Stories exploring general ethical aspects of technologies.
Computing Ethics Issues (12)
Find narratives by ethical themes or by technologies.
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- 6 min
- Kinolab
- 2014
In this episode, Matt and Joe Potter, who inhabit the same cabin, tell each other short stories from their lives. Eventually, Joe Potter reveals that he killed his former father in law, and shortly after became responsible for the murdered man’s granddaughter freezing to death in the snow. Once he confesses this crime, it is revealed that Joe Potter is actually a digital consciousness trapped inside a virtual reality manipulated by Matt, designed in order to get his murder confession. Now having given a clear confession, his digital consciousness is sentenced to live inside a virtual reality, existing in nothingness for thousands of years.
- Kinolab
- 2014
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- 6 min
- Kinolab
- 2014
Digital Interrogation and Torture Methods
In this episode, Matt and Joe Potter, who inhabit the same cabin, tell each other short stories from their lives. Eventually, Joe Potter reveals that he killed his former father in law, and shortly after became responsible for the murdered man’s granddaughter freezing to death in the snow. Once he confesses this crime, it is revealed that Joe Potter is actually a digital consciousness trapped inside a virtual reality manipulated by Matt, designed in order to get his murder confession. Now having given a clear confession, his digital consciousness is sentenced to live inside a virtual reality, existing in nothingness for thousands of years.
Discussion Prompts:
How can virtual reality be abused? If law enforcement come to use virtual reality as an interrogation technique, what should the rules and regulations be? Is it ethical to administer such interrogation or torture techniques unknowingly on any criminal, no matter how egregious their crime?
Movie Title:
Black Mirror: Potter's Confession-
- 5 min
- Wired
- 2021
This narrative describes the recent AI Incident Database launched at the end of 2020, where companies report case studies in which applied machine learning algorithms did not function as intended or caused real-world harm. The goal is to operate in a sense similar to air travel safety report programs; with this database, technological developers can get a sense of how to make algorithms which are more safe and fair while having the incentive to take precautions to stay off the list.
- Wired
- 2021
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- 5 min
- Wired
- 2021
Don’t End Up on This Artificial Intelligence Hall of Shame
This narrative describes the recent AI Incident Database launched at the end of 2020, where companies report case studies in which applied machine learning algorithms did not function as intended or caused real-world harm. The goal is to operate in a sense similar to air travel safety report programs; with this database, technological developers can get a sense of how to make algorithms which are more safe and fair while having the incentive to take precautions to stay off the list.
Discussion Prompts:
What is your opinion on this method of accountability? Is there anything it does not take into account? Is it possible that some machine learning algorithms make mistakes that cannot even be detected by humans? How can this be avoided? How can the inner workings of machine learning algorithms be made more understandable and digestible by the general public?
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- 10 min
- Gizmodo
- 2021
Physicist Brian Nord, who learned about deep learning algorithms through his research on the cosmos, warns against how developing algorithms without proper ethical sensibility can lead to these algorithms having more negative impacts than positive ones. Essentially, an “a priori” or proactive approach to instilling AI ethical sensibility, whether through review institutions or ethical education of developers, is needed to guard against privileged populations using algorithms to maintain hegemony.
- Gizmodo
- 2021
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- 10 min
- Gizmodo
- 2021
Developing Algorithms That Might One Day Be Used Against You
Physicist Brian Nord, who learned about deep learning algorithms through his research on the cosmos, warns against how developing algorithms without proper ethical sensibility can lead to these algorithms having more negative impacts than positive ones. Essentially, an “a priori” or proactive approach to instilling AI ethical sensibility, whether through review institutions or ethical education of developers, is needed to guard against privileged populations using algorithms to maintain hegemony.
Discussion Prompts:
What would an ideal algorithmic accountability organization or process look like? What specific ethical regions should AI developers study before creating their algorithms? How can algorithms or other programs created for one context, such as scientific research or learning, be misused in other contexts?
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- 5 min
- Big Think
This video, narrated by science fiction author Ken MacLeod, explains how the cultural critiques presented in science fiction can be helpful in guiding inventors through how they might invent ethically, and what the primary societal concerns of a certain invention would be. Uses the example of robots as representative of labor issues to make the case that while science fiction plays a role in inspiring inventors and engineers, it should also lead them to question how technologies can be deployed ethically in different societal contexts.
- Big Think
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- 5 min
- Big Think
How sci-fi helps humanity avoid species-level mistakes
This video, narrated by science fiction author Ken MacLeod, explains how the cultural critiques presented in science fiction can be helpful in guiding inventors through how they might invent ethically, and what the primary societal concerns of a certain invention would be. Uses the example of robots as representative of labor issues to make the case that while science fiction plays a role in inspiring inventors and engineers, it should also lead them to question how technologies can be deployed ethically in different societal contexts.
Discussion Prompts:
What steps need to be taken for science fiction to be taken more seriously as a predictor of technologies or a propædeutic to ethics? What narratives from this “age of singularity” could you point to as particularly prescient or useful for discussing ethical concerns?
Movie Title:
- Endgadget
- 2021
Article is an excerpt from book about the history of AI and the shift in AI research in 1990s from knowledge-based to context-based approaches to artificial intelligence.
- Endgadget
- 2021
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- Endgadget
- 2021
Hitting the Books: The Brooksian revolution that led to rational robots
Article is an excerpt from book about the history of AI and the shift in AI research in 1990s from knowledge-based to context-based approaches to artificial intelligence.
