Applying the "Do No Harm" Principle to Open* Practices and Technology

The "Do No Harm" principle, well-established in fields like medical research, healthcare, and humanitarian aid, has significant potential to improve the quality and reduce the negative effects of open research practices and technology.

As open research/science practices become a norm across different disciplines, it is important to identify, improve awareness of, and reduce its known or unintended negative impacts on people and their communities. While efforts like ethical source licenses (like the Do No Harm and Hippocratic License) are yet to become an acceptable legal pathway to enforcing responsible practices in open source, more general adoption and use of the "Do No Harm" will help account for societal and environmental implications of research and technology.

In this talk, I will introduce a “do no harm” framework to identify risks and develop actionable plans to mitigate the negative impacts of open research practices and technology. This framework examines the development and deployment of technology across four critical areas: the actors involved or affected, the dynamics and relationships within impacted communities, the economic realities faced by researchers, and environmental impact. Additionally, I will highlight practical methods for addressing the potential negative consequences of our work.

This session is designed for anyone involved in open source/science, including researchers, designers, contributors, developers, maintainers, and community members who seek to better understand and navigate the ethical challenges of open research and technology. Attendees will gain insights into global disparities in technology and explore how they can share responsibility to ensure their work promotes more equitable benefits by combining open practices with the do-no-harm principle.