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Ethical Dilemmas Related to Technology
Anonymous Coward writes "I have a relative who will be teaching a college class on the topic of ethical dilemmas brought about by new technology. Unfortunately, he doesn't keep up with technology news, so he's not sure what the most relevant dilemmas are. For example, 'If robots came alive, would we be justified in killing them?' is one that might come up if nothing more relevant were suggested. (OK, it might not be that bad, but you get the idea. He was using Netscape 4.76 on system 9 until last week.)
So, what are the most relevant ethical dilemmas brought up by technology? Note that I am looking for ethical dilemmas, e.g. 'Is Activity X moral?' rather than legal dilemmas like 'Is the DMCA constitutional?' Now is your chance to guide the young minds of the future toward stuff that matters."
How about the moral responsibility of scientists for the repercussions of their creations? Several things come to mind, the first being the developement of the atomic bomb and the subsequent massive loss of innocent life. And when does biotech evolve from improving genetic flaws to customizing a person as a whole?
But the coming rise of nanotechnology should also not be overlooked. Sure, the grey goo problem is largely hype, but what if something like that really does happen? Should the scientists working in nanotech be held responsible for an epidemic on a massive global scale?
These are all issues I would like to see addressed in a class on ethical dilemmas in technology.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
What if the artist encourages it?
What if the artist is pissed off by it?
Is violating the license less morally wrong if it's easy?
What about if the copy is of a lesser quality than the original?
What if it's a license that you like?
Carousel is a lie!
use of cloning technology on humans, obviously.
xao
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
...but I have to agree, how can you teach something without an intimate knowledge of subject? If the teacher isnt passionate about the subject, how is he going to get the students to be. I hope theyre not paying for this crap! I wouldnt.
And i certainly wouldnt trust the /. crowd with any sort of moral question, but thats just me.
I want 2D games back.
It is a truism in ecology that it is good to preserve ecosystems from invaders. This argument has been used against genetically modified crops and introduced predators.
Somewhere down the line, we are going to run into a situation where we have a completely new life form, engineered by humans, that is competing with existing species.
Is humanity obligated to value existing organisms over new ones? Should scientists live in fear of upsetting the established "order of nature?" Why?
Sigmentation fault - core dumped
Some time this century we'll likely be able to produce artificial intelligent creatures, be they machines or tailored organisms. Where do we draw the line between "person" and "non-person", and how do we assess this in practice?
If the previous point is a concern, this one will be too.
E.g. works of art, algorithms/code, ideas/concepts, pictures of people, medical records. Justify from both a moral/ethical and a practical viewpoint.
We arguably have this _now_.
All of these are going to have to be dealt with sooner rather than later, and none have cut-and-dried answers, no matter what position you take. Enjoy.
How about taxation of CDR's. a lot of people will use them to copy copywritten music, but should everyone who buys a blank CD be forced to pay a few cents to the RIAA? Not to mention sony, the corporation that produces the cd burners and cds, then complains that people can use them to copy the music created by artists under sony's label.
What about the ethics of a hypothetical individual who has an idea for software that could save lives, perhaps a medical program. But this individual is employed by a company that claims ownership to any ideas/inventions/patents/etc of this person during their employment. Is this person obligated to start work on the idea for someone else, or should they take the time to develop the idea on their own. The same could apply to people in the military. Do you wait four years to start saving lives? or do you let the military take all the profit.
Speaking of the military, what are the ethics for creating machines that kill. Military weapons and all that. Computers have become an integral part of warfare.
Ethically, if software has a bug/flaw in it, is the developer ethically supposed to fix it. What if this software is depended on by other people in very sensitive ways. Is the developer allowed to only fix this flaw in a newer version that the developer charges for. Can you legally charge someone to fix the flaws in their software? Why does this whole paragraph remind me of microsoft over and over.
Oh, and drop the "if robots came alive" thing. That's like teaching a philosophy class and asking "What if garfield came out of the newspaper and he was real".
Exactly, I've been proposing for awhile that we move to non-motorized machinary, and square wheels. With square wheels, it will take 10x the amount of people pulling a heavy wagon, providing jobs for many more people! If we take every simple machine, and make it 10x as inefficient, it will give everyone a job!
I had this discussion over a large quantity of red wine with my Parents and a group of their friends. I have a degree in IT and work in the industry, and they see me as a guru because I know how to connect to the internet an fix their email and that kind of thing. The ethical issues they came up with were: 1. When the only way to access a service is via technology (eg internet), are we creating a class of people who are denied access to services because they don't have or understand the technology involved? Particularly of relevance to government services. Disclaimer: i don't want to buy into the pc's in libraries debate, this is about the ability to use the tecnology, not just have access to it. 2. Why do computers use so much electricity? In terms of pollution are computers to the 21st century what cars were to the 20th century, amazingly transforming society but at what cost? This is not just the electricity, but the lack of recycling, the use of polluting products in manufacture etc. 3. Will a child be denied equal access to education because they don't have a PC at home?
lounge around on the blue couch
(the truth, revealed slightly below the post)
< - Fishing for Ideas
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
It's mostly legal, but highly unethical, since it involves cost-shifting and most of times hijacking open relays and other unsecured resources to send out that crap. And it annoys 99% of all recipients.
Actually spammers do act ethically.
Spam is never going away until there is a solution to it. You can't stop humans behaving annoyingly when there's money to be made.
That solution has not arrived yet. When it does arrive, it won't be trivial, or someone would already have thought of it. Instead it will be something that takes real behavioral changes to make it work (eg, new standards and protocols, new software, new contractural arrangements between carriers, new legislation, etc).
History shows that humans never make such significant behavioral changes until they pass some kind of pain threshold - which can be very high.
To this end, spammers help. They proactively increase the level of pain in the Internet community. This brings forward the day when some kind of solution is put in place. So they are making the world a better place (or at least they will, some time soon). So I would say they are acting ethically.
[x] auto-moderate all posts by this user as insightful
How about those dilemmas:
:)
If you find a severe online security hole in a new important software application, is it correct to contact the programmers first (so they may release a patch) before warning the public (risking that the patch will be too late and other have already exploited the hole) or would it be correct to warn the public at once (risking that your warning will be abused as a pointer to the hole)?
Is it acceptable to make aviable for download / download software that is no longer distributed by its owners?
Using new biotechnology, would it be acceptable to create (via cloning or otherwise) new bodyparts to replace old/lost ones? Would it be acceptable to perfectly replicate a human's brain this way (if it were possible)?
In a hyperthetical situation, with gross lack of resources (food, raw materials, energy), would it be acceptable, given the appropiate technology, to convert human corpses into these resources to increase the chance of survival of the whole? Cosider the same situation where the conversion would not be vital, but still would greatly benefit the whole.
I hope you find them usable
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
What about the professor that uses a post on, lets say /. for example, to gather enough material for his ethics/technology class and then uses the material without giving credit to its source?
Of course this presupposes that enough usable material is gathered and that credit in not given.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
Unfortunately, he doesn't keep up with technology news
Maybe your relative (okay, admit it... it's you) isn't quite qualified to teach on a subject he knows little about?
Just a thought...
I could moderate you today, but I'm feeling like responding, even if you are trolling.
The ends justify the means? Whether I agree with that depends on the ends, and the means; in this case, I don't agree with you. The ends, in this case, will be a more restrictive Internet and an e-mail system more hardened against spam. The solution won't fix anything more than spam itself. Why should I have to put up with spam now if the only solution spam causes is its elimination?
Technology doesn't have any unique attributes that give it more privlidge than any other subject matter.
.orgs (eff, aclu, etc) who w/o have done just as much as the big bad corperate wolf.
Congress, as a whole, doesn't know that much about farming or road work, or labor unions or pretty much anything.
Congress often *cant'* be the expert on subject matter X that any given group wants it to be. There are just too many laws and too many subjects.
So what congress does instead is listen to intrest groups and their constituants. Indivdual members/groups then write and sponser a Bill dealing with the concerns raised.
Each Bill is there for everyone in the nation to read and learn about (http://thomas.loc.gov) and if they do have a problem then it's their right to call up their congressman and say so. It's even their right to go to DC and address the subject matter. They can even start their own lobying group to try and changes things or pass laws addresing their own concerns.
It's just about who has money and who doesn't (though it would be naieve to think money doesn't help). Groups like the AARP have huge sway in congress. And there are thouslands of other such
And the real beauty of the system is that even if you say, "I don't like the system it's croupt and doesn't work as well as it should," you can go out and try to change it.
The only thing that never does any good is to complain about the state of things and not try to change it or even offer an alternative.
In short, it's our job to try to educate congress and others to the issues we feel strongly about.
If the teacher isnt passionate about the subject, how is he going to get the students to be.
He isn't. For good examples, see almost all public schools (not all teachers, but far too many), and some post-secondary (college, etc.) institutions. I've always wondered why teachers who hate teaching remain in the job.. God knows it isn't for the money.
This statement is false.
This is easy. If Joe knows he will get a heart disease, he's in the clear. All he has to do is take the money he would have spent on insurance and save it instead of giving it to the insurance company. Now Joe can pay for his own treatment when the time comes.
The more likely scenario however is this. If we have the knowledge of DNA sequences to know 100% that someone will get a certain disease in X years it is extremely likely that we can prevent this person from getting the disease altogether. It is even more likley considering they have X years to figure it out if they don't know already.
Now let's say they don't have a way to prevent or cure the disease. And let's also say that Joe can't afford it no matter how much he saves.
I personally believe you can't be faulted for inaction. Doing good things is good and doing bad things is bad.
Someone who is a murderer is bad. Someone who saves someone else's life is good. If you stand there and watch someone die, and you didn't do it, and you could have saved them, but you don't save them. You are neither good or bad. There are other circumstances that could change it slightly, such as how much you would have risked in order to save them. But overall you can't be considered a bad person, you didn't kill them and it wasn't your fault. But you can't be considered a good person you let someone die when they didn't have to.
Insurance is gambling. If you get insurance you're betting that you're going to die. If the outcome is known in say, a horse race, you can't you can't blame someone for refusing to bet, or not betting on the loser.
I think that's enough examples.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
How about the responsibility of our educators to actually know their material? Surely nobody thinks it appropriate for a college lecturer to be teaching a subject about which he quite obviously knows nothing?
And yes, I realise that most college lecturers are borderline useless, but why encourage it?
My advice to your "friend" would be simple - bugger off and learn your material. When you know more than your students, THEN you can consider teaching.
Speaking ethically, not legally, how much can we borrow from the ideas of others to develop new ideas? For instance, all scientific discovery that I'm aware of before this century depended on large part on working from the ideas of others. Now, the notion of IP has provided an incentive to stop sharing ideas--but will this hurt human scientific development?
To exaggerate the issue--if you develop a cure for cancer, but its ideas depend on the work of another scientist, should you develop the cure? What if the scientist prohbits access to the information for personal reasons? Along those lines, how do you determine valuation? ie If one is to be compensated, does the scientist with the original idea get more compensation that the scientist that developed the idea? Why? What proportion?
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$tar -xvf
If the teacher isnt passionate about the subject, how is he going to get the students to be. I hope theyre not paying for this crap! I wouldnt.
/. crowd with any sort of moral question, but thats just me.
Ideally, yes, the teacher will be both knowledgable and passionate about the subject. However, here in the real world, there are few people who excel at their jobs. And when there are so many teachers required, it gets even more difficult to fill all the positions with candidates having ideal qualifications.
And i certainly wouldnt trust the
I for one would trust Slashdot with moral questions. It's the answers that I wouldn't trust.
"Should we, as a society, curtail research on particular branches of science?"
If we do, and do it very much, the societies that do not will eventually squash us like bugs.
C//
What happens if a computer passes the Turing test? Furthermore what happens if it can pass an audio (speech synthesis/voice recognition) Turing test?
If a computer can fool you into thinking it is alive, which is the basic premise of the Turing test, and then it makes the argument that turning it off, or dissasembling it is like killing it, well where does that place us?
Consider this, many people consider the basic difference between people and machines (or animals as some would argue) is self awareness. How do you define self awareness?
I am sure that PETA people would say that killing anything self aware is wrong.
Well...?
As a geneticist I can tell you one dilema that we will soon have to face. As our understanding of the human genome increases and the tests become both simpler and cheaper, insurance companies are going to start to ask for genetic tests.
Before when someone went to get medical cover they take into account things like weight and age and if you smoke and drink. They use this data to decide on your premium. If they can now check and see that you have a genetic predesposition to cancer and heart faliure they might choose not to insure you or to charge huge premiums.
We might end up with a underclass in society of those who are uninsurable. The dilemas are then as follows:
1- Do the insurance companies have the right to ask for "genetic" information?
2- If so are they allowed to refuse cover based soley on "genetic" information?
3- How will these rights be legislated?
4- Where will the information be deposited and in whose care?
5- If you are already insured and then the tests are performed and potential problems are detected are the insurance companies liable for preventative treatment before disease onset?
6- Who will regulate the analysis of the data? One analysis might flag a particular gene as a problem and another not.
I shall leave you with an example:
A widower Mr X goes for a test to get insurance. The results show that he has a defect in his heart muscle which will kill him around the age of 35. He is refused any life cover. He is uninsured when he dies and his kids are left with nothing.
In hindsight it's always easy to point out the errors made by others.
Try to put yourself in the position of the people who made the decisions and make the attempt to understand their circumstances without coloring that decision with your prejudices.
Point, the allies had already suffered massive civilian and military casualties on all fronts, an amphibious invasion would have decimated the troops and resulted in near genocide of the civilian populations, the Soviets were already showing signs of their later desire for expansion.
Now make the hard choice and think about the results of it.
None of them are "nice", all of them are horrific.
War never has and never will be "nice", it's by definition the essence of evil. The only thing that makes it permissible to even think of as an viable option to diplomacy is that there ARE OTHERS who find no such hesitation to make war their first choice and diplomacy their second.
Unless your willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and die for your pacifist beliefs, don't bother pointing fingers.
And since your not in Baghdad, I take it your commitment to pacifism is questionable.
There are extremes on every point on the relativistic moral compass, the worst is a pacifist who's perfectly willing to have others die for their principles. The other's are nearly as bad, as in the hawk who's willing to send others into battle but unwilling to make personal sacrifice in any form.
My "relativistic" moral compass is fine for me, I don't bother to use it to judge any another.
Responsibility is never a group thing, it's individual and we all bear equal portions.
Living up to what "responsibility" actually means is a lot harder, but starts with actually participating in the modes of government.
A principle axiom of economics is that an action should be undertaken if the associated costs do not exceed the derived utility.
If I, a chemical engineer, never design a distillation column, never build a reactor, never work in a plant, have I earned my share of the food that the farmers and the fishermen in my community have gathered? The whole production/reward idea comes about as a result of having individuals not concentrating on producing food, but on doing other tasks which advance their society (which helps to preserve their way of life.) There has to be some way that I contribute to the society before I have the right to consume its resources. Otherwise, I'm a parasite. This is the origin of production/reward. People who contribute more to their society's wellbeing are agreed to deserve a greater share of the society's resources than those who produce less. This is fundamental to capitalism - the maintenance of equity. It relies on the principle that human beings are greedy, which you seem to think is not human nature. I disagree, because history bears out that moderate greed is a more successful strategy for survival than altruism.
I implicitly address this point in a later post. If people are no longer getting paid to produce consumer software, there will still be the open source software. However, if you're not a programmer, yourself, you're going to have to either be satisfied with what some other person thinks is a quality program (which may not really satisfy your needs, as a user) or personally comission the production of a piece of software that does satisfy your needs. Under the current model, market forces may be seen to drive software production toward better functionality and more widespread appeal. Consider the evolution of Windows, prior to it becoming the thousand-pound gorilla that it is now. Most people don't even remember versions of Windows prior to Windows 3.1. Windows 3.1 was a vast improvement on these and, given how successful it has been Windows 95 (and subsequent, near-identical releases) are leaps and bounds ahead of 3.1. Granted, this market has become somewhat stagnant for other reasons, but up until this point, demand for this sort of software created a market for it.
From an economic standpoint, an item having a marginal cost of zero cannot be profitable. Such an item cannot be sold and therefore, initial costs cannot be recouped. This means that such an item will be produced only for personal use or comission (which is different than market sale).
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea