What Computer Scientists Can Learn From Social Scientists : On the Significance of an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda for Shaping Digitalization and its Social Implications

Abstract

This contribution aims to illustrate the importance of interdisciplinary exchanges between computer scientists and social scientists in order to navigate and regulate processes of digitalization. An awareness of the differences between those two scientific cultures is a necessary precondition for unambiguous and successful communication. We hold the view that such a perspective is indispensable for cushioning the various effects on the social level that are connected with the constantly increasing relevance of digitalization in everyday life. To make our insights clearer, we focus on challenges engineers encounter when developing algorithms in the field of security technologies. On the whole, the paper intends to reveal the occasional perfidious complexities in innovation processes and votes for a strong support and assistance of software engineers through social scientists with regard to questions of technology assessment and responsibility, especially in the context of such a strongly politicized field as digitalized security.