Weekly Journal : Ethics in the News

The more software continues to take over every aspect of our lives, the more important it will be for us to take a stand and ensure that our ethics are ever-present in our code. — Bill Sourour

Submission

Submit a Markdown formatted plain text file, named week09_ethics_news.md, to the individual portfolio_NETID repository provided for you in the course's Gitlab group.

Specification

One look these days at the news headlines should make it clear that ethical issues abound in tech companies or how technology and software are applied (such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, algorithmic payment transparency, right to repair, or validity of scientific results). Technical issues are incredibly challenging because typical processes do not constrain them, so they can often outpace our capacity to think through all possible impacts. However, there is significant evidence that the main themes in today's issues have been contemplated previously and may even be timeless. For example, many concerns about smartphones were raised by the original telephone as well as the telegraph.

Use this journal entry to explore a topic of interest, deep knowledge, or personal experience and develop an ethical position on it:

• Current event or news story
• Technical innovation
• Company culture, decision, or action
• Uncommon "evil" use(s) of common technology
• Controversial technological subject
• Lived event relating to a technical project you have worked on

Write about your interest by thinking critically about it from multiple perspectives to justify an ethical perspective. Try not to simply summarize an existing perspective or report just the facts, but rather work to understand the depth and ambiguity of the ethical issues in the topics and develop your own thoughts and feelings and see how they might impact your plans for the future (e.g., what company you want to work for, what kind of software you want to develop, etc.).

Provide links to at least three resources you used to learn more about the topic from an ethical perspective to develop your opinion.