prof.dr. P.A.E. Brey (Philip)

Philip Brey (PhD, University of California, San Diego, 1995) is professor of philosophy and ethics of technology at the Department of Philosophy, University of Twente, the Netherlands. He is currently also programme leader of the ESDiT (Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies), a ten-year research programme with a budget of € 27 million and the involvement of seven universities and over sixty researchers (www.esdit.nl).  Esdit runs from 2020 to 2029.  He is a former president of the International Society for Ethics and Information Technology (INSEIT), and of the Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT).  Hi is also former scientific director of the 4TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology 2013-2017. He is on the editorial board of twelve leading journals and book series in his field, including Ethics and Information Technology, Nanoethics, Philosophy and Technology, Techné, Studies in Ethics, Law and Technology and Theoria.

He has led a NWO Vici project for outstanding researchers (2006-2012, budget € 1.25 million) on new media and the quality of life, which has resulted in over 100 peer-reviewed publications, and has coordinated two European Union funded projects, SATORI (2014-2017, budget € 3.7 million, FP7), which aimed to develop international standards and best practices for the ethical assessment of research and innovation and, SIENNA (2017-2021, budget € 4.0 million, Horizon 2020), on the ethical and human rights aspects of emerging technologies, including human genomics, human enhancement, robotics and artificial intelligence.  He is currently also a partner in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network PROTECT and in the Horizon Europe TechEthos programme.

In his research, Philip Brey investigates ethical aspects of emerging technologies, with a particular focus on information technology, robotics, biomedical technology and environmental technologies. He has developed major new approaches in ethics of information technology, including the anticipatory technology ethics (ATE) and ethical impact assessment (EIA) approaches for assessing ethical implications of new and emerging technologies, the disclosive computer ethics approach for studying values in design, the Ethics by Design approach for AI that is being used in the EU Horizon Europe ethics review procedure (with Brandt Dainow), the ETCOM approach for ethical guidance of emerging technologies, and new approaches for studying the implications of technology for well-being. He has been the first, or amongst the first, to do thorough academic studies of the ethical implications of emerging technologies like the World Wide Web, virtual reality technology, ambient intelligence, facial recognition systems, and 3D printing.

Particular research interests of his include the ethical assessment of emerging technology, ethics of artificial intelligence and robotics, ethics of the (future) internet, ethical aspects of design, innovative approaches to research ethics, the relation between technology, culture and globalization, and the relation between technology and well-being.

Organisations

• Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences (BMS), Philosophy (WIJSB)