The virtuous smart city: Bridging the gap between ethical principles and practices of data-driven innovation
For smart cities, data-driven innovation promises societal benefits and increased well-being for residents and visitors. At the same time, the deployment of data-driven innovation poses significant ethical challenges. Although cities and other public-sector actors have increasingly adopted ethical p...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press
2023-01-01
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| Series: | Data & Policy |
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| Online Access: | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2632324923000093/type/journal_article |
| _version_ | 1797835588202659840 |
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| author | Viivi Lähteenoja Kimmo Karhu |
| author_facet | Viivi Lähteenoja Kimmo Karhu |
| author_sort | Viivi Lähteenoja |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | For smart cities, data-driven innovation promises societal benefits and increased well-being for residents and visitors. At the same time, the deployment of data-driven innovation poses significant ethical challenges. Although cities and other public-sector actors have increasingly adopted ethical principles, employing them in practice remains challenging. In this commentary, we use a virtue-based approach that bridges the gap between abstract principles and the daily work of practitioners who engage in and with data-driven innovation processes. Inspired by Aristotle, we describe practices of data-driven innovation in a smart city applying the concepts of virtue and phronêsis, meaning good judgment of and sensitivity to ethical issues. We use a dialogic case-study approach to study two cases of data-driven innovation in the city of Helsinki. We then describe as an illustration of how our approach can help bridge the gap between concrete practices of data-driven innovation and high-level principles. Overall, we advance a theoretically grounded, virtue-based approach, which is practice oriented and linked to the daily work of data scientists and other practitioners of data-driven innovation. Further, this approach helps understand the need for and importance of individual application of phronêsis, which is particularly important in public-sector organizations that can experience gaps between principle and practice. This importance is further intensified in cases of data-driven innovation in which, by definition, novel and unknown contexts are explored. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-09T14:55:01Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-17a9d961b23d444b9bf3a97490743b65 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2632-3249 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-09T14:55:01Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Data & Policy |
| spelling | doaj.art-17a9d961b23d444b9bf3a97490743b652023-05-02T06:47:32ZengCambridge University PressData & Policy2632-32492023-01-01510.1017/dap.2023.9The virtuous smart city: Bridging the gap between ethical principles and practices of data-driven innovationViivi Lähteenoja0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4316-6049Kimmo Karhu1Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, FinlandDepartment of Industrial Engineering and Management, Aalto University, Espoo, FinlandFor smart cities, data-driven innovation promises societal benefits and increased well-being for residents and visitors. At the same time, the deployment of data-driven innovation poses significant ethical challenges. Although cities and other public-sector actors have increasingly adopted ethical principles, employing them in practice remains challenging. In this commentary, we use a virtue-based approach that bridges the gap between abstract principles and the daily work of practitioners who engage in and with data-driven innovation processes. Inspired by Aristotle, we describe practices of data-driven innovation in a smart city applying the concepts of virtue and phronêsis, meaning good judgment of and sensitivity to ethical issues. We use a dialogic case-study approach to study two cases of data-driven innovation in the city of Helsinki. We then describe as an illustration of how our approach can help bridge the gap between concrete practices of data-driven innovation and high-level principles. Overall, we advance a theoretically grounded, virtue-based approach, which is practice oriented and linked to the daily work of data scientists and other practitioners of data-driven innovation. Further, this approach helps understand the need for and importance of individual application of phronêsis, which is particularly important in public-sector organizations that can experience gaps between principle and practice. This importance is further intensified in cases of data-driven innovation in which, by definition, novel and unknown contexts are explored.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2632324923000093/type/journal_articleAI ethicsdata-driven innovationdata policysmart cityvirtue ethics |
| spellingShingle | Viivi Lähteenoja Kimmo Karhu The virtuous smart city: Bridging the gap between ethical principles and practices of data-driven innovation Data & Policy AI ethics data-driven innovation data policy smart city virtue ethics |
| title | The virtuous smart city: Bridging the gap between ethical principles and practices of data-driven innovation |
| title_full | The virtuous smart city: Bridging the gap between ethical principles and practices of data-driven innovation |
| title_fullStr | The virtuous smart city: Bridging the gap between ethical principles and practices of data-driven innovation |
| title_full_unstemmed | The virtuous smart city: Bridging the gap between ethical principles and practices of data-driven innovation |
| title_short | The virtuous smart city: Bridging the gap between ethical principles and practices of data-driven innovation |
| title_sort | virtuous smart city bridging the gap between ethical principles and practices of data driven innovation |
| topic | AI ethics data-driven innovation data policy smart city virtue ethics |
| url | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2632324923000093/type/journal_article |
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