This special event held at the 1996 Annual Meeting of the GVC addressed the bright and the dark sides of technological forecasting. The review article on pp. 44 to 54 presents the content of a lecture delivered by Prof. Dr. ORTWIN RENN, Baden-Wurttemberg Academy for Assessment of the Consequences of Technology. As an introduction to the assessment of the consequences of technology, Prof. Dr.-lng. KARL STEPHAN, University of Stuttgart, examined the significance of the assessment of the consequences of technology for the professional activities of the engineer. In this issue we publish extracts from his lecture.