Naturally enough, the borders with other, related fields are still open. These fields, especially sociology, political theory, and economics, are empirically and practically oriented, rather than theoretical and speculative. In so doing, he includes the social-historical reconstruction of the process that leads to technological innovations. Naturally, there is an increasing interest in the ethical problems of technology. But these questions are usually treated from the point of view of a particular ethical theory and with reference to a specific field of application.
Technology assessment is a special case.
In this area there has been a clear growth in both quality and quantity. By now the fundamental conceptual problems have become more or less clear. The actual problems of conflicts of interest and of how to implement a given solution remain, however. This being the case, the accent has shifted, for example, to the quantification of priorities and strategies of implementation, as well as to trouble-shooting, i.e., mediating between the interests of opposing groups. The practical orientation of recent work is also evident in the growing attention given to the problems of ecology and of limited resources.