Fundamental Ethics (13)

Stories exploring general ethical issues not directly related to technologies

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Find narratives by ethical themes or by technologies.

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Themes
  • Privacy
  • Accountability
  • Transparency and Explainability
  • Human Control of Technology
  • Professional Responsibility
  • Promotion of Human Values
  • Fairness and Non-discrimination
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Technologies
  • AI
  • Big Data
  • Bioinformatics
  • Blockchain
  • Immersive Technology
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  • Year
    • 1916 - 1966
    • 1968 - 2018
    • 2019 - 2069
  • Duration
  • 5 min
  • MIT Technology Review
  • 2019
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This is how AI bias really happens—and why it’s so hard to fix

Introduction to how bias is introduced in algorithms during the data preparation stage, which involves selecting which attributes you want the algorithm to consider. Underlines the difficult nature of ameliorating bias in machine learning, given that algorithms are not always perfectly attuned to human social contexts.

  • MIT Technology Review
  • 2019
  • 20 min
  • UC Research Repository
  • 2018
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Robots and Racism

This 2018 study uses several experiments to demonstrate how human racial bias is imposed upon robots as well, specifically in that racialised black robots are more likely to be perceived as threatening to the group sampled.

  • UC Research Repository
  • 2018
  • 15 min
  • Kinolab
  • 1997
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Computational Genomics, Unnatural Selection, and Privilege

Vincent, an “invalid” from the proximate future, was born naturally and is therefore seen as less  than humans such as his brother Anton who were conceived in a computational genetic selection process to ensure that the best traits are carried on. Thus, in this eugenic society, biometric technologies such as finger pricks and other scans are used to detect superior and inferior human genomes. Vincent, relinquished to service jobs, steals the identity of a genetically superior man named Eugene to fulfill his goal of going on a space mission, yet is never able to let go of his sibling rivalry. However, Vincent sets himself up to prove that humans edited through this computational genomics project are not automatically superior to those naturally born.

  • Kinolab
  • 1997
  • 13 min
  • Kinolab
  • 2013
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Fascination and Desensitization through Digital Technologies

In this episode, Victoria wakes up with no memory of who she is in a post-apocalyptic scenario. She is chased and hunted by weapon-toting masked people, and gets no help from the bystanders who record her horrific struggle for survival on their smartphones. Eventually, it is revealed that this scenario is an engineered reality. While the digital technologies present here are limited, this narrative stands as an effective metaphor to study the phenomenon of “cancel culture” and other ways in which digital technologies alienate the humanity of others.

  • Kinolab
  • 2013
  • 12 min
  • Kiniolab
  • 1968
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The Duality of Tools and Runaway Innovation

In the opening of the film, the viewpoint jumps from the earliest hominids learning how to use the first tools to survive and thrive in the prehistoric era to the age of space travel in an imagined version of the year 2001. In both cases, the scientific innovation surrounds a mysterious, unmarked monolith.

  • Kiniolab
  • 1968
  • 13 min
  • Kinolab
  • 2018
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Building a Better Worker

Cassius “Cash” Green, once a telemarketer, has now moved up into the upper echelons of WorryFree, a dangerous and controversial corporation which is revealed to be undertaking genetic experiments on humans with the goal of creating a more productive labor force. Once Cash exposes this monstrosity to the world, he finds that society has a positive reaction, opposite to what he expected, and thus undertakes a protest against the corporation. Although this hypothetical scenario is highly fantastical, the metaphor is nonetheless apt for describing late-stage capitalism in America.

  • Kinolab
  • 2018
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