aKtIv – using agile network control to increase the resilience of water supply infrastructure

The overall goal of the aKtIv project is to prevent a failure of the drinking water supply due to insufficient available water quantities by developing a situation-dependent customer (group)-specific regulation of water quantities. Through the interdisciplinary involvement of users, science and industry, a digital twin of the water supply structure is being developed. This will enable decision-makers to grasp the complexity of the situation due to the large number of end-users with a wide range of consumption quantities and support them in making effective control decisions at an early stage. The aim is to prevent or specifically manage critical system conditions or failures in the drinking water supply. In dealing with this task, the International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities at the University of Tübingen (IZEW) has the task, within the framework of its sub-project “ethical aspects of using AI in water supply infrastructure” to raise value-oriented questions regarding the acceptance and acceptability of the technology(s) to be developed and accompanying social strategies. The aim of the work of the sub-project is to identify ethical implications of an AI-supported dynamic and active water supply, to deal with them and to formulate points to consider for the development of ethically appropriate technologies and accompanying strategies. Such a perspective is important, because every technology carries more or less explicit values and especially the distribution of goods of general interest in democratic societies has to be ensured by the development of mechanisms that promote justice and reduce discrimination.