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."

Comments

Responsibility

[Drunken Coward]

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.

Re:Responsibility

[Zanthany]

But are the inventors of these technologies to blame? Should they be held responsible for inventing Technology X?

By saying these scientists should be held responsible would akin to your atomic bomb argument. Is Einstein more responsible than Truman who ordered the massacre of hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians?

I would hope that the answer would be no. Then we'd have civil proceedings where Victim Y would sue the inventor of Technology X because said technology brought bodily harm, even though Perpetrator Z is the actual cause of the incident.

Oh, but wait. We already have people seeking injunctions agains gun manufacturers because they produce a lethal weapon.

Re:Responsibility

[randyest]

You can't help here but get into the debate about whether anything is really ever invented or simply discovered.

This is good, related, and thought-provoking. If these "creations" are actually discoveries rather than inventions, then one might argue that someone will eventually find the dangerous discoveries, so as a responsible scientist, one must look these even more aggressively, if only to better understand (and thereby be better prepared to control or limit damages from) them.

Sorta like the guy who developed and patented the way to keep a monkey (tested) or human (untested) head alive without a body, and then patented it to prevent evil genius torturers and insane governments with space-exploration hopes dashed by low-payload limits from exploiting them. I googled for a link, but failed -- anyone help me out on this -- or was it a hoax (very possible)?

Re:Responsibility

[Blue Stone]

"I'm sorry, there is nothing innocent about supporting a regime trying to conquer the world with military might..."

Are you entirely sure you want to be taking this line, right now?

Re:Responsibility

[Graspee_Leemoor]

" He could have bombed Tokyo."

They had already firebombed the crap out of Tokyo anyway. More people were killed in the Tokyo firebombings than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki (but not both combined).

graspee

Re:Responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

The Japanese people were innocent victims?

Yes. These were cities full of civilians that got nuked, not military bases. Hospitals, schools, kids, grannies, you name it.

I actually understand the reasoning behind nuking them. A brutal demonstration of the Allies' strength quickly forced a rethink from their government.

There is a word used to describe the slaughter of civilians in order to shock the enemy into capitulating. That word is terrorism.

There is nothing innocent about anyone who went along with that regime and supported their cause.

Last time I checked, they were not a democracy. The USA, on the other hand, does not have that excuse to hide behind.

Re:Responsibility

[egoff]

Someone's been watching too much Futurama.

Someone's been reading too much US patent number 4,666,425.

Re:Responsibility

[Guppy06]

While I'm of the opinion that the US was more than justified in using the atomic bomb on Japan (twice, even), I want to play devil's advocate.

"I'm sorry, there is nothing innocent about supporting a regime..."

Who voted for Hideki Tojo?

"The true innocent victims were the American sailors who were bombed in Pearl Harbor by the same people we were discussing peace treaties with."

1.) From the Japanese POV, Pearl Harbor was a cold war gone hot. US trade embargos (especially on oil) were strangling the Japanese war effort (whether the Japanese war effort was moral is a completely different story), not to mention indirect and direct assistance the US was providing Chiang Kai-Shek's government. What do you think the Japanese diplomats were discussing with the US in Washington, tea parties?

2.) A war declaration was supposed to be delivered just before the Pearl Harbor attacks.

Re:Responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

All I hear on American media is historical revisionism. I don't understand why we arm these terrorists (Al Quaeda, Hussein, etc), and then we act all innocent and attack them for using the arms...

I think it is a good ethical question; how much to blame are we (the U.S.) for encouraging and abetting terrorists ?

Re:Responsibility

[Thangodin]

The decision to drop the bomb on the Japanese was made because, under the Japanese political system, there was no way for them to surrender. This was an unnacceptable outcome, a disgrace to the Emperor. The most important thing in the world to them was that the Emperor not lose face. The Japanese had held back close to one third of their forces for defense of mainland Japan, with the intent of fighting a long, bloody, and drawn out war against Americans that would have lasted years and killed millions. The casualties and horror of that war would have made Hiroshima look like a minor traffic accident. The Japanese wanted to force a stalemate--and avoid surrender--at ANY cost. The Allies just wanted to go home. But to go home, you need unconditional surrender...otherwise, you've won only the first round, not the war.

So they dropped two nukes, bang bang, to make it look like they had a stockpile of them and this was the beginning of the end, in which all Japan would be reduced to a scorched smoking ruin. They only had the two, but the Japanese didn't know that, and couldn't know that. The prospect was unthinkable, and so the Emperor was forced to do the unthinkable to prevent it: surrender.

We make the mistake of believing that everyone thinks like we do, that all cultures are essentially like ours. They aren't. I doubt that even the Japanese today can grasp how single minded the people of Imperial Japan were. Living in a pluralistic democracy, we certainly cannot grasp it. The stories of kamikaze pilots and hermit soldiers who waited 15 years after the war for orders that never came are all true.

Re:Responsibility

[Slime-dogg]

There's prior art described in C.S. Lewis' "That Hideous Strength". It's book three of the sci-fi series including: "Out of the Silent Planet" and "Perelandra".

The premise is based on "The Saracen's head," which is kept alive through mechanical and biological means, although the brain has been grown past the bounds of the head itself. It's a really creepy picture that Lewis creates, but the books were printed in the 60's, a full 20-30 years before this particular patent was filed/granted.

Re:Responsibility

[stephenbooth]

These were cities full of civilians that got nuked

Technically they were military support infrastructure.

If you want to get into 'tit-for-tat' arguement then perhaps you should crack open a history book. Especially the bits about how the Japanese were actively using bio-warfare in IndoChina, including experiments on civillians that were as brutal, if not more so, as those perpetrated by the Germans.

Incidentally, the term terrorism is only really applicable where actions are against civillians not involved in the prosecution of the war or supply to the troops and is perpetrated by irregular troops, or regulars out of uniform, where there has been no formal declaration of war. Factories involved in the production of armaments and ammunition are legitimate targets.

Stephen

Here's mine:

[Saint Aardvark]

Are Napster et al. moral?

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?

Re:Here's mine:

[randyest]

More generally: what happens when technological advancements threaten the livelihood of various persons and/or business models?

There's the ever-popular luddites which spawned the term sabotage -- is it moral to destroy that which is thought to (or even really will) harm your livelihood? Is it defensible on grounds of self-defense/self-preservation, or is it indefensible technophobia and inflexibility/inability to adapt and ignorant short-sightedness?

Of course I'm intentionally skating around the obviously related *AA issues (MPAA, RIAA) and IP/copyright infringement, incessant extension of copyrights, etc.

But, I think this would be a fun way to start the discussion. Everyone knows about the *AA issues (well, most college students, at least). And, most will have a strong opinion on the isse one way or the other (see any /. article on *AA and IP/copyright).

But, not everyone is familiar with relatively ridiculous-sounding, but strongly-related historical episodes of things like throwing wooden shoes into a machine for fear of being replaced by it (sabots, see links above).

I, for one, would be amused to see how many students who would say stopping such a technological advancement (machinery) to keep some people in their devil-that-they-know occupations was silly and wrong (and short-sighted), and then be faced with quite a logical/moral delimma when IP/copyright laws are discussed in the same vein.

Granted, many students may be anti-RIAA/MPAA to begin with out of greed/ignorance and not really have given it much though, so you may have to find a few whose family members benefit from the *AA and IP/copytight extensions somehow to get a real reaction, but it would be enlightening to all nonetheless, IMHO.

Re:Here's mine:

[Linux-based-robots]

Sharing is fine unless it's software or music.
That's what I was taught in kindergarten anyway:

Teacher: Ok Peter, what did you bring for show-and-tell today to share with us? Oh, you brought software? Well don't share any of it! Sharing is wrong, sharing means you're a pirate!

Actually I tend now to ignore all licenses unless the threat of physical force (the law) causes me to do otherwise. I believe licenses have no moral force.

So I guess that makes me a pirate. In that case, Arrgh, matey! Let's hit the high seas! I've got some Britney Speares CDs in yonder chest!

Re:Here's mine:

[GospelHead821]

I dislike this mentality and I think that it incorrectly identifies the meaning of 'sharing'. Sharing software is perfeclty fine in the same sense of sharing cupcakes. If I have enough cupcakes for the entire class and I give each one a cupcake, that's good. Likewise, if I buy 25 copies of SimCity 4 to hand out to my friends, that's okay too.

Where the issue grows problematical is that the means of reproducing software are far less expensive than the means of reproducing cupcakes. If I already have a computer (which is reasonable, if I own software), then reproducing it costs next to nothing. If I owned a Star Trek replicator and I bought a box of Hostess cupcakes, then replicated them and gave them away, I would have wronged Hostess. I did not come up with the recipe for those cupcakes nor did I do any real work to reproduce them. However, I'm distributing, for free, cupcakes that are identical to Hostess's. Just because I am able to do this does not mean that it is right or ethical for me to do so.

I don't know exactly what one would call the act of distributing, like that, but I certainly don't think it's sharing.

Re:Here's mine:

[GospelHead821]

Infinite reproduction at near-zero cost may be fine for material goods. However, ideas (and music is an idea, or sorts) need to be generated anew, as well as well as diseminated. If the near-zero cost of reproduction means that the consumer cost of the product will be near-zero, then you're going to have a difficult time finding people to generate new ideas. This means that there won't be any new products or new ideas, because it will be the easiest thing for everybody to just sit back and enjoy the free, readily available goods that they get by replication. Economics works on the principle that goods and services cost the producer something and that this cost will be conveyed to the consumer. If there is no cost associated with production, then there will be no producers (because there's no room for profit). Such a model cannot be any more successful than communism. In both situations, there is no reward for innovation or personal effort, which goes contrary to human nature. Communism fails because there arises an individual or group who will take advantage of the selflessness of the rest. Free Reproduction fails because it eliminates producers, which leads to stagnation.

Re:Here's mine:

[Dyolf Knip]

Very true, but the tactic of making a scarcity of information so that ordinary property law (or the variation of it that is copyright and patent) can be applied is becoming less and less effective. I agree, not being able to ensure that an originator of an idea is reimbursed is bad, but the alternative (forcing people at gunpoint to pay for something that, from their point of view, costs absolutely nothing) is looking worse. With modern electronics and telecommunications, the old way of handling copyright simply does not work. The sooner The Powers That Be get that through their skulls, the sooner we can find a solution that does work.

Remember, copyrights are themselves a fairly recent invention. They have not always been applied in history and it would be foolish to think that they always will be in the future.

Furthermore, let's assume the copyright holders' worst case scenario. Copyright dies and is buried beneath easy intercontinental copying. Nobody has monetary incentive to invent and anything they do is spread without the author's permission. Sound about right? It is important to note that this situation differs from the classic Tragedy of the Commons or the foolishness of Communism. This is not a building or a piece of land that constantly requires work by people (who of course receive nothing) to keep active and useful. The Information Commons does not suffer during a dearth of fresh blood. As you say, it 'merely' stagnates. Or does it? Industrial R&D would probably suffer (we'd see a dramatic rise in the Trade Secret approach to new products), but pure researchers would likely settle for getting their name stamped on the results. Music, movies, and novels might be added to only by the altruistic, though it's arguable that this is in many respects better than the corporatized version we get today. And there will always be incentive to go to movie theaters and to see live bands; the experience beats the hell out of home systems. Paintings and sculptures, of course, will never lack for artists with visions and people wanting to 'culture up' their homes with the real thing.

Compare that to Valenti's dream scenario, where every work is owned and totally controlled even after it leaves the store. With copyright lengths reaching into the centuries and beyond (forever minus a day?), unless someone is actively printing it, old works will languish in dusty bins and eventually die an ignomious death under the guise of Digital Rights Management. The Commons cannot survive being owned. I'm constantly hearing about people who search high and low for some 80-year old piece of work, but because the author's heir says no, nothing happens.

I'm not suggesting the false dichotomy that we will eventually be forced choose between these scenarios. The future will almost certainly be something in between, or even something wierder. But I say that if we were to have to choose one, life with excessive freedom is _infinitely_ superior to the alternative.

Here's one for you...

[Sick Boy]

How about, "should somebody who isn't familiar with the issues be responsible for teaching them?" Seriously, this could also spin off into "should the largely technologically illiterate Congress be making laws about technology?" and other topics that shine light onto the pressing concerns that have been the cause of umteen YRO articles.

Re:Here's one for you...

[paradesign]

unfortunately i used all my mod points up today...

...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.

Re:Here's one for you...

[gailwynand]

The college I went to forced everyone to take a "cluster" of "liberal arts" courses so that everyone would have a "broad" "cultural perspective" even if they were in majors that were not "humanistic."

There were more buzzwords, but I can't recall them. The classes that would fulfill this requirement were at the 300 and 400 level in English, Philosophy, Political Science, etc. I don't recall anyone from any of those majors being forced to take a 300 level math or science course...

Anyhow, for my "values, technology, and society" cluster I took Information Ethics. This was taught by a philosophy professor, and he knew nothing about computers, or any of the issues. He once horrified the entire class by rebooting the classroom's computer by turning it off and turning it back on at the surge protector, without trying CTRL-ALT-DEL, using the "soft" reset button, or passing GO. He basically picked a list of topics and had the students present them in pairs, and made no secret about the fact that he was learning from us so that he could more properly teach the class the following semester.

So I guess the answer is that if you are not familiar with your subject then find someone who is, and that happens to be your students then Hey Presto! The topic I presented to the class was the whole GUI war thing (Apple vs Microsoft), and demonstrated configuring KDE to look like win95 and Mac OS, while the professor looked on awestruck... I also did a paper on emulation, which the professor had been ignorant of, focusing mainly on BLEEM! as it was the new cool thing at the time.

And, yes, I paid for that crap.

Re:Here's one for you...

[wik]

> how can you teach something without an intimate knowledge of subject?

Some of my favorite teachers teach classes so they can learn the material. Clearly you can't effectively teach a while knowing absolutely nothing, but intimate knowledge is not definitely not a requirement for a good class.

Teachers doing this typically have a good idea of what questions the students will ask, because they just spent hours trying to understand the same material.

Re:Here's one for you...

[NegativeK]

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.

Re:Here's one for you...

[Degrees]

I'm not so sure that the /. crowd is a poor source of moral questions. Hang on, I'll explain that...

There is an old 'where are your beliefs?' question that helps you figure out what you think government should be like. The question (paraphrased) is: If you could place the people in the top 100 positions of government from the following two choices, which would it be? A) The top 100 graduates from Harvard University, -or- B) The first 100 people in the phone book? The point to think about is: which bias you prefer? Do you want people from a select class, with obvious advantages, but perhaps some myopia with respect to the real world; or, a bunch of people from all walks of life, some of which will be just like you? Do you want to be governed by The Elite or The Average Joe?

So what is the /. crowd is made up of?

I think with /. you get a little of best of both worlds. You get the focus of a tech-savvy community, without the exclusionary elements. Better yet, the Average Joe gets moderator points.

Sure, the professor could have thrown the question out on Usenet. Or, the professor could have only regurgitated what his peers in the education industry are saying. Heck, he could have done both at the same time by consulting the Internet Oracle ;-)

I think too, that the timing of the question is significant. It isn't like classes begin next week. Chances are, this professor is preparing for a class for the summer or fall semester. That does show some forsight, and real interest being able to present quality material.

So if I were in a position of looking for the technology + moral questions of the day, I think I could do a lot worse than /.

well...

[xao gypsie]

use of cloning technology on humans, obviously.

xao

Did anybody else read that as...

[The Pi-Guy]

Is ActiveX moral? I think the answer would be no, unless implemented right.

Extinction vs. Genetic engineering

[kinnell]

It is commonly held that a species becoming extinct is bad. Does it therefore follow that creating a new species through genetic engineering is good? If not, why not?

If I could send 1000000 Emails for free, should I?

[gorbachev]

Spam is such an easy ethical problem.

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.

Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers. Remember to shoot knees first, so that they can't run away while you slowly torture them to death

How about this one?

[dmadole]

How about the ethical dillema of people teaching things that they don't know enough about?

Replacing people with machines

[SixDimensionalArray]

A very simple ethical dilemma - if a machine can do what ten people can, is it unethical to take away their jobs in the name of saving money? I mean, these are real humans we are talking about!

On a side note, I'm an information systems specialist, and the systems I design do flatten organizations and often eliminate people's jobs. This issue is one I often think about.

Is there a balance between how much machine replaces man?

Just my 2 cents..

-6d

Re:Replacing people with machines

[Minna Kirai]

Hopefully the course instructor is already aware of that particular question, since Luddites have been around for 200 years.

Re:Replacing people with machines

[tang]

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!

Re:Replacing people with machines

[moncyb]

If a machine can do the work of ten people, and the twenty lazy slobs who have that job are to stupid to get a real ones, so they form a union. Then they demand: all the machines be shut down, twice the pay, and no work. Which causes the company to export the work overseas (while still paying the 20 slobs), and 100 people have to work 100 hour weeks and are only given housing in the slums and barely enough food to survive. Are the twenty lazy slobs being ethical? Do they deserve money for doing nothing?

Yeah, that isn't exacly how it happens, but it doesn't seem far off at this point.

More machines doing the work = smaller slave cast = larger middle class. When ownership of property centralizes, it usually ends up a bad thing, but automation doesn't necessarily do that. Especially in a corporate economy where anyone can own stock.

If I were you, I'd be proud of my job.

Introduction to Engineering Ethics

[sielwolf]

You are in luck as the class I TA for does a section on engineering ethics. The main resource we use is Introduction to Engineering Ethics by Schinzinger & Martin. It covers such topics as the Challenger Disaster and the Yuca Dam and shows some nice ethics tidbits. Like how various groups involved denied responsibility because lack of authority ("We were just doing our little part") and how little things can have big effects. It also then parlays such large, obvious disasters into standard workplace ethical uses. Overall a nice little book.

The book description:

Introduction to Engineering Ethics provides the background for discussion of the basic issues in engineering ethics. Emphasis is given to the moral problems engineers face in the corporate setting. It places those issues within a philosophical framework, and it seems to exhibit both their social importance and their intellectual challenge. The primary goal is to stimulate critical and responsible reflection on moral issues surrounding engineering practice and to provide the conceptual tools necessary for pursuing those issues.

As per new ABET 2000 guidelines, more and more introductory engineering courses cover engineering ethics as part of their instruction. Students preparing to function within the engineering profession need to be introduced to the basic issues in engineering ethics. This book places those issues within a wider philosophical framework than has been customary in the past and aims to stimulate critical and responsible reflection on the moral issues surrounding engineering practice and to provide the conceptual tools necessary for pursuing those issues.

Indigenous vs. introduced

[Spyffe]

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?

A good starter for finding these

[AEton]

is Google. "ethical dilemmas" technology yields some good ones, and some false positives; here's an interesting paper.
The first hit and one of my favorite questions, which I've debated to some length with friends in the past, is to what extent you can observe your workers' use of the Internet. After all, their traffic runs through your servers in a manner akin to a person shouting cell-phone conversations; but should you accept that those 8 hours a day will not all be spent filling TPS reports, or should you employ Draconian tactics to monitor users' porn-site usage?
Another interesting one, less IT-related but also interesting, is the economic issue: if the application of certain expensive technology can save human lives, should it be used, to whom should it be offered, and who should have to pay?
Perhaps one day SETI will present us with another dilemma: If you know a religion to be false, should you tell its followers? Some would say this is already an issue in the modern information-enabled world.

Some obvious situations (from my own class)

[profBill]

We teach "computer ethics" in the senior design class. Here are some of the scenarios we use:

• Napster/music stuff and the idea of copyright.
• Privacy issues. Can email be examined? Can one "tap" a network to discover information? Can a disk account be examined. What are the conditions. Are they any different than mail/phone?
• Ownership issues. If I work for a company/university, do they own all the code I write or only "some" of it. What are the conditions?
• Hacking. Should "innocent" hacking (non-damaging, no gain by hacker) be prosecuted. What about someone identifying security problems.

Also, what is unusual, in general, about technology unique in comparison to previous work in ethics? Anything?

A few obvious ones.

[Christopher Thomas]

Here are a few of the obvious ones:

• At what point do we call something a "person" for purposes of rights?
  
  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?
  
  
• What ethical/moral concerns, if any, are appropriate/mandatory to consider before creating an artificial person?
  
  If the previous point is a concern, this one will be too.
  
  
• In a society where information may be freely exchanged anonymously and without cost, what are appropriate and inappropriate models of ownership and rights of control over things that are now considered owned information?
  
  E.g. works of art, algorithms/code, ideas/concepts, pictures of people, medical records. Justify from both a moral/ethical and a practical viewpoint.
  
  
• How will or should the ability of anyone to undetectably conduct surveillance of anyone/any location affect privacy rights as they are currently known?
  
  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.

sysadmins code of ethics

[jd142]

What code of ethis should system administrators operate under? Should there be an external code, agreed upon by some standards body or should a sysadmin simply do whatever the policies of the company she works for dictate?

Some examples:

1) A person in management who is not the boss of employee Jane Doe asks the sysadmin for files in Jane's network space. The person asking is above Jane in the heirarchy, but not in the the org chart path to Jane. Say a manager in another department. Should the sysadmin just give the files to the manager or ask that the request come from either the sysadmin's boss or from Jane's boss.

2) Should a company that doesn't actively close ports used by file sharing programs be liable for employees that use those programs. The company provided the bandwidth after all and could easily have blocked the ports.

3) Jane brings her computer to you as a professional repair person to fix a part. While fixing the computer, you browse through her files to make sure everything is working correctly. You notice some files have interesting names and discover that Jane is having an affair. Do you tell her husband? Should Jane be able to sue you for breach of confidentiality if you do?

4) Should tech people be made mandatory reporters? School teachers, doctors, and counselors can be made mandatory reporters of child abuse. What if we aren't talking about kiddie porn, but the parents are drug dealers?
What if it is "just" pot?

5) What responsibility, if any, do users/resellers have for groundwater contamination by the dumping of old computers?

6) You work for a nonprofit organization that must use Microsoft Access to work with some data (in other words, you can't just shout, "Switch to open source alternatives" and make the problem go away). You can't afford the 10 copies of Access you need, so you say that since only 1 person will probably use it at a time, you can install 1 copy on 10 different computers. Is this moral? It is illegal, but the class wasn't about legalities, it was about morality. This is akin to the steal a loaf of bread to feed a starving family question. Well, what if your family don't like bread? What if they like cigarettes? And what if instead of stealing them, they were selling them at a price that was practically giving them away?

And that's just a few off the top of my head.

Re:sysadmins code of ethics

[KingKaneOfNod]

3) Jane brings her computer to you as a professional repair person to fix a part. While fixing the computer, you browse through her files to make sure everything is working correctly. You notice some files have interesting names and discover that Jane is having an affair. Do you tell her husband? Should Jane be able to sue you for breach of confidentiality if you do?

Or should you tell Jane that you found out about her affair and blackmail her into having an affair with you?

Re:sysadmins code of ethics

[ILikeRed]

System Admins should follow a formal code of ethics, just like any other profession. (i.e. accountants) Obviously, they do not always do so.

One good start might be to look at existing codes of ethics from professional bodies, like SAGE. Here is theirs

Re:sysadmins code of ethics

[jd142]

Nope. It varies from state to state.

From http://www.smith-lawfirm.com/mandatory_reporting.h tm:

"All states require certain professionals and institutions to report suspected child abuse, including health care providers and facilities of all types, mental health care providers of all types, teachers and other school personnel, social workers, day care providers and law enforcement personnel. Many states require film developers to report.

A number of states have broad statutes requiring "any person" to report. "

In Iowa, my state, the rule of law is:

b. Any of the following persons who, in the scope of professional practice or in their employment responsibilities, examines, attends, counsels, or treats a child and reasonably believes a child has suffered abuse:

(1) A social worker.

(2) An employee or operator of a public or private health care facility as defined in section 135C.1.

(3) A certified psychologist.

(4) A licensed school employee, certified para-educator, or holder of a coaching authorization issued under section 272.31.

(5) An employee or operator of a licensed child care center, registered child care home, head start program, family development and self-sufficiency grant program under section 217.12, or healthy opportunities for parents to experience success-healthy families Iowa program under section 135.106.

(6) An employee or operator of a substance abuse program or facility licensed under chapter 125.

(7) An employee of a department of human services institution listed in section 218.1.

(8) An employee or operator of a juvenile detention or juvenile shelter care facility approved under section 232.142.

(9) An employee or operator of a foster care facility licensed or approved under chapter 237.

(10) An employee or operator of a mental health center.

(11) A peace officer.

(12) A counselor or mental health professional. "

http://www.legis.state.ia.us/IACODE/2001SUPPLEME NT /232/69.html

Other people may, and certainly should, report suspected child abuse, but mandatory reporters, in Iowa at least, are guilty of a simple misdemeanor and can be held civily liable if they do not report child abuse.

Re:sysadmins code of ethics

[sconeu]

How about the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct as a start?

Open Wi-Fi access points

[ralzod]

This was a good one brought up on /. recently... The Ethics of Stealing Wireless Bandwidth?

Who buys?

[meta-monkey]

If I, as a technology specialist, continue to field random tech support phone calls from freinds, family, and friends of friends and family, what are the ethical rules surrounding the beer they rightfully owe me? Should said beer be handed over before or after services are rendered? What about an "all you can drink while you're here" policy for housecalls?

These are important ethical dilemmas that need discussion and input from the academic community.

Re:Who buys?

[antistuff]

(Someone is going to have fun with that last line, and get an easy +5 funny. Consider it my little Karma gift to you)

Now that you said that it wont work. Thanks.

A Gift of Fire

[elzbal]

Take a look at A Gift of Fire by Sara Baase, which explores social and ethical issues of computing technology. This was my textbook for my computer ethics class in school, and is a good read whether you need a textbook or not. It discusses, for example, the Terac-25 incident, where a software probem in a radiation-therapy machine gave truly massive overdoses (over 100x intended) to cancer patients, causing severe injury and death. This was one of the first cases where poor programming (in conjunction with other design flaws) directly caused death and injury in the public sector. It goes on to discuss both ethical benefits (such as revolutionizing business by providing information technology, reducing paper usage, etc) and hot ethical topics (privacy issues, safety issues, freedom of speech, computer crime, etc).

Adapting old ethics to technology

[Qender]

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".

AI = always artificial?

[fudgefactor7]

Here's a question: is any intelligence truly artificial?

I mean, if a robot, toaster, or what ever has sentience, intelligence, and all the thinkgs that we think make us special, even if it was manufactured, is that intelligence truly "artificial" or is it "real"? If not, then at what point does it become real? When did it stop being just semi-programmed responses and boolean algorythms and become something more? When do we say that you can dismantle that car, but you can't disassemble that robot (without its expressed permission)?

Insurance vs. welfare

[swm]

Suppose there's something (like heart disease) that afflicts 10% of the population. Faced with an uncertain future, Joe (and his 9 cohorts) buys insurance so that he can pay for treatment if he is the unlucky 10%.

Now suppose that improving technology (like DNA sequencing) allows us to predict the future: Joe will get heart disease (and his 9 cohorts won't). Since the future is certain, the insurance market vanishes. No one will sell Joe insurance, because he is a known loss, and his 9 cohorts won't buy insurance, because they know that they won't need it.

Now when Joe gets heart disease, he can't afford treatment. Do we as a society institute some kind of welfare system to pay for Joe's treatment? Or do we just leave him to die?

Re:Insurance vs. welfare

[Apreche]

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.

I had this discussion with my parents...

[StArSkY]

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?

Re:I had this discussion with my parents...

[rodney dill]

Some further elaboration on your third point.

3. Will a child be denied equal access to education because they don't have a PC at home?

Your third point has nearly happened already. When my oldest got to 5th or 6th grade, ten years ago, a computer became necessary. Teachers expect kids to be able to type reports, look up information with search engines, use clip art, print out pictures, etc..

Our community has a pretty good library with excellent web access as well. That is also dependent on the affluence of the area, and libraries are probably better equipped in areas where people can already afford their own computers.

This seems to be more an affluence vs. ethics question though.

Technology and the 3rd world

[xyzzy]

Is it more important to get technology such as the Internet into the hands of residents of the 3rd world, or to use more traditional approaches to increasing their welfare, such as food donation, education, transfer of farming tech, etc?

Bill Joy's Polemic in Wired

[Sw0rdfiche]

Several years ago, Bill Joy wrote an article in
"Wired" called "The Future Doesn't Need You." In it
he outlined what he thought were the three biggest
areas of ethical ambiguity:

1> Artificial Intelligence
2> Nanotechnology
3> Bioengineering

Because he quoted the Unabomber in the article, that is all anyone ever talked about and his very valid ethical concerns were swept away by media hype. If your relative is teaching a class, this article might be useful.

Given the current concern/scare tactics regarding
"weapons of mass destruction" Joy's piece is as
relevant now as the day he wrote it.

the irony

[AEton]

(the truth, revealed slightly below the post)


< - Fishing for Ideas

My Slasdot article submission...

[Andrewkov]

Hi Slashdot. I accepted a programming job paying in excess of $100,000. I start tomorrow but have never programmed before. Can you give me some tips to help me fake it? I really want this job, but I'm scared that my lack of programming skills will get me fired! Please help!

Re:If I could send 1000000 Emails for free, should

[plierhead]

Spam is such an easy ethical problem.

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.

A few ideas

[CharonX]

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 :)

Professor Ethics

[rodney dill]

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.

Then some

[OpenSourced]

If we can choose the sex of a baby, it's moral to do it? What about the color of the eyes?

If we can know the probable lifespan of a person by looking at its DNA, should we allow an insurance policy based on it? Even if it's presented as a "discount" for sturdier people?

If we can exterminate an entire species, are we morally allowed to do it? Well we did it (almost) with the variola virus, but you could argue if a virus is alive. We'll soon be able to do it with mosquitoes, the tse-tse fly. Those are pests, but should they be erased from the face of earth? What about rats?

Some day in the not too distant future, all nations of earth will have an infectious pathogen agent with 98% fatality rate, six weeks of incubation (of which three in contagious state), and a safe vaccine for their own population. The nuclear arms race will look positively sedate in comparation. Should we (whoever this "we" is, soon it will be everybody) strike first?

The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT article on this subject!

[swordgeek]

Go read Bill Joy's article, "Why the future doesn't need us." Possibly the best discussion I've seen on the dangers of future (and present!) technology. Some points he brings up or alludes to:

- Should we, as a society, curtail research on particular branches of science? Human cloning is the obvious one, but researching superbugs and genetically hand-made viruses might have enormous benefits--at a cost of extreme risk.

- Where do we draw the line between human and (for lack of a better word) robot? Nanotech, implants, and genetic mods are all coming to meet at a common point, and that point is SOON!

Some other interesting technological dillemas come to mind. Should we sell or aid the development of technology to 'enemy' nations? How do we define enemies for this purpose? I happen to work for a company that's substantially responsible for getting much of the US military aircraft into the air--am I partly responsible for the use those aircraft are put to? The same question could be (and has been) asked of the Canadian CANDU nuclear reactors--safe, cheap, efficient, reliable, and the easiest way to produce weapons-grade material.

This last one is actually a dillema as old as the hills--dealing with the enemy--but technology is becoming an important factor because it's drawing the world together. (Not to mention the HUGE role technology plays in any conflict these days)

Other issues: Technology eats power, consumes resources, produces waste--do we have a moral responsiblilty to drive as much technological innovation as possible towards cleaning up some of our messes?

The media is now able to modify live broadcasts--how do we control that behaviour? Pasting over footage of billboards with the station's advertising is pretty reprehensible, but what about when they start adding nonexistent people to war scenes?

But the real question may boil down to this simple one: How does technology actually change any of our present moral or ethical states? Does technology actually change our ethics, and should it?

Here's a few

[Hard_Code]

1) Is technological progress inherently good? Who does it benefit and who does it hurt (if any)? If technological progress is inherently good, are scientists ethically or morally responsible for their inventions? Are consumers responsible for their use of technology?

2) We are seeing that technology is making the world increasingly dangerous in the form of "asynchronous threats" or rather individual empowerment through technology that cannot be foreseen or prevented. (briefcase bombs, artificially engineered diseases, computer viruses, etc.). Is this a threat to human interdependence, or an inevitable feature?

3) Technology is making the world a lot smaller, and eroding private space and information. Will the ability of people to be in constant contact with each other, and perhaps in constant surveillance of each other, be a good thing or a bad thing? How will this affect human society and culture?

4) Lastly, are we asking these questions too late? Will humans ever be able to control the path of discovery and uses of technology? If not, should we?

Stipend

[gyges]

Is it morally right to work for a professor when a grad student could be getting a stipend for it?

Maybe not the best choice

[TheVidiot]

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...

What about PHB's running wild?

[pvera]

Here's a common ethical dilemma to us programmer: A pointy-haired boss (PHB) left unchecked:

1. Allowing projects to start without defined deliverables.
2. Allowing time-and-materials (TMA) projects to run wild with no schedule, since the company will eventually get paid regardless of the outcome.
3. Allowing marketroids to lie to the customers and public about your company's capabilities in the hope these can be acquired on the run if a project is signed with a big enough down payment.
4. Forcing people to keep billing on a project when it is a TMA with a "not to exceed" cost. If the cap is $200,000 and so far you have billed $175,000, you will be forced to find something to keep you busy until you hit the $200K or else.
5. Allowing customers to sign on a project without the buy-in of their technical people. Case in point: In a previous job my company got a huge defense contractor (127,000 desktop users) to sign on an intranet project that required IE 5 or Netscape 6. Small problem: The standard for this monstruous organization is Netscape 4.7, and overseeing the upgrade of 127,000 desktops to Netscape 6 or IE 5 would have cost twice as much as our project's budget. This could have been fixed had these people checked with their IT folks.

My fix was simple: I left. I got to see the company shoot itself in the foot, and went thru layoff rounds every 90 days. The day I was going to be handed over my pink slip I was interviewing across town. That afternoon I was told that I was spared at the last second. 2 days later I got offered the job across town and I jumped ship. I still program but only internally, my customers are my own employers so it is in their best interest to not lie to themselves!

We laid off a lot of good people at that previous company, and most of them by now have better jobs elsewhere. The few that are still working there are living thru pure hell every day of the week.

Technology and the culture steamroller

[ignoramus]

Here's one that I have yet to figure out for myself:

Should we, as a technological society, share all our creations with other cultures?

As the inventors and producers of various technologies, we are somewhat ready for any given technology (though not always). However, sharing this "progress" with others leads to inevitable imbalance and has a steamroller effect on other cultures and societies.

For example, introduce a given technology in third world country X. This modern wonder saves 2/3 children and extends their lifetime by 30 years (a good thing). The problem is that in order to deal with the ensuing population explosion, progress must be made in terms of food production and other areas (housing, hygene in densly populated areas, waste management, etc. etc.). The obvious solution is to import yet more technology, to cope with these issues. Each of these additions causes their own social upheavals, which must in turn be dealt with...

In the end, you wind up with a duplicate of our own society (you've successfully integrated/eliminated another culture) or a disfunctional mess. The choice becomes "should we let them be (with high mortality, etc) or introduce a trojan horse (that will eventually destroy their culture) in the form of helpful tech?"

Self-Defense

[DarkZero]

Here's one that often comes up in computer security discussions:

DDoS worms, rather than directly attacking other computers from the worm creator's computer, take over other computers and then use them to perform an attack. If you're the one targetted by one of these attacks, do you have the right to defend yourself? Is it right for you to hack into an innocent person's computer because their technological ignorance is actively causing you harm? Would you and the people that depend on your network just having to sit there and accept the attack without any real defense be preferable to that? And if you have the skill to not screw it up (probably a rare skill, but still), would it be right for someone to create an "anti-worm" that deinfects computers that have become unwitting DDoS zombies?

Computer security is a field that is absolutely soaked in real life analogies, but this situation doesn't have one that anyone would ever encounter in their lives. "If a hypnotized/possessed person tried to kill you, would it be moral to hurt them in your self-defense?" isn't an analogy that provokes an instant pre-prepared answer.

Re:If I could send 1000000 Emails for free, should

[Jaeger]

Actually spammers do act ethically. ... 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.

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?

I use to feel similar, but now I think otherwise.

[Ted_Green]

Technology doesn't have any unique attributes that give it more privlidge than any other subject matter.

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 .orgs (eff, aclu, etc) who w/o have done just as much as the big bad corperate wolf.

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.

Genetics and bionics

[div_2n]

Gentically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

Is it ethical for us to push the envelope of genetics and create our own made to order creatures? It might seem like and easy "no" or even "yes" but it isn't.

-Imagine if scientists discovered they could splice a few certain genes to create some special breed of monkey that would live its life in pain but would offer guaranteed universal matches for organs in humans. Is that ethical?

Bionics

The abicore heart has shown that we are well on our way of having artificial organs. Is this ethical? The first inclination might be yes. I am envisioning extending life of people by an extra 50 years or so.

This might sound great but if all thing were equal and everyone could reap the benefits then that could cause serious population problems as people would live MUCH longer.

Besides, this kind of technology will probably only really be available to those that can afford it which brings up a whole other ethical issue.

Ethics of Teaching Unknown Material

[GamezCore.com]

You know, this post really managed to get me about as mad as any post I have ever seen at /.

I am a student at Penn State University, in the IST program, and I have spent untold amounts of time and my hard earned money to "learn" from instructors who have no idea of what they are even teaching! Maybe if this person doesn't keep up with technology... HE SHOULDN'T BE TEACHING THE DAMN CLASS! Talk about ethics, this post is amazingly frustrating to me.

Doesn't anyone else see the problem here?Students should be learning about this topic from a professor who is schooled in technology and has a good understanding of ethics! Students are now going to be wasting their time in a class where the professor doesn't even know what the prevalent issues are to cover!

College tuitions have skyrocketed, and will continue to do so... however we, as students, continue to receive a rapidly diminishing quality of instruction. My only wish is that no one would help this moron.

Re:Ethics of Teaching Unknown Material

[rpillala]

He may not have a choice. I teach public school and I have limited control over what I'm teaching next year. I'm certified in Maryland to teach "Mathematics 7-12" so my principal could assign anything to me, from Algebra I to "Calculus II", or even "Business Math" about which I know even less. In fact, at my old school I was required to teach students how to pass the Maryland Functional Mathematics Test and I found it to be beyond my capability. There's only so much I can do for students in 8th grade who can't subtract whole numbers.

Depending on how this person is employed, it might be a breach of contract to decline to teach a class, regardless of grounds. This would be a way to force someone out: give him a class he can't teach knowing that he can't teach it, then cite poor evaluations by students among whatever other reasons the department might have. I've found that a lot of problems in education are not attributable to teachers. But I'm biased :)

Ravi

A real life email one

[judd]

I was on the help desk of a university. A staff member sent an email to his lover (ie, not his wife). Through a typo, it went to a third person's mailbox. He rang and asked if I could delete the message.

I did. Rationale: the 3rd party hadn't read it, and the putative adulterer's affairs weren't my business. One of my colleagues was adamant that sysadmins should NEVER delete mail from a user mailbox, that it violated that user's privacy, and that the mail after all was correctly addressed.

Ah, the difference between Simon and Simone...

Overseas outsourcing

[pongo000]

Is it ethical for an American-owned and American-operated company to outsource IT jobs overseas in order to take advantage of lower wages, thereby failing to create jobs stateside for IT workers who demand a higher salary?

This question addresses whether the practice is ethical, rather than symptomatic of a capitalist, employed-at-will society.

check Rifkin's work

[edstromp]

I had a class in college that talked about this exact subject. Our text didn't cover a lot of material, but it focused on one big issue: People tend to define themselves by the work that they do. What happens when we have automated all of the work that needs to be done?

Possible Topics

[foobar77]

I teach computer science in a high school and we cover "social and ethical issues of technology" in a discussion forum. I introduce the topic in a classroom discussion and then the follow-up discussion is online over a two-week period. We cover about 6 topics a semester and 12 a school year.

Here are topics we have covered over the past three years.

1) File sharing piracy? (was The Napster Dilemma) - A good one to start the year. Gets everyone fired up. Most students have no concept of copyright law or what happened when it was done away with after the French Revolution.

2) Technology's Role in Terrorism - Tool or Defense? - I first introduced this the week after 9/11. Are encryption, steganography, airplanes, cell phones, etc dangerous weapons that need to be controlled, or are they just tools like any others?

3) Internet Privacy - Do you and should you have any? - We review amendment IV to the Bill of Rights and discuss whether this should apply to the Internet. We touch on FBI's Carnivore, web cookies and spyware, the lack of legal protection behind "privacy pledges", future cell-phones with GPS, and the movie Minority Report. Big brother's vision is getting better and better.

4) Microsoft - Aggressive Competitor or Network Effects Monopoly? - Partially an economics lesson. Is MS just the winner of the inevitable consequence of network effects saying there can only be one dominant OS? Is this any different than ATT in the early days of telephones, or Intel with microprocessors, Cisco with network equipment, AOL with instant messenger, Ebay with online auctions or Visa/Mastercard with credit cards? Should these types of industries be managed as monopolies (eg the power and phone companies) or what?

5) Cyber-Relationships - displacing or enhancing our real world? - Do new technologies improve degrade, or displace personal relationships? If you can't speak to someone because they have a cellphone in their ear, is that bad? If you kids mostly know their grandmother through email, is that good? Can you really get to know someone you have never met? Can you know someone who shares their innermost thoughts anonymously through a blog better than their best friends do? Where might The Sims Online lead? (Have you read Stephenson's Snow Crash?)

6) Aibo, A Cute and Frisky Robot Dog - Can you form an emotional bond with a robot? Is this robot smarter than your dog? Is this the pet of the future? With the projections of Moore's Law, might a future Aibo be your child's calculus tutor?

7) Computer Games as Heroin-ware - "Dennis Bennett was failing his college classes, his marriage was in trouble, and he wasn't being much of a father to his 1-year-old son. But he had progressed to Level 58 as Madrid, the Great Shaman of the North, his character in the online role-playing game "EverQuest," and that was all that mattered at the time." - My students debate this from a lot of personal experience.

8) The Digital Divide - Internet Haves and Have-Nots - About 1/2 of the US population doesn't have ready access to the Internet. Most are lower income, older or minority households. As the Internet becomes an essential tool in our daily lives as consumers, workers and citizens, are they being left out? The divide is even more dramatic on an international scale. Will this accelerate the trend of rich countries become richer and poor countries becoming poorer? Should anything be done to shrink the divide, or will it take care of itself?

9) Sealand - Rebel Outpost on the Fringe of Cyberspace - Does the Internet overturn the sovereignty of countries? Historically, countries have had sovereign authority over its citizens. The Internet cuts across national boundaries disrespecting all national laws. Should the Chinese government be able to block access to the exile government of Tibet website? Should the French government be able to block the sale of Nazi paraphernalia on the Yahoo auction. Should the US or state governments be able to block online gambling or c

How about...

[Lurgen]

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.

My suggestion--how much can we borrow?

[Johnny Mnemonic]

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?

Re:Star Trek: make it so!

[snilloc]

I read "Ethics of Star Trek" and I'm not sure that it would help. My read of EoST had more to do with seeing which series (ToS through Voyager), characters, episodes, species, (and eventually the whole *Trek franchise) corresponded with which well-established ethical philosophies.

Though there was a strong case for the basis of characters, species, and episodes, I think the case was very weak for saying that any particular series (or much less the franchise) was based on any one particular philosophy or philosopher.

Anyway, at least one person agrees with me:
(A review from the Amazon link above)

Warning, it is about ethical theory, and not about modern issues (ie. abortion, religion, homosexuality, etc.) If this is what you are looking for, then you will be pleased, but if you're looking for a book about ethics and modern problems (which I probably was) then you may be a bit disappointed.

Re:The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT article on this subje

[southpolesammy]

Where do we draw the line between human and (for lack of a better word) robot? Nanotech, implants, and genetic mods are all coming to meet at a common point, and that point is SOON!

Michael Jackson, Cher, and Joan Rivers -- we're too late, the line has been crossed!

Banning education

[swanton]

Suppose a discovery were made that was too powerful for anyone to be trusted with; for example, the ability to see anything, anywhere. Suppose also that anyone with a good understanding of modern physics was capable of rediscovering this phenomenon. If the government was able to supress the initial discovery, what should they do? Should they work towards eliminating physics from college curriculum? Should they eliminate higher education all together? Would they be justified in killing those scientists who currently know enough to discover it on their own?

Cached Articles?

[SaturnTim]

How about the "Should Slashdot cache articles?" Is it more ethical to mirror a website without permission, or to send a ton of traffic to their site costing them money?

--nw

He's teaching a class he knows nothing about

[chudnall]

"he doesn't keep up with technology news, so he's not sure what the most relevant dilemmas are."

Doesn't this about sum up the state of our education system today?

Re:The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT article on this subje

[Courageous]

"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//

Ethics?

[wcdw]

How about the ethics of this person teaching a class for which he is admittedly not qualified? Or the ethics of using /. to compile a course syllabus?

(The _wisdom_ of the latter is beyond the scope of this comment!)

How about laws and techology together?

[Courageous]

For example, if it's just a "minor offense" to spray paint grafitti on a bridge, why can you get 10 years in prison for defacing a website? Seems a bit disproportionate.

C//

To be a cog...

[Ian Bicking]

One day I was skimming someone's college book on ethical issues in fashion. I came upon a sidebar talking about El Salvador. The sweat shop owners were very excited about technology, because it allowed them to keep a database of union organizers, which they shared with each other. If anyone was caught trying to organize, they could be thoroughly blacklisted.

Now, blacklisting isn't a new idea, and it doesn't require technology. But it also does... blacklisting, to be effective, is a bureaucratic process. Bureaucracy is very much enabled by technology, since the abacus on up. A large amount of technology continues to be used for bureaucracy (probably a considerable majority of computer technology).

Bureaucracy isn't all bad... we often don't notice all the effective bureaucracy around us.

And what's the moral for database manufacturers who are creating something that happens to be used for immoral purposes? I don't know, but I will argue strongly that they are not entirely without culpability. The greatest evils ever done were done by people who did not feel themselves responsible, supported by people who did not feel themselves responsible. I believe the ends justify the means, but I also believe the ends can be a condemnation of the means, no matter how benign or neutral they seemed at the time. Anyway, certainly a point for discussion.

A very good book on the moral implications of technology is The Existential Pleasures of Engineering. It's not about engineering particularly, but about technology (and a reaction against anti-technologists), building infrastructure, and very much about the moral responsibilities and questions of being someone who designs and builds the things that surround us, without being able to make many key decisions about those things. It applies very well to computer programmers.

What happens if something passes the Turing test?

[sllim]

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...?

Sharing of potentially harmful knowledge

[PotatoHead]

IE: cracking, (as opposed to hacking) picking locks, how to pick pocket, building bombs...

Knowing how people go about cracking into systems could be harmful if one does it and it could be useful when building a defence for said crackers.

When you learn how to pick locks, you gain an understanding of what makes a good lock and what doesn't. Nice to know when buying locks...

Pick pocket? Walking through the airport and get bumped? No big deal right? Unless you know how these people work.

Building bombs? Surely this is a terrorist only thing right? How about knowing what is a bomb and what is not? What if you are in a position to disarm one?

Crypto. Same as locks really. How does one know what is going to be effective and what is not? The DVD guys sure didn't. (Heh Heh) For that matter, using the crypto knowledge to solve a simple problem like playing the DVD under Linux? Legal? Not in many places. Moral and ethical. I would say yes, provided you own the thing and have a clear right to use it.

So is the knowledge itself bad? What about the teaching and access? Should everyone be able to know and decide for themselves or not?

Each of these things is under attack right now. Why?

A bit offtopic...

[InsaneCreator]

unfortunately, he doesn't keep up with technology news, so he's not sure what the most relevant dilemmas are.

This reminds me of what happend at the begining of this semester. The professor walked into the classroom and asked us what subject was he supposed to teach us! And the first thing he said after finding out it's "prosessional ethics" was: "Oh... That's not really my area...".

Academic Treatment

[robmered]

I've recently written an academic paper on ethical issues as they relate to systems designed to support decision makers. Whilst this may be a bit academic, or even specific, for your purposes, it does provide a high level overview of some of the main issues related to ethics and information technology. You can grab a pdf copy here.

Bullshit

[DwarfGoanna]

"In both situations, there is no reward for innovation or personal effort, which goes contrary to human nature."

I really hate it when people say this. Production/reward systems are not human nature, they are social constructs. If we go back into the not-so-far past, human nature was plucking fruit off of trees and gathering nuts and grubs. The reward systems you are talking about only became "human nature" when people started locking the food up and needed to explain why it had to be that way. A gazillion screaming linux contributors would disagree with your idea of human nature, and it's dependence on the carrot and the stick. /rant

Re:Bullshit

[GospelHead821]

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).

Focus on ethics not technology

[ahodgkinson]

I don't actually think that an up to date knowledge of technology is required to teach ethics in engineering and technology, other than perhaps as an aide when presenting examples. Most technological ethical dilemmas can be reduced to fairly simple (simple to describe, not necessarily simple to resolve) moral dilemmas.

An introductary course should not focus on particular technological issues, but rather on:

• The importance taking responsibility for ethical issues.
• Recognizing an ethical dilemma.
• Strategies for analyzing ethical issues and making a moral choice.
• Techniques for implementing a moral choice, particularly in the face of opposition.
• Practicality of choices. Some moral choices are extremely impractical or expensive. Can we afford them?

The actual technology is secondary, and the person faced with the ethical dilemma will probably know more about the technology than you anyways.

Off the top of my head, I would present the following, incomplete, list of dilemma categories (An exercise for the class would be to have the students come up with the list themselves, perhaps starting with examples taken from the press and movies):

• Harmful technologies - To what extent should you work on harmful and destructive technologies? Especially harmful technologies that also have benificial uses (e.g. the use of radation in medicine)? What is the chain of responsibility for the initial research, deployment and control against misuse?
• Whistleblowing - When a corporation or government are doing something unethical, what steps can, should and should not be taken by an individual to correct the problem? To what extent can rules and laws be broken in attempt to serve the greater good.
• Responsibility of invividuals vs. groups - Who ultimately has responsibility for group decisions on ethical issues? The group itself, the individual members, the group's leader? How much individual responsibillity do group members have when bad choices are made by the group. To what extent should you take individual responsibility for actions carried out by a group?
• Privacy - To what extent do we allow or prohibit the use of technology that allow us to expose private information about individuals and groups?
• Environment - To what extent must we protect our natural environment? Particularly faced with mankind's needs.
• Technological divide - What is our responsibility to those who do not have access to modern technology? Must everyone have equal access to a minimum level of technology? Is it right to offer services only to those how have some minimum level of training and technology (Hint: It's not as easy as you think: what about services to illiterates?)
• Equality vs. scientific advances - What is society's responsibility to the equality of its members in the face of scientific advances that prove inequallity? E.g. what happens when genetic testing shows that some people will be stupid or will die early from a disease? Can they be denied schooling, insurance or other resources?

One presumes the goal of the course is to encourge ethical behaviour and decisions, rather than recognizing ethical dilemmas and using public relations to justify the use of the most cost-effective solution, regardless of the moral issues.

With that in mind the following meta-issues should be discussed:

• Advocacy - Techniques for promoting corporate, government and public awareness of the importance moral solutions to ethical dilemmas.
• Individuals vs. powerful groups - Recognizing the difficulty and risk involved to an individual who takes an unpopular, though moral, sta

Misspelling

[stevenp]

>> Note that I am looking for ethical dilemmas, e.g. 'Is Activity X moral?'

I would recommend 'Is ActiveX moral?'

Information

[Andy Tanenbaum]

I think that technology is a rather amoral/aphilosophical topic. Having said that, technology is very good at testing your moral/philosophical standing, by obscuring very basic issues like:

1) What is information?
2) What is property?
3) What is ownership?

Good answers to these questions will require no modification, no matter how technology advances. Bad answers (like the US government's answers) are dated, because they are based on a concept (specifically, ownership of material things) which can grow obsolete, as technology marches on.

Just a recommendation to keep in mind.

biggest gripe about our education

[objwiz]

> 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

No offense intended to your relative.

This is the biggest gripe I have today about our education system. The people teaching it are not in the real world at all. They live in their world obivious to life as the rest of the world experiences it.

My ex-mother-in-law took a C++ class taught by an accounting professor. In home work assigments, he would provide base classes that the class had to use in their assigments. However, the base classes had syntax errors or were not really bases etc....it was terrible.

Insurance - Genetic Testing

[mrsev]

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.

Ethics and Technology

[MrGibbage]

I took an Engineering Ethics class when I was working on my undergrad at Auburn (War Eagle!). Anyway, I remember one particular anecdote quite well. The professor wasked the class, "Would you say air bags in cars are good or bad?" Most of the students agreed that they were good. In fact, they have saved thousands (millions??) of lives. No question about it. However, it turns out that the average cost for hospitalization has increased during the same time frame (not just inflation--they realy have gone up). It seems that for accidents where people were usually killed (pre-air bags), the lower body injuries have become what are keeping people in the hospital. And more people are having life-long paralysis as a result of those accidents. Now, most would still agree that being alive is still better, but it turned out that there was another side to the coin that probably wasn't completely thought out.

Have fun with your class.