People depend upon technology, at work and in everyday life. Without organisational and technological inter vention in nature humankind would never have been able to maintain the population densities encountered today or uphold an ethical claim to an individual livelihood in dignity. At the same time, however, technology creates new risks. The extent to which the risks arising are balanced by the desired benefits often evades prediction since many consequences of the application of technology are uncertain and are also judged ambivalently by the persons affected. Forecasts can only predict probable or possible developments, but cannot overcome the genuine uncertainty surrounding the future. For this reason assessment of the consequences of technology cannot reveal all negative effects, or even promise the certainty of a positive cost-benefit balance. Instead, it is the task of assessment of the consequences of technology to initially establish the potential positive and negative consequences according to the best available knowledge and on the basis thereof to harmonize the possibilities of modifications and conditions of introduction with the developers and users of technology. The most suitable approach utilizes discursive procedures in which scientists, manufactures, users, and other affected persons together have to assess the possible consequences.