Consequence Scanning

Lab Activity

Prof. Keeley Crockett

Consequence Scanning

How much do you think through the

consequences of your research or
technology?

Brown S. (2019) Consequence Scanning

Manual Consequence Scanning – an agile practice for responsible
Version 1 . London: Doteveryone. innovators – doteveryone
Consequence Scanning - rationale
• Developed by doteveryone, now curated by the
Open Data Institute
• Described as an “agile event for responsible
innovators”
• Designed for the tech sector With Consequence
Scanning, organisations
will be able to anticipate
A way for organisations to
and address concerns
think about the potential
they might have early.
impact of their product or
service on people and
society.
Consequence Scanner: when to do it

Who should take part?

• Core team
• Users/user advocates
• Collaborators - technology
specialists
• Collaborators – business
specialists
• Product sponsors
• Early adopters
• Senior stakeholders
Consequence Scanner: the questions

1 What are the intended and unintended consequences of this product or

feature?

2 What are the positive consequences we want to focus on?

3 What are the consequences we want to mitigate?
Moodle Exercise
Consequences - Safety in Self driving cars
The first recorded case of a pedestrian being killed
by a self-driving car was in Arizona in March 2018.
The governor of Arizona ordered a halt to testing.

Anthony Fox, Ex Us Secretary of Transportation,

tweeted that this was:
“a wake up call to the entire [autonomous
vehicle] industry and government to put a high
priority on safety.“

It has been reported that “Uber has found that the

accident was caused by software that had been
tuned to ignore objects in the road to weed out
false positives such as plastic bags and other road Source:
debris.“ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywydalBYhic