AUTHOR
Antonio Marturano

ABSTRACT

Bionic is that disciplines which studies the possibilities of partly or totally implanting artificial pieces of human bodies (eyes, arms, legs, brain, etc.). In that, bionic is partly a branch of Biology; but, when the artificial manufact is almost computer assistited, bionic is also a branch of Information Technology.

The relevance of bionic for Bioethics is not obviously: generally, all parts of our organism are passible of artificial implanting without puzzling. Only when computers are used for support to bionic, problems for bioethic become clear. Computer Technologies, in fact, made possible to create “intelligent” support for implanted artificial organs. In way of principle, only by means of computers we can create a valid help for damaged human brains. Do Computer technologies make inner manipulations a real risk for people? Is it right to help damaged brains with computer devices? Are there limits in using computer technologies in supporting of artificial pieces in a human body? These are only parts of (computer and bio-)ethical mazes in bionics.

Related to the above mentioned problems we have genuine philosophical (not only ethical) problems correlated to ethical ones.

In a well-written science fiction book Roger McBride-Allen (The Modular Man, Byron Preiss Visual Publications, 1992) speak about a dying man who transfer all his self (brain? Soul? Knowledge? – I can’t find the right word!) in an vacuum-cleaner computer supported. When his body is passed on, He weak up as vacuum-cleaner. The vacuum-cleaner wonder what it really is (the problem of personal identity, pretty similar to D. Parfit’s book Reasons and Persons, Oxford U.P., 1984, see chap. X, the ‘Teletransporter paradox’, another case of I.T. ethical puzzle). Police suspect the vacuum-cleaner is the killer of the dead man, then, a policeman arrest the vacuum-cleaner and put it not in the jail (where logically all killers are imprisoned) but in the crime arms room; in this way policeman hurt the vacuum-cleaner lawyer, because only a man can be accused of an homicide (this is another puzzle: is that vacuum-cleaner a device or a person?).

Obviously, my reference to the McBride-Allen book is only a mental exercise. But I.T. is near to create nanocomputers in support of damaged brains or eyes (Parfit, cit., pp. 208-209); or neural direct connections between computers and brains (see W. Gibson, Neuromancer, 1984 and the W. Wenders’ movie Fino alla fine del mondo (Until the end of world)). This scenery looks very plausible. But ethical questions re-emerge twice: how much of ourself can be rightly connected with computers? In a such inner connection where there is a person and where there is a advice? What sort of inner mental manipulations people risks?

Certainly, these are only a few ethical problems examples. But I think these are enough for see there are ethical problems linking bioethics with computer and information ethics. It’s important for us to study and to understand these puzzles for a right idea of how much of human can be “synthesized” into an electronic advice and than avoid both a loss of human dignity and to open a way to new racist or classist ideology and then a new computer and biology-based silent dictatorship.

AUTHOR
Walter Maner

ABSTRACT

For almost all of recorded history ethical issues have been decided according to neighborhood, community, or national norms. Today the Internet breaks these geographic barriers and forces us, for the first time, to deal with information ethics on a global scale. Community standards still prevail; the difference is that the “community” has become the world.

Given this new reality, netizens may wish to explore ethical issues within a framework that will allow them to learn immediately how their own opinions compare to those of people from all over the world. This is the concept behind the Interactive Computer Ethics Explorer (ICEE).

The working prototype invites users to explore the ethical issues surrounding a selected case (e.g., Internet spamming), reveal their own opinion in response to one of twenty focusing questions, and then immediately discover the positions other world citizens have taken on the same question. Demographic data are presented in the form of a bar graph generated on-the-fly. Comparison data initially includes everyone but can be restricted by the user to include only males, females, people under 30, people over 30, US residents, or residents of other countries. Only the 100 most recent responses are saved to use as the basis for further comparisons, so visiting ICEE a second time will likely produce different results and give users even more to think about.

In a traditional scientific study, survey administrators would take steps to prevent survey takers from knowing how other participants have responded until long after the survey is complete. ICEE, on the other hand, does not aim primarily to generate statistics but rather aims to create an opportunity for reflective moral self-development. Because moral growth has always had a cooperative and social dimension, it is often important to explore ethical issues in real time, in interaction with other thoughtful persons. With ICEE, we can extend this social dimension to any corner of the world touched by the Internet.

ICEE establishes an interaction paradigm that has application well beyond computer ethics. Instead of an ethical case study, one might substitute the text of proposed legislation, a work of art, or a design proposal. Its domain includes any idea that becomes more meaningful when those exploring it are stimulated by the opinions of other people. Such stimulation is more directly relevant in ethics, however, since ethical positions must forever be tested against contrary and consistent positions held by other thoughtful persons.

Implementation Note

ICEE is currently implemented in HTML, JavaScript and Perl, and makes appropriate use of frames. Typically, the screen is divided into three panels. The large upper panel contains a miniature case study (ethical scenario). Various words and phrases contained in the scenario are hot-linked to pop-up windows containing additional explanatory information. The second panel, on the lower left, contains a focusing statement based on the scenario, to which the user responds by clicking one of the radio buttons in the third panel displayed on the lower right. Next users click the [Submit] button, whereupon they have a chance to see how the last 100 people responded to this particular statement, themselves included. Requested data are drawn in real time as a bar graph. Various demographic breakdowns are offered as options. Finally, the user moves on to the next statement in the series by clicking [Next Statement] or selects another case study to explore.

The current version of ICEE has undergone extensive usability testing. An improved version will debut at Ethicomp98. Most notably, the new version makes it easy for non-technical people to create new content for display within the ICEE framework.

AUTHOR
Bill McDaniel and Pat McGrew

ABSTRACT

Information Technology encompassing all forms of information distribution including high-speed laser printers, database marketing techniques, and web-based push technology makes it possible for international business enterprises to target information to both employees and customers as never before imagined. The ability to make an advertisement, an endorsement, a newspaper article, or even internal corporate reports speak directly to the consumer carries significant ethical responsibility, most often ignored by those responsible for their creation. Further, as these technologies are deployed, there is a high potential for an alteration of the business process in a corporation, and thus an alteration in the requirements of the workforce and their physical working conditions.

The authors own a consulting service and a software development house which provides enabling technology for these purposes. They have spent several years considering the implication, value, and potential abuse of the technology they help to provide to the business world. This paper will present two tracks of observations: External issues of one-to-one marketing and internal issues of the business process.

The first discussion reviews the benefits and drawbacks observed as the authors aided the deployment of one-to-one information technology. Examples of ethically-charged situations range from financial information that tailors itself to an individual investor to advertising campaigns that invade privacy and cause psychological trauma. The issues surrounding targeted periodicals such as newspapers and magazines which are composed of only those articles and ads which conform to a reader’s demographic profile-of-one are discussed.

The second discussion reviews the issues confronted by management on the deployment of such technology in the workplace. Such issues include the costs of physical plant improvements to accommodate workers performing most of their work on computers instead of on paper, costs of providing training in new technologies to workers and managers nearing the end of their careers; and the issues of the change in the environment of the workplace as companies re-organize and change the business process to accommodate the new technologies they invest in.

Finally, a conclusion is drawn regarding the appropriate use of such technology and a call for Information Professionals to adopt a specific code of conduct is made.

AUTHOR
Tomas Lipinski

ABSTRACT

The development of the National Information Infrastructure opens new avenues for information products and services. As these information products and services are developed and marketed, the producers of those products and services seek to protect their proprietary interest in the underlying information. Attempts to extend legal protection to basic facts and other public domain information demonstrate that the public information space is slowly being reduced. Recent information controversies can form the basis for establishing several predictors for determining when future information ownership controversies may develop and result in the loss of public information space. One set of predictors assesses the nature of the public and private boundary into an open, closed or flux model. A second set of predictors characterizes the marketplace environment. Identifying instances where both models suggest an information change or ownership controversy are those instances most likely to result in the critical loss of access to public information.

AUTHOR
Tomas Lipinski

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a middle ground between marketing industry proponents who argue for a self-regulation model in response to consumer privacy concerns and provacy advocates on the other hand who would see the end of most current marketing information practices. To be successful the ability of marketers to market products and services to consumers must be preserved. Futhermore , protecting consumer privacy entails developing schemes which also preserve options for market particcpation by consumers. This would be accomplished by preserving the autonomy of consumers and recognizing the ownership rights of consumers in their personally related information. After discussing the applications of marketplace autonomy and economic ownership in personal information, this paper reviews recent privacy policy statements in the United States. Several legislative initiatives are assessed. A variety of privacy protection options are critqued. Finnally, a proposal for a scheme which preserves both the marketing industry and consumer privacy is presented within model legislation based upon consumer preference and anonymity.

AUTHOR
John Lindsay

ABSTRACT

As the combination of computation and telecommunications becomes ubiquitous the boundaries of public life and private life blur further than contracts of employment have previously clarified. Professionals who exercise a degree of freedom and control over workplace organisation now have a more difficult task in deciding which sorts of activities should be organised through which sort of social processes, in particular which are illegal and which are legal, and the relationship between legality, business practice and ethics.

When these professionals are also members of societies which exist under some sort of “charter” which binds them to ethical responsibility, usually to “fellow professionals, employers and society” or some similar formulation, the policies of the society become political in a way which is difficult to reconcile while keeping an “open society”.

This paper will describe the origination, conduct and conclusion of a case study in which a professional society in Britain, existing by Royal Charter, had to work out a policy on the issue of pornography in information and communication technologies. The author was a member of the task group set up to formulate a position. The result suggested a separation of categories of ethical responsibility involving workplace, university, school, home, closed public spaces and open public spaces.

It identified a number of issues in which the impact of the technology on existing social relations is not widely and clearly understood, including: to know, publish, photo, group, reasonable, misuse, guilty, public good and fantasy.

These developments create ethical problems for professionals in making a wide range of decisions in their public and private lives, in which the professional society may then play a role which is different from the political party, trades union, employers confederation or other civic associations. The paper suggests a role which this society can play and a method by which it might be played.

The issue of pornography is only an exemplar of a wider range including at least:

• Intellectual property – its defence, protection, leverage, rights;
• Information access – as historically understood in librarianship; Data protection – defending the integrity of the individual personal data subject;
• Security and encryption – in particular right of access;
• Harassment – probably not much different from workplace protection.

Each of these raise a range of ethical issues in which the guidance of the professional society will be significant, for example in the proposal of the British government to produce a “freedom of information” act.