Category: Ethics

Given the current lack of regulation, there is nothing in principle to stop unscrupulous organizations from deploying surreptitious robotic olfaction.

As VR has hit the mainstream, much debate has arisen over its ethical complexities. Traditional moral responsibilities do not always translate to the digital world. One aspect we argue is essential to ethical responsibility for virtual reality is that VR solutions must integrate ethical analysis into the design process, and practice dissemination of best practices.

The level of state surveillance practiced in the supposedly illiberal regimes prior to fall of the Berlin Wall is now routinely accepted, from the widespread use of CCTV to online tracking and data recording. Therefore, instead of labeling a display of genuine concern as “paranoia,” perhaps a lack of genuine concerns should instead be stigmatized by a “disease” or a “disorder”: complacentosis, complyaphilia, complicivitis, ignorrhea.

Dr. Philip Koopman of Carnegie Mellon University received the IEEE SSIT Carl Barus Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest on November 13, 2018, in Washington, DC.

This month I will briefly discuss the work of the IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee, which I have the honor to chair this year.

The time of robotic deception is rapidly approaching. We are being bombarded regarding the inherent ethical dangers of the approaching robotics and AI revolution, but far less concern has been expressed about the potential for robots to deceive human beings.

If digital technologies can be designed to maintain or sustain values, then the same technologies can be designed to manipulate or undermine those same values.

Developers face a conundrum when launching software that must be equipped to make a moral judgment. Algorithms are being programmed to make consequential decisions that align with laws and moral sensibilities.

“Why would a Russian oil company want to target information on American voters?” Chris asks in the article. Cambridge Analytica claims to have 4000-5000 data points on 230,000,000 U.S. adults.

Prior to 2016 there was little press with occasional hype about artificial intelligence. Somewhere in the last two years we…  Read More

In “Finding the Wonder Woman Within,” values like courage, wonder, equality, grace, and power are addressed, often in very powerful ways.

We must challenge ourselves to transcend our familiar notion of the IT artifact as just an inanimate tool standing by for our use like some sort of mechanical device, neatly separable and distinct from us. It is far more productive to view Information Technology as practice.
Citizen trust and confidence in the public institution and notions of the public good are, in many ways, the bottom line for the public sector.

The Trump administration cannot simply reject current theories of climate change based on nothing more than that it may conflict with a constituency’s self-interest or one’s sheer lack of understanding.

Where did the privacy slippery slope begin? Or perhaps asking the question with more focus, when did we start trading…  Read More

A Guest Blog Post from: Victoria A. Hailey, CMC & Katherine Bennett, (standards development leaders in IEEE). On 28 September 2017,…  Read More

Using biometric technology to identify and monitor people raises human rights concerns. In particular, biometrics are often associated with intrusions into privacy.

Pillar 2 is focused on professional and research ethics, ethics in the development of technologies, ethics in the context of Sustainable Development and Humanitarian Technology, as well as engineering ethics education.

The future as depicted in works of science fiction, especially of the multiplex variety, is almost uniformly dystopian. The bleakness…  Read More

In the context of the IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems, and with support…  Read More

At the IEEE 2016 Conference on Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century, held in Melbourne, Australia, July 13–15, 2016, Keith…  Read More