96 4 CHAPTER 4 if the value deliberation will change the participant’s perception on the acceptability of the alternatives regarding a scenario of Autonomous Weapon System deployment. As the method for value elicitation, we chose the Value Deliberation process developed by Pigmans (2020), because it meets Fishkin’s five characteristics for legitimate deliberation and it was tested in a large-scale citizen’s summit event during the G1000 in July 2017 in Rotterdam (Pigmans, Dignum, & Doorn, 2021). In our previous work on values related to Autonomous Weapon Systems, we studied people’s perception on blame, trust, harm, human dignity, confidence, expectations, support, fairness and anxiety by comparing a scenario of the deployment of Human Operated drones to that of Autonomous Weapon Systems (Verdiesen, 2017; Verdiesen, Santoni de Sio, & Dignum, 2019). To select these values, we conducted a literature review, a short exploratory online survey and expert interviews. The values selected to incorporate in the Value Deliberation process in this research are based on our previous research as we find this the most complete overview of values related to Autonomous Weapon Systems. 4.4 RESEARCH SET-UP Due to the COVID19 restrictions we designed an online value deliberation process instead of conducting the deliberation in person. We followed the process Pigmans (2020) described (Figure 13) and adjusted it to an online set-up consisting of a bipartite survey and a virtual session for the expert panel discussion. The first part of the survey was sent three days prior of the online discussion session and needed to be completed before the online session. The survey (see appendix A) started with the scenario and the options (the alternatives) that the Autonomous Weapon System could take were given (step 1 of Figure 14). Next, the participants were asked to list an advantage and disadvantage (the arguments) for each option, which is step 2, and rank the options from most acceptable to least acceptable (ranking 1- step 3). During the online session the second part of the survey was sent to guide the value elicitation (step 4). For each option the participants were asked: Which values are relevant for this option? and Are these values threatened or promoted in this option? After filling in this part of the survey, the participants discussed values in the online session (step 5). Next, in step 6 the participants ranked the options a second time (ranking 2) in the survey. The online session concluded with a comparison and discussion on the ranking (step 7) and an evaluation (step 8). The advantage of the online setting is that the participants could join the survey from their own location which allowed for a diverse group with international participation without the need for travelling. The disadvantage of an online setting is that the non-verbal interaction and interpretation of facial expression is less clear than when conducting the session in person.
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