Do people really consider the ethics of introducing tech like this? I guess it just comes down to a consequentialism vs deontology whether someone thinks this is a good idea. And, obviously, if they don't do it, I guess someone else will?
Two examples:
Social networking - Enabling more meaningful and greater connection between people, leading to greater happiness and fulfillment? Or, fostering more divisions, balkanization into "like" echo chambers, promulgating fear and prejudice, leading to greater depression and mass manipulation?
Cryptocurrencies - Disintermediation! need I say more ;) All kinds of utopian views of how this is supposed to promote freedom, security and efficiency. But top of the wish-list for the most paranoid and repressive authoritarian tyrant would have to be a magical way to fully control and monitor all economic activity: A cash-less society where every single transaction is done with the government controlled digital currency, recorded on the government controlled blockchain.
The technology can just as easily be applied for other purposes, mandated by an authoritarian government to be the only legal way to conduct commerce. You'd use it not because you want to, but because you want to avoid their ire.
There's literally no reason to use it at that point, just make a simple db of account numbers and balances.
It would be actually possible to use a government's money in various new ways. Think of what could happen in the economy if the government provided flexible and free payment services.
(Which is exactly why they'll never do it, but just pointing out that a government-controlled blockchain for normal people would have a LOT of applications)
Actually my government already has rules on that. Using my debetcard at a store, withdrawing money from an ATM or transferring money between bankaccounts is free.
Its almost as if we live in 21st century already!
Second, go to your nearest store, bakery or whatever, and ask them just how free debit cards are.
I don't believe that this was a serious motivation for any of these companies for a second. That might have been in the press release, but most of these social networks were either born from Geocities-begets-Myspace incrementalism, or "watch these idiots give away their personal data" egocentrism.
An abridged survey of recent history:
Snapchat: it'd sure be easier to sext if these pictures disappeared
Instagram: it's easier to take a pic than write something
Twitter: pivot from failing product to internal tool
Facebook: privacy invasion as a service
Myspace 2.0: maybe we can make money off napster?
Myspace: Geocities clone
Geocities: AOL clone for the World Wide Web
AOL: Prodigy clone
Prodigy: Walled garden for selling Usenet access
Napster: OK, this one was probably the only one motivated to enable more meaningful and greater connections between people, leading to greater happiness and fulfillment
That wasn't the motivation-- it was instead to make identities discoverable online. And-- with Facebook-- to make it easier for college students to get laid.
Both were liberating.
But consider the fact that you are using terms out of the humanities, while most of my fellow CS students endlessly griped about how useless their humanities courses were and how they wished the school would get rid of that course requirement (six courses total over 4 years).
Until we teach the tech-priests of the 21st century the great responsibility due to the power that they hold, I doubt things will improve.
In the UK, for instance, we have no requirements for a university degree other than the courses relevant to that degree. I was there to study computer science, not get a rounded education at someone else's insistence.
And yet most of the really rapacious, conscienceless, anti-human stuff seems to me to come from the libertarian and 'bro' fringes of Silicon Valley, seemingly despite the requirements to study more 'humanities'.
Which depends almost entirely on the university in question. My computer science degree (Cambridge) had two separate courses focusing on ethics/humanities. Year 1 had Professional Practice and Ethics (which starts as broad as "Ethical theory. Basic questions in ethics. Survey of ethical theories: [...]. Advantages and disadvantages of the two main theories: utilitarian and deontological.", not just as it relates to CS), and Year 2 had Economics and Law (broad introduction to micro/macroeconomics, and a general overview of the law as it related to CS). The course introduction for the latter notes that you are to treat it as if reading a humanties subject:
> One word of warning: many part 1b students may never have studied a humanties subject since GCSE. It is a different task from learning a programming language; it is not sufficient to acquire proficiency at a small core of manipulative techniques, and figure out the rest when needed. Breadth matters. You should spend at least half of the study time you allocate to this subject on general reading. There are many introductory texts on economics and on law; your college library is probably a good place to start.
FWIW, I don't recall many complaints about the presence of these courses. Most seemed to find it useful to get a more rounded view, and it was a nice change of pace from tens of hours of pure computer science a week). It was also likely helpful for my later studies in Law.
This is also true in the US. I actually chose to study religion and philosophy in addition to CS. My reasons for doing so aside, I truly benefited from it as it helps guide the type of work I will take. I'm torn on whether it should be required, mainly because I am not in a position to decide what makes a 'better' software engineer.
> Like any technology, we need to consider the ethics of its application carefully so we don’t build tools that are open to abuse, or worst case, terminators that can travel through time to kill people.
So no, they took the opportunity to clear up any fears or concerns about the project and used it to make a really, really scary joke about robots specifically designed to identify individuals by using cameras and kill them with guns.
Nobody at this project gave one real thought about ethics. Ethically, you can't make that joke about your software, it's nauseating.
The terrifying thing is that this type of application "demo" is being built by smart people who are already fully aware of the _theoretical_ concept of ethical violations being enabled by software.
And yet refuse to connect the obvious dots to the dystopian, anti-human capabilities enabled by the tools they're building. "Oh yes well we didn't mean it for THAT".
WAY more respect (fear) if they came out and just honestly explained all the revenue generating capabilities this could extract from users. Better business. Less disingenuous.
I certainly feel MUCH safer knowing that my software could FORCE me to spend my attention on it for whatever reason. Bravo Machine-Box, really helping make the world a better place.
It's an ethics arbitrage. This kind of business looks for unethical technologies that other companies wouldn't dare to create, and then packages it up in a form that is palatable enough to bring to market at a profit.
In my book, the ethical viewpoint would be, “someone else might eventually do that, but it sure as hell won't be me”.