Digital technologies as a means of social engineering

The article discusses the methodological problems of innovation, a new branch of knowledge that has both a scientific and applied character, and also explores such a varietyof technical and technological innovations as information and digital technologies, which today determine social dynamics and permeate all spheres of human life, putting forward new requirements for their knowledge and skills. The term "digital society" is analyzed in the conceptual grid of such concepts as "post-industrial society" and "information society". In the course of analyzing the features of the digital society and the socio-cultural effects of the development of digital technologies, the authors focus on the analysis of social, cognitive, psychological, and anthropological risks, including the threat of the loss of attributive personality traits. It is substantiated that in the context of increasing trends in the total mediatization of society, the importance of social and humanitarian expertise, which allows assessing the risks posed by information and digital technologies, is of particular importance. The author substantiates the conclusion that it is necessaryto institutionalize the mandatory ethical and humanitarian expertise of large innovative projects and the participation of public organizations and civil society in it. The article raises the question of the need to predict undesirable consequences from the introduction of certain technical and technological innovations and the role of the humanities in this process. Particular attention is paid to the little-developed interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research area called "social assessment of technology", a new area of such a branch of philosophy as the philosophy of technology, which has an institutional character in the West but has not yet received sufficient distribution in our country, as well as the "precautionary principle" and various interpretations of its status in those countries where it is included in legislative documents.