequences on people’s mental health, emotions, sense of themselves, their autonomy, their ability to achieve their goals, and other dimensions of well-being.
## RecommendationA/IS should prioritize human well-being as an outcome in all system designs, using the best available and widely accepted well-being metrics as their reference point.
## Further Resources
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The Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress now commonly referred to as “The Stiglitz Report”, commissioned by the then President of the French Republic,
From the report: “…the time is ripe for our measurement system to shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people’s well-being … emphasizing well-being is important because there appears to be an increasing gap between the information contained in aggregate GDP data and what counts for common people’s well-being.”
World Happiness Reports, 2012 –
United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicators,
Beyond GDP, European Commission,
From the site: “The Beyond GDP initiative is about developing indicators that are as clear and appealing as GDP, but more inclusive of environmental and social aspects of progress.”
Genuine Progress Indicator, State of Maryland (first developed by Redefining Progress),
The International Panel on Social Progress, Social Justice, Well-Being and Economic Organization,
R. Veenhoven, World Database of Happiness, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Accessed 2018 at: http:// worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl.Royal Government of Bhutan, The Report of the High-Level Meeting on Wellbeing and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm, New York: The Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Bhutan to the United Nations, 2012"p.23-24