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

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:

[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!

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: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.

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

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.

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.

Open Wi-Fi access points

[ralzod]

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

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.

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

[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.

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: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.