morals and ethics

Question 1

computers in the workforce (benefits)

Answer 1

• improve efficiency
• speed up manufacturing processes
• improving customer satisfaction
• reducing labour costs
• reducing strain on workers
• reducing delivery times

Question 2

computers in the workforce (drawbacks)

Answer 2

• creating unemployment
  real workers replaced by machines
• high dependency; if something goes wrong (power out) there will be a major loss of output
• rise in services being offered exclusively online; reduced costs of renting physical spaces

Question 3

automated decision making (benefits)

Answer 3

• improving productivity
• more convenient (e.g. for employers, certain application processes are more convenient)
• companies can hire workers fast, using algorithms which scan candidates for certain desired qualities before the interview stage
• faster reaction times than humans (driverless cars)
• predict future (look at past trends on the stock market)

Question 4

automated decision making (drawbacks)

Answer 4

• programmer bias
• relying on these algorithms can result in people being treated unfairly
• unable to process information with care and consideration of contextual factors like humans can

Question 5

artificial intelligence (benefits)

Answer 5

• increased convenience; voice recognition systems in smart home systems like Amazon’s Alexa
• further research in medicine, used to help form diagnoses
  expert systems made up of a knowledge base which consists of a set of facts and rules that are used to build an inference engine
  this is used to find diagnoses

Question 6

artificial intelligence (drawbacks)

Answer 6

• potential job insecurity (medical field)
• privacy issues; voice recognition in smart system like Alexa are required to be constantly switched on (listening) to function

Question 7

environmental factors (benefits)

Answer 7

• growth in environmentally-friendly technologies
  smart home systems which use temperature sensors to determine if heating should be switched off
  motion sensors to switch lights off when a room is empty
  ‘sleep’ and ‘stand-by’ features
  car engines designed to prevent them from idling, reducing emissions

Question 8

environmental factors (drawbacks)

Answer 8

• e-waste
  computer components built of mercury or radioactive isotopes which are toxic and can contaminate water. supplies
  often e-waste is shipped to third world countries to be disposed of; immoral
• global warming
  more devices = more energy is required = using more non-renewable fossil fuels = greenhouse gases emitted

Question 9

censorship and the internet (benefits)

Answer 9

• national security purposes (e.g. in the UK, ISP’s block websites with content associated with terrorism and extremist political beliefs)
• filter offensive comments and extremist propaganda
• maintain productivity and prevent distractions in the workplace (e.g. bosses blocking social media on work computers)
• in schools to prevents pupils from accessing unsuitable material

Question 10

censorship and the internet (drawbacks)

Answer 10

• user in some countries to block out other political opinions

Question 11

monitor behaviour (examples/benefits)

Answer 11

• CCTV for security purposes and to detect crime
• useful in teaching and punishing criminal behaviour
• Ankle monitors
• in workplaces to monitor productivity by tracking the websites and applications workers are accessing