Abstract

This master thesis studies to what degree Responsible Research & Innovation can be applied to the concept of the Digital Self. In order to examine this properly, it focuses on aspects of privacy, ownership and democracy. This work is inspired by the digital health domain, where a growing number of patients become enabled to benefit from AI-powered clinical decision sup port. Aim of this study is to provide insight into what cases can be considered for exploring new design requirements for digital health applications. Increasingly, we use technology to manage our daily digital selves. Our smartphones, being examples of extensions of ourselves, are able to empower us as citizens within a democracy. The decision-making process belongs more and more to the realm of artificial intelligence, powering our extended selves with algorithms. Although the era of the DS has already begun, it remains unnoticed by the paradigm of RRI. Instead of empowering informational self-determination, RRI tends to be overprotective of an outdated concept of what it is like to act as a human within a democracy which is obviously reshaped by digitization. In order to maintain our general understanding of a democracy, there is a need for a concept of the DS in the near future. Not only will the DS-concept have the capacity to empower a democratic citizen, it will also be able to empower patients within a digital health environment. Due to the data hunger of large technology companies and governments, it has already become clear that the rise of digitization comes with a price for our society and our health. Therefore, it is the DS concept that can make a difference in contributing to ethical and social standards. If the future of digital health offers us – additional to human medical stakeholders – AI-powered digital health apps to increase the quality of healthcare, we have the duty to take our values into account when designing such apps.