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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!
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.
Does narcissism count as a hobby? --Shawn Latimer
Is ActiveX moral? I think the answer would be no, unless implemented right.
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 seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
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
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
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
The book description:
What is music when you despise all sound?
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
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.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
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.
This was a good one brought up on /. recently...
The Ethics of Stealing Wireless Bandwidth?
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.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
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?
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
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!
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?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
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?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
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.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
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.
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.
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.
www.GamezCore.com For Hardcore PS2 Gamerz : By Hardcore PS2 Gamerz
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...
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.
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.
"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?
Disclaimer: Evolution comes with NO WARRANTY, except for the IMPLIED WARRANTY of FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
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!)
If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space!
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//
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...?
An introductary course should not focus on particular technological issues, but rather on:
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):
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:
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
>> Note that I am looking for ethical dilemmas, e.g. 'Is Activity X moral?'
I would recommend 'Is ActiveX moral?'