{"687089":{"#nid":"687089","#data":{"type":"event","title":"Presentation by Dylan Cawthorne: The Ethics of Drone Design \u2013 And Why I Quit the Industry","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn 2024, Routledge published \u003Cem\u003EThe Ethics of Drone Design: How Value Sensitive Design Can Create Better Technologies\u003C\/em\u003E, the result of years of research aimed at building ethically informed drones. Drawing on value sensitive design methods and ethical frameworks, this work involved designing, testing, and flying prototype drones for applications including healthcare delivery, search and rescue, and education.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlong the way, however, deeper systemic challenges became impossible to ignore. Pressures tied to profit maximization and militarization repeatedly constrained efforts to develop technologies oriented toward public benefit. Ultimately, these tensions led the author to resign in protest from a position as Associate Professor at the University of Southern Denmark in July 2025.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn this talk, the author reflects on the realities of applying ethics within engineering practice\u2014sharing successes, failures, and hard-earned lessons\u2014and invites discussion on a central question: Is it possible to create ethically informed technologies within today\u2019s financial and geopolitical systems, or do those systems demand more radical forms of resistance?\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe limits of value sensitive design methods and ethical frameworks for the design of drones used for healthcare, search and rescue, and education.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The limits of value sensitive design methods and ethical frameworks for the design of drones used for healthcare, search and rescue, and education."}],"uid":"36009","created_gmt":"2026-01-06 15:59:35","changed_gmt":"2026-01-06 16:03:44","author":"cwhittle9","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-01-16T14:30:00-05:00","event_time_end":"2026-01-16T16:00:00-05:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-01-16T16:00:00-05:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-01-16 19:30:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-01-16 21:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-01-16 21:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Policy Innovation Lab, D.M. Smith Room 306","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"},{"id":"1289","name":"School of Public Policy"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"194683","name":"Talk"},{"id":"1795","name":"Seminar\/Lecture\/Colloquium"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78761","name":"Faculty\/Staff"},{"id":"177814","name":"Postdoc"},{"id":"78771","name":"Public"},{"id":"174045","name":"Graduate students"},{"id":"78751","name":"Undergraduate students"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMichael Hoffmann\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:michael.hoffmann@pubpolicy.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emichael.hoffmann@pubpolicy.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}