Computers in Human Behavior 114 (2021) 106559 Available online 11 September 2020 0747-5632/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Full length article From wearable to insideable: Is ethical judgment key to the acceptance of human capacity-enhancing intelligent technologies? Olarte-Pascual Cristina a , Pelegrín-Borondo Jorge a , Reinares-Lara Eva b, * , Arias-Oliva Mario c a Department of Business Administration, Universidad de La Rioja, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales, La Cigüe˜ na 60, 26006, Logro˜ no, La Rioja, Spain b Department of Business Administration, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales, Paseo Artilleros S/n., 28032, Vic´ alvaro, Madrid, Spain c Department of Business, Universitat Rovira I Virgili, Av. Catalunya 35, 43002, Tarragona, Spain A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Ethical judgments Multidimensional ethics scale (MES) Technology acceptance models Wearable Insideable Intelligent technology devices ABSTRACT The advent of intelligent wearable (external devices, such as watches and clothing) and insideable (implanted devices, such as identifcation chips or chips that control technological devices) human-capacity enhancing technologies has opened an ethical debate about their development and use in society. Based on data from an international sample of 1563 digital natives, a model is proposed and tested (1) that introduces ethical judgment and its fve dimensions (“moral equity”, “relativism”, “utilitarianism”, “egoism” and “contractualism”) to explain intention to use intelligent capacity-enhancing technological devices; (2) that helps to explain the technological leap involved in moving from wearing technologies to incorporating them into the human body, through the moderating role that technology type has in the relationship between ethical judgment and intention to use. The results showed that: (1) Ethical judgment is key for the acceptance of wearables and insideables, and has greater explanatory capacity for insideables than for wearables; (2) “Egoism” has the highest explanatory power for intention to use insideables and “utilitarianism” is the most important dimension for intention to use wearables. Finally, a series of operational implications are proposed to guide the development and commercialisation of devices, while taking into account the ethical judgment of the users. 1. Introduction The human body has become a support for intelligent technologies, both through carrying them as wearables (externally-worn intelligent devices, such as watches, bracelets, clothing, glasses and headphones), and by insertion as insideables (intelligent devices implanted in the human body, such as microchips for identifcation, memory, payment, access unblocking, technological device control and body monitoring). Although wearables were seen as “science fction” a decade ago, today they represent an expanding market, and insideables might follow the same evolution (Ochsner et al., 2015). Forecasts for the use of wearables indicate that the world market will reach 279 million units in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 8.9% (IDC, 2019). Insideable tech- nologies are already being marketed directly to the consumer and this potential market is attracting high interest from research centres and companies. The top tech companies, such as Google’s Calico ™ and Tesla’s Neuralink, are devoting considerable resources to developing insideables. The use of these intelligent technological devices (ITDs) can be classifed into two types, therapy and enhancement of human capacities. This distinction is based on the purpose for which the technologies are designed. That is, the frst relates to the treatment of disease or disability, and the second to enhancements of normal human function and the provision of entirely new capabilities (McGee & Maguire, 2007). In the health feld, both device types, wearables and insideables, have a large market. The growth forecasts for wearables suggest they will be widely adopted in the health sector (IDC, 2019) and, indeed, the vast majority of insideables developed in recent years are being used for medical purposes (Murata et al., 2019), for example, restoring control of paralysed limbs, regulating heart rhythm, improving vision and hearing, etc. It seems that the use of wearables and insideables for therapeutic purposes is not controversial. They are accepted, even in the case of the most invasive implantable technologies, to overcome human disabilities and to address health problems (Duarte & Park, 2014). Berger et al. (2008) argued that, due to the potential benefts they offer patients, the * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: cristina.olarte@unirioja.es (O.-P. Cristina), jorge.pelegrin@unirioja.es (P.-B. Jorge), eva.reinares@urjc.es (R.-L. Eva), mario.arias@urv.cat (A.-O. Mario). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computers in Human Behavior journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106559 Received 13 April 2020; Received in revised form 28 August 2020; Accepted 8 September 2020