Social Impacts
The artifacts that are created by individuals, professional groups, organizations, governments or societies change the world in beneficial or harmful ways. New creations are intended to ease humanities burdens, improve the health and well-being of the population, allow people to move themselves and their goods more rapidly and more safely, explore the solar systems and the planets, discover the structure of matter and life, express perspectives on the human conditions, and a host of other beneficial effects. Of course, inventions also allow mankind to engage in more destructive warfare, enact terrorism on innocent populations, invade privacy, pollute the planet, and a host of other harmful effects. In addition to purely material artifacts, beneficial and harmful effects are also created by economic and government structures, cultural practices, and social stereotypes.
Ethics guides the changes that we make in the world to align with some set of values or beliefs. Ethical reasoning considers the impacts that artifacts have on different groups of people and weighs the relative benefit and harms to these groups. Some framework of ethical principles helps us to resolve the potentially conflicting impacts on different groups and to arrive at a defensible course of ethical behavior.
The two Virginia Tech mottos illustrate the tension between the drive to change the world and the desire do so only in ethically justifiable ways. The motto “Invent the Future” is a clear call for innovation, discovery and change, to put learning to work to change the world in which we and others must live. The motto “Ut Prosim” (“that I may serve”) calls for true “service” which cannot mean inflicting harm or disadvantage on some group of people in the absence of an ethically justifiable reason.
Knowledge of computing and information technology creates its own distinctive form of power to alter the world around us as shown in the figure below. Knowledge of computing allows practicioners to build new systems and to construct models of the real world. We have already seen in NetLogo a tool for building models that helps us to answer questions about a variety of social, scientific, and engineering phenomenon. We also see around us the systems based on information technology and their artifacts - cell phones, smart watches, the Internet, autonomous vehicles, e-commerce, and many more. The models, in answering questions that we pose, influence what choices we make. For example, a computation model of disease transmission can affect our choice of public health policies and the distribution of limited supplies of medications. Computational models of watersheds can affect our land use and zoning policies that shpae where people can live and what types of industry can be located in different areas. The systems and artifacts that have computing at their core are having a continuing impact on the global society because they create new abilities. For example, social media allows us to form beneficial social networks with people that would otherwise be impossible or unlikely. This same ability also enables cyber bullying. The choices that we make and the abilities that we have create genuine power. The Oxford Dictionary defines power as “the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others.” The examples above show how knowledge of computing creates new abilities and influence the choices that we make. These exmaples also show the impact on society of this power. Through the use of ethical reasoning society can be shielded from the harmful effects of the application of this power.
Developing a practice of engaging in ethically defensible behavior requires us to (1) analyse a situation to determine the impact of computing on different groups and (2) apply the principles of some ethical theory to determine a course of action.
Social Impacts¶
The artifacts that are created by individuals, professional groups, organizations, governments or societies change the world in beneficial or harmful ways. New creations are intended to ease humanities burdens, improve the health and well-being of the population, allow people to move themselves and their goods more rapidly and more safely, explore the solar systems and the planets, discover the structure of matter and life, express perspectives on the human conditions, and a host of other beneficial effects. Of course, inventions also allow mankind to engage in more destructive warfare, enact terrorism on innocent populations, invade privacy, pollute the planet, and a host of other harmful effects. In addition to purely material artifacts, beneficial and harmful effects are also created by economic and government structures, cultural practices, and social stereotypes.
Ethics guides the changes that we make in the world to align with some set of values or beliefs. Ethical reasoning considers the impacts that artifacts have on different groups of people and weighs the relative benefit and harms to these groups. Some framework of ethical principles helps us to resolve the potentially conflicting impacts on different groups and to arrive at a defensible course of ethical behavior.
The two Virginia Tech mottos illustrate the tension between the drive to change the world and the desire do so only in ethically justifiable ways. The motto “Invent the Future” is a clear call for innovation, discovery and change, to put learning to work to change the world in which we and others must live. The motto “Ut Prosim” (“that I may serve”) calls for true “service” which cannot mean inflicting harm or disadvantage on some group of people in the absence of an ethically justifiable reason.
Knowledge of computing and information technology creates its own distinctive form of power to alter the world around us as shown in the figure below. Knowledge of computing allows practicioners to build new systems and to construct models of the real world. We have already seen in NetLogo a tool for building models that helps us to answer questions about a variety of social, scientific, and engineering phenomenon. We also see around us the systems based on information technology and their artifacts - cell phones, smart watches, the Internet, autonomous vehicles, e-commerce, and many more. The models, in answering questions that we pose, influence what choices we make. For example, a computation model of disease transmission can affect our choice of public health policies and the distribution of limited supplies of medications. Computational models of watersheds can affect our land use and zoning policies that shpae where people can live and what types of industry can be located in different areas. The systems and artifacts that have computing at their core are having a continuing impact on the global society because they create new abilities. For example, social media allows us to form beneficial social networks with people that would otherwise be impossible or unlikely. This same ability also enables cyber bullying. The choices that we make and the abilities that we have create genuine power. The Oxford Dictionary defines power as “the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others.” The examples above show how knowledge of computing creates new abilities and influence the choices that we make. These exmaples also show the impact on society of this power. Through the use of ethical reasoning society can be shielded from the harmful effects of the application of this power.
Knowledge and Power in Computing
Developing a practice of engaging in ethically defensible behavior requires us to (1) analyse a situation to determine the impact of computing on different groups and (2) apply the principles of some ethical theory to determine a course of action.