1.5.2 - Moral and ethical Issues Flashcards
How have computers in the workplace changed the skill force required by the workforce?
1) Robot manufacturing means fewer direct manufacturing roles and more technical support roles maintaining the systems.
2) Online shopping means fewer high-street jobs; more distribution-centre jobs.
3) Online banking has seen the closure of high-street branches.
4) People with no education might struggle with the updated technology
How has automated decision making also changed the workplace?
Automated decision-making is an area where some roles can only be performed by computers:
1) Electrical power distribution requires rapid responses to changing circumstances.
2) Plant automation.
3) Airborne collision avoidance systems.
Automated decision-making also affects the public in other ways:
1) Credit assessments in banks are carried out by automated systems.
2) Stock-market dealing is often automated and is believed to have contributed to the ‘flash crash’ in 2010.
3) The quality of automated decision-making depends upon the quality and accuracy of the data available and the
precision of the algorithm.
4) Loss of jobs, but also making jobs
5) Less mistakes in the workplace
6) More efficient work (no sick days)
What are some Ethical, Moral and cultural considerations of AI?
1) Accountability- Who should be held accountable for the actions of an AI?
2) Safety- How can we ensure safety over an algorithm that can adapt.
3) Algorithmic bias- When designing an algorithm, it favours outputs over others or favour one group over other users etc.
4) Legal liability- In the case of injury or loss of life, who should legally be responsible, the customer, the producer, the AI producer etc
How can AI be helpful?
There are numerous examples where AI is used on a daily basis, including:
1) credit-card checking that looks for unusual patterns in credit-card use to identify potential fraudulent use
2) speech recognition systems that identify keywords and patterns in the spoken word to interpret the meaning
3) medical diagnosis systems used to self-diagnose illness from the symptoms and to support medical staff in making diagnoses
4) control systems that monitor, interpret and predict events.
What are some environmental effects of computers and technology?
Computers are made from some pretty toxic materials, including:
-airborne dioxins
-polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)
-cadmium
-chromium
-radioactive isotopes
-mercury.
These need to be handled with great care when disposing of old equipment.
Redundant computer equipment is often shipped off to countries with lower environmental standards.
In some cases, children pick over the waste to extract metals that can be recycled and sold.
-Tech puts a huge demand on our environment, as it needs lots of energy.
-Growing data stored online is also using around 210 TWh of electricity to store data.
What are some ethical and moral considerations of censorship and the internet?
Censorship is the deliberate suppression of what can be accessed or published.
What we each regard as unacceptable will vary; some things most people can agree on, others maybe not.
In some countries censorship is applied for political reasons.
In some organisations, e.g. schools, censorship is applied beyond that which applies nationally to protect the
individuals from material regarded as unsuitable by the organisation.
What are some ethical and moral considerations of monitoring behaviour?
CCTV is often used in the workplace to monitor behaviour, but monitoring of workplace behaviour can extend
beyond this.
An organisation may track an individual’s work to make sure they are on target.
Organisations may monitor social networks to ensure behaviour outside work is acceptable too.
What are some ethical and moral considerations of analysing personal information?
Analysing data about an individual’s behaviour is used extensively to:
-predict market trends
-identify criminal activity
-identify patterns to produce effective treatments for medical conditions.
What are some ethical and moral considerations of piracy and offensive communications?
Communications Act (CA) 2003
This Act makes it illegal to ‘steal’ Wi-Fi access or send offensive messages or posts.
Under this Act, in 2012, a young man was jailed for 12 weeks for posting offensive messages and comments about the April Jones murder and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
What are some ethical and moral considerations of accessibility of tech?
Equality Act (EA) 2010
-This Act makes it illegal to discriminate against individuals by not providing a means of access to a service for a
section of the public.
This means web service provides have to make websites more accessible. Some measures might include:
1) Making it friendly to screen readers
2) Larger fonts or a screen magnifier option
3) Image tagging
4) Using alternate text for images
5) Choice of contrasting colours in its colour schemes to take colour blindness into account
6) Transcripts of sound tracks or subtitles.
