AUTHOR
FS Grodzinsky, K Miller and MJ Wolf

ABSTRACT

“The Rules” are a collaborative document (started in March 2010) that states principles for responsibility when a computer artifact is designed, developed and deployed into a sociotechnical system. At this writing, over 50 people from nine countries have signed onto The Rules. The Rules are available at https://edocs.uis.edu/kmill2/www/TheRules/.

Unlike most codes of ethics, The Rules are not tied to any organization, and computer users as well as computing professionals are invited to sign onto The Rules. The emphasis in The Rules is that both users and professionals have responsibilities in the production and use of computing artifacts. In this paper, we use The Rules to examine issues of trust.

Based on the theories of Floridi and Sanders (2001 and Floridi 2008), Grodzinsky, Miller and Wolf have used levels of abstraction to examine ethical issues created by computing technology (see Grodzinsky et al. 2008 and Wolf, et al. 2011). They used three levels of abstraction in that analysis: LoA1, the users’ perspective; LoA2, the developers’ perspective; and LoAS, the perspective of society at large. Their analysis of quantum computing and cloud computing focused on computing professionals at LoA2 delivering functionality to users at LoA1 (Wolf et al. 2011). Their emphasis was on the professionals being worthy of the trust of users in that delivery.

Our analysis of The Rules differs from the earlier analyses of quantum and cloud computing. The Rules are not a computing paradigm; they are a paradigm for thinking about the impact of computing artifacts. The emphasis in The Rules is different from a technical computing project: both users and professionals are invited to acknowledge their responsibilities in the production and use of computing artifacts. Yet there are some aspects of the earlier analyses, especially in the area of trust, that are relevant to The Rules. In quantum computing, although the implementers of quantum algorithms will not likely meet most of the users of those algorithms, nor communicate with them, the trust relationship will be forged through the medium of the quantum algorithms. The whole point of cloud computing is that the people who maintain the computing resources of cloud users are remote from the users of those resources. Humans are clearly crucial in the sociotechnical systems of cloud computing. But most of the relationships will be based on e-trust, not on face-to-face interactions. Trust issues are complex in these new computing paradigms, and it is our assertion that The Rules can inform a discussion of these issues.

The first part of this paper presents The Rules. The Rules document currently includes five rules that are intended to serve “as a normative guide for people who design, develop, deploy, evaluate or use computing artifacts.” Next we briefly examine a model of trust and the relationship between The Rules and society through the lens of trust. In other words, we will examine how computing artifacts and the sociotechnical system of which they are a part, serve as a medium through which trust relationships are played out. Then, we shall examine each rule vis a vis the sociotechnical system and trust. The existence and proliferation of computing artifacts and the growing sophistication of sociotechnical systems do not insulate users and developers from the need to trust and the obligation to be trustworthy. Instead, we are convinced that the power and complexity of these systems require us to be more dependent on trust relationships, not less. In the last section of the paper we illustrate this last statement by applying the Rules to the paradigms of quantum and cloud computing especially as they relate to issues of trust between developers and users within sociotechnical systems.

REFERENCES

Floridi, L. (2008). The method of levels of abstraction. Minds and Machines, 18:303-329. doi:10.0007/s11023-008-9113-7.

Floridi, L. and J.W. Sanders (2001). Artificial evil and the foundation of computer ethics. Ethics and Information Technology 3:55–66.

Grodzinsky, F. S., Miller, K. and Wolf, M. J. (2008) The ethics of designing artificial agents. Ethics and Information Technology, 10, 2-3, (September, 2008), DOI: 10.1007/s10676-008-9163-9.

Grodzinsky, F. S., Miller, K. and Wolf, M. J. (2011) Developing artificial agents worthy of trust: Would you buy a car from this artificial agent? Forthcoming in Ethics and Information Technology.

Joy, Bill (2000) Why the future doesn’t need us. Wired (8), no. (4) 2000.

Nissenbaum, Helen (2007) Computing and accountability. in J. Weckert, ed. Computer Ethics. Aldershot UK: Ashgate, pp. 273-80. Reprinted from Communications of the ACM 37(1994):37-40.

Taddeo, M. (2008) Modeling trust in artificial agents, a first step toward the analysis of e-trust. In Sixth European Conference of Computing and Philosophy, University for Science and Technology, Montpelier, France, 16-18 June.

Taddeo, M. (2009) Defining trust and e-trust: from old theories to new problems. International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction 5, 2, April-June 2009.

Weizenbaum, Joseph (1984). Computer Power and Human Reason:From Judgment to Calculation. New York: Penguin Books.

Wolf, M.J., Grodzinsky, F. and Miller, K. (2010) Artificial agents, cloud computing, and quantum computing: Applying Floridi’s Method of levels of abstraction. To appear in Luciano Floridi’s Philosophy of Technology: Critical Reflections, H. Demir, ed. Springer, forthcoming in 2011.

AUTHOR
Krystyna Górniak-Kocikowska

ABSTRACT

The evolution of computer technology is amazing and breathtaking. Barely thirty years ago, computers were perceived mainly as ‘number crunchers;’ scholarly papers (Moor, 1985) were written to argue that these devices have a much broader potential. The development was so rapid that there was a problem with finding an adequate name for the new technology – from computer or digital technology to information technology to information and communication technology (Górniak-Kocikowska, 2005). These changing names reflected the direction in which the computer-based technology was evolving. The term social computing, used as one of the focal terms for the ETHICOMP 2011 conference, points out an additional step in this evolution. It indicates that presently the various applications of computer technology take the central stage in characterizing the technology itself; social computing being merely the most noticeable among them.

The recent popularity of social computing also brings a wide range of new problems, theoretical and practical alike. The social impact of social computing is possibly the most important among them. This paper will focus on one of the problems in the social impact area, namely, the problem of verbal communication, which is the core of social computing. Within the scope of verbal communication, the focus will be chiefly on the problem of listening.

In every meaningful and purposeful form of communication there are two main ‘players’ whether individual or collective: the sender and the recipient. (Often, they switch roles from sender(s) to recipient(s) and vice versa.) In verbal communication, the sender is usually known as a ‘speaker,’ whereas the recipient as a ‘listener’ even when the communication has a written, not an oral form. Usually, the speaker is seen as an active participant in the communication process, whereas the listener as a passive one. This distinction applies mostly to the external (visible and audible) characteristics of the communication process. In terms of internal characteristics, esp. regarding thought processes, the ‘listener’ can be as active as the speaker or even more so. This, however, rarely has a discernible impact on the process of communication at the time when this process is taking place.

Despite the existence of two processes (‘speaking’ and ‘listening’) and two participants (‘speaker’ and ‘listener’) in the phenomenon of verbal communication the interest of western scholars in ‘speaking’ far exceeds their interest in ‘listening.’ Corradi Fiumara maintains that this neglect of listening is the result of the dominance of logos and logical thinking in the western philosophical tradition. She further claims that logical thinking is “primary anchored to saying-without-listening.” (Corradi Fiumara, 1990, 3)

In the speaking-centered, not listening-centered western intellectual tradition, the primary purpose of communication is frequently the speaker’s victory and domination rather than mutual understanding and/or existential insight. In the logos-centered paradigm, the ‘speaker’s’ objective is usually to ‘prove,’ to ‘convince,’ to ‘make one understand,’ to ‘make one follow the speaker’ (the ‘speaker’s’ words, and sometimes also deeds). The ‘listener’ is supposed to pay attention, to remember, to follow the ‘speaker,’ and so on. Phrases like ‘listen to me’ more often than not mean ‘obey me.’ Besides establishing the position of the ‘listener’ as a subordinate one, such phrases indicate also that the role ascribed to the ‘listener’ in the communication process is a passive one. Consequently, fulfilling someone’s orders swiftly and accurately or acting by taking into account facts one has been informed about is often seen as proof of effective listening. But this is just one kind of listening, and it is not the most important one in the context of the social impact of social computing. Therefore, one of the issues raised in this paper will be the problem of ‘the will to listen’ (without which any meaningful communication is all but impossible). ‘The will to listen’ means that one has to have ‘the will to think’ first; ‘the will to obey’ or the ‘the will to follow one’s footsteps’ can ensue – or not.

One of the most prominent philosophers interested in the problem of listening, especially in the context of democracy and education, was John Dewey. Leonard J. Waks (2009) claims that the core of Dewey’s theory on listening is the distinction between “one-way or straight-line listening” (dominant in both traditional schools and undemocratic societies) and “transactional listening-in-conversation,” which “lies at the heart of democracy.”

Today, various academic disciplines, especially psychology, education, medicine, and marketing, pay significant amount of attention to the issue of listening. They all developed their own theories regarding this problem and approach it from their own particular perspectives. Even so, and even with the existence of professional organizations, e.g., The International Listening Association, and a multitude of on- and off-line publications, including specialized scholarly journals, there seems to still be an insufficient investigation of the problem of listening as an act of communication; in particular in the context of social computing which is now a global phenomenon. Global social computing can contribute to profound changes in the way the humankind deals with its own problems and with the problems of their environment. Therefore, advancing the understanding of listening and modifying our current approach to it should be one of our most urgent tasks.

REFERENCES

Corradi Fiumara, Gemma (1990), The Other Side of Language: A philosophy of listening, transl. by Charles Lambert, Routledge.

Górniak-Kocikowska, Krystyna (2005), “Problem z nazwaniem nowego globalnego spoleczenstwa” [Problems with the naming of the new global society], Osoba w Spoleczenstwie Informacyjnym, ETHOS, John Paul II Institute Catholic University of Lublin, John Paul II Foundation Rome, Vol. 69-70, 77-99.

International Listening Association (last accessed on January 29, 2011), http://www.listen.org/

Moor, James H. (1985). “What is computer ethics?” Metaphilosophy,16 (4), pp 226-275.

Waks, Leonard J. (2009), Hearing is a participation: John Dewey on listening, friendship and participation in democratic society, Manuscript.

AUTHOR
Don Gotterbarn

ABSTRACT

The suburbs of the United States once welcomed Canada geese for providing a daily encounter with nature and as symbols of a protected environment. As their number increased so has their destruction of the environment; soil erosion from grass removal, pathogen carried by dropping, and aggressive behavior toward humans. Accordingly, the suburban attraction for these animals has changed to a desire to be rid of them or at least to significantly thin and control their ranks and diminish their negative effects on the environment. There are even websites dedicated to achieving these ends. (GoGeese.Com, GooseBusters, etc.). One of the problems is that these animals are protected by environmental law in the United States.

Effective communication is important to any business and business has encouraged computer communications until the quantity and kind of communication began to impact productivity. In response to this difficulty many corporations developed computer use policies. These policies were primarily focused on email and Internet usage while at work. These policies range from almost draconian restrictions which prohibit any email and Internet use in the work place to policies which encourage personal use of corporate computers during official breaks.

These policies were justified in a variety of ways including claims: that employees should not attend to personal tasks during working hours, not devoting salaried time to the company is a violation of your employment agreement, the organization owns the computers and what was on them and they should not be used for personal communications. Some of these claims have been upheld by court cases and have been used to justify inspection and restriction/censorship of employee email on the corporate machines. One problem with using laws to judge these standards is that technology moves faster than the law; there is a gap between the speed of technological development and changes in the law to help manage the technology. Law always lags behind and we still try to apply old doctrines to new technologies and social changes. Inappropriate employee communication was easily controlled both by employer computer use policy and mechanical restrictions on the computers.

Previous corporate computer use policies were about the use of computers at work and were based on at least two presumptions: the financial agreement between employer and employee and that the computers in question were corporate assets.

Improvements in technology (wireless communication, miniaturization, etc) and the change in our understanding of ways we communicate, generally referred to as ‘social media’, have caused many new and significant problems employers. These changes have contributed to blurring the lines between personal and corporate computer use. Our concepts are further muddied by employees bringing their own computers, in the form of smart phones and other devices, into the work place.

Both the technology and its usage patterns in social media require careful ethical evaluation. Among the problems are: a failure to see that the nature of the medium sometimes significantly distorts the messages, it is wrong to transmit from some locations, the equation of degree of repetition with truth, the failure to understand the impact of messages beyond its video screen representation, and career impacts of widespread digital information.

The technological changes have facilitated radical changes in the acceptable use patterns of technology outside of the work place. Individuals are now almost in continuous contact through social media.

For the individual the new standard of the social media raise some ethical tensions. You are valued by the number of tweets and followers of your every tweet. The new technology has increased your audience; instead of gossip being one on one conversation you can now gossip with a bull horn. Your worth is calculated in the number of ‘friends on your page’ and the more people who listen to you or the higher the number of hits you have the greater your currency. Your importance in social media is not determined by credentials, licenses, or experience but by popularity.

Oddly this generates a tension between your ‘value’ – tweet count or number of friends versus the ‘veracity’ of what is said. Problems with the accuracy and impact of tweets are beginning to be recognized. The new media requires and is developing standards to evaluate the content versus the number of times it has been repeated. There are web sites and standards developed by journalist to help substantiate the content of tweets. The Canadian Association of Journalists has tweeting guidelines. There are recommendations for what and how to re-tweet.

Many people now use Twitter’s 140 characters messaging without thinking how shortening the message may cause the loss of significant information as when the words “is indicated” were deleted from a re-tweet about the occurrence of a second Icelandic volcano. The instantaneous exponential repetition of this tweet added to its credibility and caused a panic.

Sometimes it is inappropriate to tweet from certain locations like a war zones. During the attacks in Mumbai, Twitter was so effective in providing up to date information that there was a concern that the tweeting would reveal critical information to the terrorists.

Unlike the effects of a single Canada goose a human twit can be re-tweeted exponentially increasing its impact, be it negative or positive. A significant repetition increases the credibility of a claim. The original April Fool’s day joke about President Obama’s birth location had the date removed thus significantly changing its information content and was re-circulated. It near infinite recirculation added so much to its credibility that significant numbers of people still believe that he was not born in the USA. No hard evidence like a birth certificate has been strong enough to sway their belief in the repeated message.

Digital dirt can derail an individual’s career. Ninety percent of search firm recruiters look online to find anything that helps draw a complete picture of a job candidate http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robyn-greenspan/dont-let-digital-dirt-der_b_780643.html . The digital information may indicate ethics violations, falsified qualifications, felony convictions and sexual harassment complaints, among other things. Due to the increased comfort with information-sharing and living openly online much of this information is posted by the job candidate. “The challenge to professionals is twofold: create a positive identity and suppress a negative one. In 2010, if there are no Internet references to your success and history of accomplishments, you don’t exist.” http://www.allword-news.co.uk/2010/11/09/dont-let-digital-dirt-derail-your-career/ . It is important to develop and protect your personal image brand.

Just as there is a gap between the speed of technological development and changes in the law to help manage the technology, employers are also in catch up mode with technology. Corporations, like the law lag behind technology and social changes.

Corporation’s computer use policies are inadequate and inappropriate for social media. The basis for managing working time now has to include reference to usage of personal computing devices in the work place, corporate brand and image protection, but this must be done without introducing any new ethical problems.

Some problems arise in part because when individuals use social media there is a blurring of the distinction between public information and private information and between work information and personal information. Notes on LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook are a blend of private and public information. The major importance for individuals on Facebook is their Personal brand that must be maintained. People talk about what it is that they do but not who it is they work for. Sometimes the media will be used to attack particular employers. For instance there is a claim that Wal-Mart “bullies disabled greeters” on WarmartSucks.org. These attacks on employers can be intensive from multiple directions: web pages, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace accounts.

Business must be concerned with their public image, their brand. Social media is a powerful tool to promote a company, attract new customers and recruit the best talent. As digital dirt can derail a person’s career, it can destroy a company. Employers are being attacked on social media. In order to stay in business it is important for them to protect their brand from being tarnished by a pile of tweets and to keep their corporate image clean. Unfortunately if a brand is tarnished by a flock of tweets, no matter what evidence is provided it will be difficult to fix because social media has shifted trust away from institutions. It is hard to clear a company name.

Employer’s computer use policies need to address new problems generated by social media while minimizing ethical problems. They need to establish internal work related controls for social media to re-focus their employees as they attempted to refocus them with computer use policies. They need to address new issues the technology raises for industrial espionage from within the company. They also need to re-address the way in which employs represent the company and comment on the company on social media when not at work. One of the underlying problems with such policies is that when you place restrictions on the kind of things they can say you also make it difficult for them to be an asset to your brand. There is a need to balance the positive and negative effects of the policy.

Recent attempts to develop such policies have been problematic in a number of ways. Employers want to get the benefits of collaboration but users of social media don’t really draw the lines around the corporation. Corporate social policy needs to address this tension.

In 2010 a company, AMRC, fired an employee who had made untoward remarks about her manager on Facebook. AMRC had a policy which stated that “Employees are prohibited from making disparaging, discriminatory or defamatory comments when discussing the Company or the employee’s superiors, co-workers and/or competitors. “ In the USA, the National Labor Relations Board brought suit for the employee against AMRC to see if this policy violated employee right and violated free speech standards. The National Labor Relations Board was concerned with employee rights and wrongful termination.

In an attempt to address the employers rights and wrongful harm by their employees, some of these polices for social media are examined; identifying some of their ethical problems and making suggestions and providing strategies to reduce those problems.

AUTHOR
Anne Gerdes, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

In 2008 militant violent jihad web sites were shot down by international authorities, as part of the “war on terror” strategy. But fighting dedicated jihadist websites and forums is not sufficient in order to dam up for online radicalisation. As a consequence of the international banning strategy towards militant homepages, al-Qaeda and jihadist Internet Brigades have increased their presence on global social networking platforms, like YouTube and Facebook. Contrary to an ordinary Web forum, which grows into a mature community by passing through certain developmental stages in establishing critical mass of users and content; Facebook provides a full blown community of friends, in which new groups can easily launch their ideas and foster engagement among friends and related networks of friends. Apart from offering an easy set up framework for groups, Facebook also facilitates a new type of mass interpersonal persuasion, which might sustain radicalisation (Fogg, 2008). Likewise, YouTube provides an accessible platform, motivating participants to contribute by uploading videos or making comments.

Thus, the spread of jihad-promoting content continues, and more over, it now reaches a broader audience besides sworn followers (CTA: Center for Terror Analysis. The Danish Security Intelligence Service, 2010, p. 3), (Bermingham, Conway, McInerney, O’Hare & Smeaton, 2009). Furthermore, the banning-strategy of violent jihad Websites has advanced the transfer of the jihadist online movement, from static Web 1.0 use of the internet – which relay on one-way, typically top-down, communication, focusing on passive acquisition of information – into Web 2.0 use modes, characterized by participation via bottom-up activities and many-to-many communication, in which participants take part in the construction of vivid communities.

In a forthcoming book, Investigating Cyber Law and Cyber Ethics: Issues, Impacts and Practices, edited by Dudley, Braman and Vincenti, I contribute with a chapter called: “Al-Qaeda on Web 2.0 – Radicalisation and Recruitment Strategies” (Gerdes, 2011). Here, I discuss the al-Qaeda Web and media strategy. A strategy, which makes them stand out from other extremist groups, who in most cases lack an overall approach towards branding and Web communication. Consequently, I illustrate the impact of the al-Qaeda media strategy, which enables al-Qaeda to set the agenda for online global jihadism and cultivate virtual communities of engaged jihobbyists (a term coined by Jarret Brachman: Brachman, 2008, p. 19). Thus, I mainly address issues of radicalisation and recruitment by emphasizing how strategic use of Web 2.0 tools scaffolds jihadist activities. In this paper, I set out to discuss prototypical strategies for fighting online jihadist radicalisation (in the form of top-down controlled strategies versus bottom-up user driven strategies). First, al-Qaeda as a global online social movement is described, stressing their professional media strategy, which enables al-Qaeda to enhance processes of self-radicalisation among young people with extremist attitudes. Within this context, I analyse different strategies for breaking the circle of radicalisation and introduce ethical reflections (Macintyre, 1999, 2000, Løgstrup, 1997, Benkler & Nissenbaum 2006) in order to discuss the potentials of these initiatives.

REFERENCES

Ansar Al-Mujahideen Network (2010). Retrieved August 16, 2010, from http://www.ansar1.info/

Anscombe, E. (1958). Modern Moral Philosophy. Philosophy vol. 33, 1-19.

Bermingham, A., Conway, M., McInerney, L., O’Hare, N. & Smeaton, A. F. (2009). Combining Social Network Analysis and Sentiment Analysis to Explore the Potential for Online Radicalisation. Retrieved August 16, 2010, from http://doras.dcu.ie/4554/

Brachman, J. (2008). Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice. Routledge Press.

Cool, S. & Glasser, S. B. (2005). Terrorists turn to the Web as a base of operation. Washington Post, 7 August, 2005.

Conway, M. & McInerney, L. (2008). Jihadi Video & Auto-Radicalisation: Evidence from an Exploratory YouTube Study. Retrieved August 16, 2010, from http://doras.dcu.ie/2253/

CTA: Center for Terror Analysis. The Danish Security Intelligence Service, 2010 (2010). Youtube.com og Facebook.com – de nye radikaliseringsværktøjer? PET, Center for Terroranalyse. Retrieved August 16, 2010, from http://www.pet.dk/upload/youtube_og_facebook_-_de_nye_radikaliseringsvaerktoejer.pdf.

Fogg, B.J. (2003). Persuasive Technology – Using Computers to Change What We Think and do. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.

Fogg, B.J. (2008). Mass Interpersonal Persuasion: An Early View of a New Phenomenon. In H. O Kukkonen, P. Hasle, M.H.K. Segerståhl, P. Øhrstrøm (Eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Persuasive Technology. Oulu, Finland. (pp. 23-35). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Foot, P. (1978). Virtues and Vices. In S. Darwall (ed.), Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell 2003.

Gerdes, A. (2011). Forthcoming: Al-Qaeda on Web 2.0 – Radicalisation and Recruitment Strategies. In: (ed.): A. Dudley, J. Braman, G. Vincenti, Investigating Cyber Law and Cyber Ethics: Issues, Impacts and Practices. Hersey: IGI Global.

MI5 Security Service. (2010). Al Qaida’s Structure. Retrieved August 16, 2010, from https://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/al-qaidas-structure.html

O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0 Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Retrieved August 16, 2010, from http://oreilly.com/Web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html

Seib; P., H. (2008). The Al-Qaeda Media Machine. Military Review, May-June 2008, 74-80.

Shactman, N. (2008). Online Jihadists plan to invade Facebook. Retrieved August 16, 2010, from, http://current.com/1r3i84c

The Danish Counterterrorism Research Lab (2010). Retrieved August 16, 2010 from, http://www.ctrlab.dk/

Weingberg, L., Perliger, A. (2010). How Terrorist Groups End. CTC Sentinel, February 2010, vol. 3(2), 16-18.

AUTHOR
William M. Fleischman

ABSTRACT

This paper is a reflection about my experiences of the past thirteen years teaching the course in computer ethics at Villanova University. If I say that this assignment, which was presented to me unexpectedly in the winter of 1998, has proved to be most challenging and rewarding of a long career, it is simply that the responsibility of teaching computer ethics has forced me to be a student on the same level as the young people who – when they display the beautiful good will and generosity of the young – have been my companions in thinking through and sorting out the questions we have encountered and addressed during this eventful period.

My observations here are neither abstract nor general. There is a particular topic to which they are immediately connected – the quite contemporary questions related to the use of robotic agents in warfare. At this historical moment, the use of such robotic weapons has an understandable attraction, especially for students who are technically inclined. Considering the set of advantages these robotic agents possess, the development of automated and, in some cases, autonomous weapons may seem an unavoidable imperative [Singer 2009, Arkin 2009]. Of course, critical consideration of the circumstances of their intended deployment reveals a complementary set of disadvantages that argue against indiscriminate use. [Singer 2009, Gotterbarn 2011] Certainly this is a subject that deserves analytical discussion in a setting in which aspiring hardware and software engineers consider and wrestle with the value choices they will face in professional assignments they undertake after graduation.

But there is a larger and, to my mind, more significant theme that has bearing on my students’ understanding of these issues. This theme has to do with the convergence between what my students conceive to be the nature and limitations of human intelligence, and what they conceive as possible through the simulation of human behavior by means of the techniques of artificial intelligence. Of course, this convergence does not originate with the views of students, nor is it confined only to those who are in the initial stages of their intellectual and professional development. It is a tendency of thought decried by Joseph Weizenbaum in his 1972 essay, “On the Impact of the Computer on Society,” and again in his book, “Computer Power and Human Reason,” [Weizenbaum 1972, 1976].

The issue at the heart of this convergence is the subject of a debate that has, for many years, occupied the attention of influential thinkers and practitioners in computer science. The fundamental question or assertion may be phrased in one of several variant forms. “Is the brain merely a ‘meat machine’?” “The human brain is just a network of 1011 neurons. We’re going to be able to build that soon.” Of course, this is a dream with deep roots in our culture – in literature as well as film. And it constitutes an attractive topic for uncritical treatment in the popular press. Thus, it has many avenues of entrée into the consciousness of young people who eventually gravitate to the study of science and technology.

The first section of this paper will comprise brief remarks about the general approach I take in teaching the course in computer ethics and a more detailed explanation of the unit in which we discuss questions related to the deployment of robotic agents in warfare. In the section that follows, I will take a step back to consider the larger context of the ambitious projects involving the application of artificial intelligence tin the simulation of human behavior. This is a question we explore in the ethics course through readings that begin with the public debate in which Weizenbaum engaged with the influential ideas of Herbert Simon and his followers [Simon, 1969]. This exploration takes us into the realm of “cyborgian” speculation and experiments [Moravec 1998, Warwick, 2000] inspired by Simon’s ideas. In particular, I wish to point out how these speculations and experiments feed the naïve expectation, “We’re going to be able to build this soon,” that many students bring to the topic. And they are at the root of those recurrent moments mentioned in title of this article, which I will illustrate with several examples provided by my students in the course of discussions concerning robotics, cyborgs, and machine simulation of human behavior.

In a sense, the essay, “On the Impact of the Computer on Society,” is the cornerstone of the course on computer ethics as I conceive it. It is a difficult essay for the students to penetrate, in part because of important elements of historical context that, for students born after the fall of the Berlin Wall (to lay down a convenient chronological marker) lie increasingly in the remote and inaccessible past. But it is also a difficult essay because its short form demands of Weizenbaum, the writer, a severe compression of the broad scope of the argument that Weizenbaum, the thinker, wishes to join with those who have asserted or who have internalized a mechanical conception of human history, culture, and intelligence. And finally it is difficult because there are very few instances in the education of my students in which a scientist speaks to them as loftily yet as bluntly as Weizenbaum does of the danger of losing the accumulated wealth of human culture, of undervaluing the full richness of human intelligence. Thus, I will discuss several strategies for unpacking and illustrating Weizenbaum’s argument in a manner that is meaningful to my students. These strategies underscore the exceptional, joyful, and unmechanical nature of human creativity, something against which the world of this moment mounts altogether too many deadening and discouraging counterexamples.

REFERENCES

Arkin, Ronald C. (2009), “Ethical Robots in Warfare,” IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, volume 28, no. 1.

Gotterbarn, Don (2010), “Autonomous Weapon’s Ethical Decisions; “I Am Sorry Dave; I Am Afraid I Cannot Do That.” Proceedings of ETHICOMP 2010, pp. 219-229.

Moravec, Hans (1998), “When Will Computer Hardware Match the Human Brain?” in Journal of Evolution and Technology, vol. 1, available online at http://www.transhumanist.com/volume1/moravec.htm, last accessed 6 February, 2011.

Simon, Herbert A., The Sciences of the Artificial, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Singer, P. W. (2009), Wired for War, Penguin Press, New York.

Warwick, Kevin (2000), “Cyborg 1.0,” in Wired Magazine, Issue 8.02, February 2000, available at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.02/warwick.html, last accessed 6 February, 2011.

Weizenbaum, Joseph (1972), “On the Impact of the Computer on Society: How Does One Insult a Machine?” Science, vol. 176, no. 4035, pp. 609-614.

Weizenbaum, Joseph (1976), Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, W. H. Freeman and Company, New York.

AUTHOR
Catherine Flick, Penny Duquenoy and Matt Jones

ABSTRACT

“Ghosty” is a network-enabled monitoring device aimed at encouraging discussion in families about children’s internet use, and/or enabling children to better self-monitor their own internet use, in order to promote and reinforce positive internet use and resilience against online predators. It allows children or other household members to know what types of websites or networks are being visited or used, rather than specifics of particular websites or conversation details. The device can show internet access according to type delineation (such as “homework”, “social”, “email”), or by risk level by varying the colour shown by LEDs within a lamp. It is aimed at being an ethics-centred device, with the child’s privacy paramount in its design.

Online child protection approaches can be split into two parts: the first being prevention of crimes occurring and the second being the finding, arresting, and prosecuting of offenders. The former has traditionally relied on deterrence (from prosecutions), education of children as to their safety online, and monitoring and/or filtering devices for home and school networks. The latter relies on sophisticated software used by law enforcement for tracking paedophile behaviour, such as Peer Precision or the Isis Project, as well as traditional policing methods to identify potential abusers and distributors of child sexual abuse material online.

Although the latter approach is useful in apprehending paedophiles, an approach that helps children avoid child abuse situations in a proactive way is needed. To achieve this, we need methods and mechanisms for prevention of offences, most of which currently centre on supervision of children on the internet, such as parental education (which suggests that computers should be kept in a public part of the house, or that parents should supervise their children on the internet). Monitoring and filtering tools such as Net Nanny have also appeared, allowing parents to set limits on internet use, email them on keywords used during a child’s internet session, or block certain websites or services.

The problems with traditional monitoring and filtering devices are numerous, particularly from an ethical perspective:

• They can cause distrust in family relationships, when a child rebels against such filtering or monitoring systems;
• They can trigger false positives and block innocent content;
• They can lull parents (and children) into a false sense of security about online safety;
• They can impinge on the privacy of the child, by emailing a parent when a child uses a key word, for example, or simply allowing a parent to view all chat text; and
• They can cause a child to become more secretive about their behaviour online, to name a few.

Social networking has also come into the spotlight in recent times, to the degree that the UK child protection agency CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection) produced a Facebook “emergency button” application for children worried about others’ behaviour online. The “ClickCEOP” application allows children to report suspicious activity toward them on Facebook as well as learn about safe internet practices.

Recent research has come to light showing that many children are not at all vulnerable to online predators: these young people who are approached are, in this way, “resilient”, telling potential offenders to go away. However, there is a smaller group of young people, the “disinhibited”, who are often willing to interact with offenders and engage with them due to various reasons, such as negative self-esteem, parental problems, difficulties at school, loneliness, tendency to self-harm, or familial sexual abuse. They can, in some cases, use sexual names or actively seek sexual encounters with people online. These are ideal targets for paedophiles seeking relationships with children with the possibility for future contact offences(1).

Although parents might be concerned about their child’s safety online, they may consider the current monitoring software available to be too intrusive on their children’s privacy: instead of intense scrutiny provided by current monitoring software they may wish to engender a stronger trust relationship with their child by allowing the child to self-monitor for risk or the family to “keep an eye on” the lamp colours to have a general idea about what the child is doing in a way that is akin to knowing where a child may be playing but not necessarily what he or she is up to specifically.

More generally, we wish to enable more families to foster a sense of resilience in their children, particularly those who have the potential to become more resilient. Our project also aims to reinforce resilience amongst children who are already resilient, allowing for parents to loosely monitor their internet activity without knowing details, but using this knowledge to spur positive conversation and discussion amongst family members, or allowing children to self-monitor to gauge their level of risk. In this way the device aims to be an ethical monitoring tool used in a very specific way to enable resilience amongst children and allow for greater family bonds which could help prevent disinhibition.

REFERENCES

(1) Davidson, J. Understanding online offending behavior: Preliminary findings from the European Online Grooming Project. Online Child Protection: Future Technologies for Policing the Internet. London (2010) http://european-online-grooming-project.com/