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Value-Based Engineering: A Guide to Building Ethical Technology for Humanity
In times of powerful AI systems, such as GPT, Value-based Engineering is deeply needed. It is a new transdisciplinary IT innovation- and engineering approachrespecting human values and societal consequences of IT systems as these are planned and in early evolution stages. The book describes what principles we should follow in building it. More concretely, it is a guide on how exactly companies should pursue their innovation efforts with an epilogue on how this is different from aspiring science fiction. The Value-based Engineering approach outlined in this book with concrete case-studies, forms and over 90 illustrations was developed and revised by over 100 experts from around the world engaged in a project called IEEE P7000 TM.
359 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 20, 2023
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February 13, 2026
Over five years ago I read and was very favorably impressed by Sarah Spiekermann’s innovative Ethical IT Innovation: A Value-Based System Design Approach (2015). In that book she briefly described what her book was about:
I looked forward to reading her new book, Value-Based Engineering: A Guide to Building Ethical Technology for Humanity (2023), hoping it would provide a host of new insights and resolve some of the questions left dangling in her first book. The first, introductory, chapter was a disappointment and lacked the freshness and verve of her original book, tacking onto a cursory introduction to Value-Based Engineering, a very simplistic view of innovation and an uninspired attack on surveillance capitalism. Her final chapter or epilogue Dormant values versus gadgeterism makes for a weak, rambling end to a book which deserved better.
The heart of the book lies in chapters 4 to 7 which describes the IEEE Standard Model’s three processes: Concept and context exploration, Value exploration, and Ethically aligned design (chapter 4 to 6), while chapter 7 provides a schematic outline of the model’s Case for Ethics document. Chapter 4 covers a systems’ level first cut at sketching out a system and its context (scope, boundaries), its stakeholders, and surprisingly, who is responsible for control as well as key control (points?) over the system of interest. Chapter 5 covers value eliciting from stakeholders, and using conceptual analysis, based on utilitarian ethics, followed by virtue-based and duty-based ethics, and, if necessary, other ethics (e.g. Confucianism, taoist, islam-based) conceptual analysis to identify values and value demonstrators which have to be refined and clustered. Interestingly, Spiekermann omits any mention to Rawlsian ethics, which she mentioned in her previous book at the same level of utilitarianism, deontological and virtue-based ethics. Chapter 6 briefly describes how to turn values and value demonstrators into Ethical Value Requirements and Value-Based System Requirements -the distinction between these two classes of requirements is not well explained. An analysis of the requirements is then carried out to identify risks and suggest how the system may attempt to control them. Note that Spiekermann’s ideas on the adaptation of risk management, threat and control analysis to value-drived design which appeared in her previous book, now appear in, marginally more detail in the model’s third process.
Chapter 3, What Values Are attempts to fill a conceptual gap left in Spiekermann’s previous book and in the IEEE Standard by defining terms such as “value”, “valuation”, and “value ontology”. Spiekermann bases her definitions on those of Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann, two early 20th century German philosophers I admit I had not heard of previously. I admit Spiekermann lost me in this more philosophically-oriented chapter, which, among other things, attempts to introduce a key concept in her methodology, that of a “value demonstrator”.
Chapter 2 (The Ten Principles of Value-Based Engineering) is an attempt to provide an underlying rationale for the IEEE model. In my opinion, it is worth discussing whether this chapter should not be moved into the appendices of the book. The principles are interesting, but hardly earth-shaking or surprising.
The book’s line drawings and the unhelpful Platonic solids visual metaphor for values are unhelpful and I would strongly suggest cutting them out of future editions of this book.
Spiekermann’s new book does add some complementary material to the IEEE Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns during System Design, but I felt the standard was clearer and highly recommend the reader to check it out before reading Value-Based Engineering: A Guide to Building Ethical Technology for Humanity. In this book, it is not at all clear that spreading value analysis across five overlapping processes is helpful or useful -the IEE process model comes across as untidy, imprecise, and bloated. Some of the key model terms still lack clear explanations and concrete examples. In short, while the book undoubtedly shows some progress for Value-Based Engineering, it unfortunately falls far short of providing a “...guide to building ethical technology for Humanity”.
After introducing concepts of IT innovation and the future of IT, I describe the ethical values that matter to humans and human societies across the world. I detail what these values stand for and how they relate to IT. I explain how to build IT so that it accommodates the things we all care about: intrinsic values like freedom, knowledge, health, safety and security, trust, belonging and friendship, dignity and respect, and qualities that support these intrinsic values, such as privacy, transparency, control, truth, fairness, accessibility, objectivity, authenticity, accuracy, accountability, empathy, reciprocity, and politeness.She analyzed nine of the values she considered important to build into modern IT systems (security, safety, privacy, freedom, mental health, trust, dignity and respect, friendship). Her approach to systems and software analysis was fascinating and covered IT project identification, initiation, planning and an analysis that squarely focuses on value discovery, value conceptualization, value investigation and stakeholder involvement in ethical IT system design very well indeed. Unfortunately, the part of the book dealing with design did not live up to the promise of her chapters on stakeholders and value analysis:
The use of value dams and flows left me feeling somewhat mystified and sold short, qualitative persona analysis was frankly disappointing. The adaptation of risk management, threat and control analysis to value-driven design while intriguing, I fear require more development or explanation or both.In the ten years following her first book, Spiekermann carried out a number of case studies to help test and develop the methodology she had proposed, and was a key figure in the development of the IEEE Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns during System Design. IEEE Std 7000™ (2021).
I looked forward to reading her new book, Value-Based Engineering: A Guide to Building Ethical Technology for Humanity (2023), hoping it would provide a host of new insights and resolve some of the questions left dangling in her first book. The first, introductory, chapter was a disappointment and lacked the freshness and verve of her original book, tacking onto a cursory introduction to Value-Based Engineering, a very simplistic view of innovation and an uninspired attack on surveillance capitalism. Her final chapter or epilogue Dormant values versus gadgeterism makes for a weak, rambling end to a book which deserved better.
The heart of the book lies in chapters 4 to 7 which describes the IEEE Standard Model’s three processes: Concept and context exploration, Value exploration, and Ethically aligned design (chapter 4 to 6), while chapter 7 provides a schematic outline of the model’s Case for Ethics document. Chapter 4 covers a systems’ level first cut at sketching out a system and its context (scope, boundaries), its stakeholders, and surprisingly, who is responsible for control as well as key control (points?) over the system of interest. Chapter 5 covers value eliciting from stakeholders, and using conceptual analysis, based on utilitarian ethics, followed by virtue-based and duty-based ethics, and, if necessary, other ethics (e.g. Confucianism, taoist, islam-based) conceptual analysis to identify values and value demonstrators which have to be refined and clustered. Interestingly, Spiekermann omits any mention to Rawlsian ethics, which she mentioned in her previous book at the same level of utilitarianism, deontological and virtue-based ethics. Chapter 6 briefly describes how to turn values and value demonstrators into Ethical Value Requirements and Value-Based System Requirements -the distinction between these two classes of requirements is not well explained. An analysis of the requirements is then carried out to identify risks and suggest how the system may attempt to control them. Note that Spiekermann’s ideas on the adaptation of risk management, threat and control analysis to value-drived design which appeared in her previous book, now appear in, marginally more detail in the model’s third process.
Chapter 3, What Values Are attempts to fill a conceptual gap left in Spiekermann’s previous book and in the IEEE Standard by defining terms such as “value”, “valuation”, and “value ontology”. Spiekermann bases her definitions on those of Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann, two early 20th century German philosophers I admit I had not heard of previously. I admit Spiekermann lost me in this more philosophically-oriented chapter, which, among other things, attempts to introduce a key concept in her methodology, that of a “value demonstrator”.
Chapter 2 (The Ten Principles of Value-Based Engineering) is an attempt to provide an underlying rationale for the IEEE model. In my opinion, it is worth discussing whether this chapter should not be moved into the appendices of the book. The principles are interesting, but hardly earth-shaking or surprising.
The book’s line drawings and the unhelpful Platonic solids visual metaphor for values are unhelpful and I would strongly suggest cutting them out of future editions of this book.
Spiekermann’s new book does add some complementary material to the IEEE Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns during System Design, but I felt the standard was clearer and highly recommend the reader to check it out before reading Value-Based Engineering: A Guide to Building Ethical Technology for Humanity. In this book, it is not at all clear that spreading value analysis across five overlapping processes is helpful or useful -the IEE process model comes across as untidy, imprecise, and bloated. Some of the key model terms still lack clear explanations and concrete examples. In short, while the book undoubtedly shows some progress for Value-Based Engineering, it unfortunately falls far short of providing a “...guide to building ethical technology for Humanity”.
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