A Workshop-Based Method for Navigating Value Tensions in Collectively Speculated Worlds

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The rapid pace of technological progress carries with it a heightened risk of ethics and privacy violations, creating an urgent need for mechanisms to address this risk. We approach this problem from the perspective of designers and technologists aiming to design technology that better accounts for ethical implications. We iteratively developed a workshop-based method (𝑁 =113, seven workshops) for probing ethical implications of emerging ubiquitous computing technologies. We contribute a method that enables people with varying levels and areas of domain expertise and with a variety of lived experiences to collectively speculate about the ethical implications of emerging technologies, navigate value tensions, and prototype artifacts as a way to grapple with those tensions. We introduce implication design as a means for participants with and without design experience to communicate how a technology might change to better serve them. Lastly, we share our learnings from and reflections on our design process.