Ethical and moral issues

Question 1

What is the impact of computers in the workplace?

Answer 1

• Allows employees to…
  1. Access modern productivity tools and specialised software
  2. Carry out daily work activities efficiently
  3. Easily communicate and collaborate with one another
• Machines can work longer hours than humans and are more accurate and reliable
• Many lower skilled workers replaced with robots e.g. super-market cashier replaced with self checkouts

Question 2

What are examples of automated decision making?

Answer 2

• It is when computers are making decisions and taking actions based on sets of predefined rules and parameters without any human involvement.

e.g. Stock market: used to be a manual process involving real life interactions between sellers and buyers. Now a lot of transactions are carried out by automatic trading without any human involvement.

Question 3

What are areas of concern with automated checking?

Answer 3

e.g. Would you feel comfortable with a computer making a decision about your health? i.e. providing diagnosis or prescribing treatment

Question 4

What are examples of monitoring behaviour?

Answer 4

1. Passive monitoring:
   - CCTV cameras and speed cameras.
   - Added security is worth it because it helps to reduce crime but it can go too far and become invasion of privacy
2. Forced tracking:
   - GPS tagging criminals, internet monitoring systems that log employees’ online activities.
   - Employers have the right to monitor staff productivity
   - But should they monitor during breaks and check what they post on social media or personal emails?
3. Deliberately chosen by user:
   - smart watches, fitness trackers
   - Happy to be monitored in exchange for lifestyle improvement

Question 5

What is AI recruitment?

Answer 5

• Tools that put candidates through an automated set of tests designed to assess their personality, intelligence and risk tolerance.
• Those who pass are then invited to an interview with a human recruiter

Question: Is it ethical for us to judge people based on an entirely computer-controlled process?

Question 6

What are areas of concern over AI?

Answer 6

1. Accountability
2. Safety
3. Algorithmic bias
4. Legal bias

e.g. self-driving cars

Question 7

What are environmental effects of computer technology?

Answer 7

1. Manufacturing computer technology:
   - puts a huge demand on our environment and its finite natural resources
   - made worse because technology devices are disposable
2. Energy consumption of computing technology:
   - A lot of data is stored in huge cloud data centres where global energy consumption is at 2%
   - Wasteful because it only stores data nothing else

Question 8

What are examples of censorship?

Answer 8

1. Schools or businesses censoring or restricting access to content they feel is inappropriate for students or employees to be accessing using filtering software
   - however, sometimes sites are blocked unnecessarily like Youtube which prevents students/teachers from taking advantage of educational materials
2. Government requires ISPs to block certain sites but this is hotly debated.
   - where should the line be drawn between protecting the public and infringing on freedom of speech