Analyzing a Situation¶

To come to grips with the social impacts in a particular situation we need to identify several elements. In our case we are looking for the impacts of computational artifacts and systems enabled by computation. The elements to be identified in these situations are:

• stakeholders: the individuals or groups that are potentially affected
• impact: the ways in which each stakeholder is beneficially or harmfully affected
• conflicts: the differences in goals, values, and perspectives of the stakeholders
• pressures: the influences operating on each stakeholder that may affect their behavior in the situation

In some case studies we might know the actual names of the stakeholders and can understand in great detail their circumstances. We will examine such a situation in our classwork and homework. In other cases we may only know the general characteristics of affected groups. For example, if a medical records system is being designed for a hospital system we know that the “patients” and “medical providers” will be affected. Though we know the general situations of both of these stakeholder we do not know their actual names or the exact detail of their circumstances.

Various criteria can be used to uncover ways in which a stakeholder is affected. We can investigate for example:

• power: Does the authority or control between or among the stakeholders change? In the medical records system, for example, one design goal might be to give patients more visibility into their medical records and greater control over sharing (or not) those records with other parties.
• pervasiveness: Does the ubiquity and often invisible character of computing have an impact on stakeholders? Unlike other technologies computing is increasingly “everywhere” and often hidden. For example, we often do not consider how many computers it takes for our cars to operate (somewhere between 30 and 100) but we do not “see” their presence.
• privacy: Are the privacy rights and expectations of stakeholders respected? The combination of massive availability of information about individuals and the ready ability to store and process this information to detect patterns over time is relatively new. This ability creates potential for adverse consequences for some stakeholders while creating advantages for other stakeholders.
• privilege: Is the benefit equally shared among all stakeholders? or are some advantaged while others are not? For example, a medical treatment system that assumes the patient has a smart phone and high speed data connection may work well for some patients but not be available to other patients who do not meet those criterion. Is this pattern of unequal treatment acceptable?
• persistence: Does the long-term retention of information about an individual or situation affect that indiviudal or others involved in the situation? Recollections of events by humans often fades with time and are forgotten. An electronic record however can last indefinitely. With the advent of cloud storage technologies the volume of information that can be retained over long periods of time is dramatically increased. Not only does this long-term storage allow long-ago events to be recalled but patterns of behaviour over time can be discovered by data mining over sequences of events. Knowledge of these events and patterns of behavior are knowable because of persistence.
• precision: Does the accuracy and detail that can be recorded by computer-based systems affect the stakeholders? Electronic transactions contain exact amounts and dates. Mobile devices (phones, cameras, smart watches) store accurate geo-location coordinates and times. Video recordings can be analyzed using facial recognition. This level of scrupulous detail is beyond what normal human observers could manage. The effect may be compounded when similarly accurate information is collected for large numbers of people or over long periods of time.

Conflicts among stakeholders are expected. What is a privacy violation for one stakeholder may be a monetizeable business asset for another. What gives one stakeholder greater control and privilege is desired by that stakeholder but is likely not desired by other stakeholders who have less control or are de-privileged. The role of ethical reasoning is, in some sense, to provide a principled means of acting in the face of such conflicts.

Stakeholders often operate under pressures that influence their behavior. These pressures may be internal to the stakeholder (e.g., an ambition, desire, or need) or may be external (e.g., the expectations of peers, enticements or threats from other parties). Acknowledging these pressures allows us to better account for and understand the behavior of stakeholders. Alternatively, ethical reasoning helps us to better deal with the pressures that we face as stakeholders.

Finally, an awareness of the social impacts of computing is relevant to you from three different perspectives. First, you may be the one using the knowledge gained in this course and others to effect change through computing. The idea of ethics and ethical behavior considered here given you a way to decide on and defend your behavior. Second, in other cases you may be a stakeholder because of the use of computing by some other party. If you have a Facebook account, for instance, you are a stakeholder in their social media technology. The idea of ethics may help you evaluate and articulate what you find acceptable or objectionable in this (or other computing enabled) services. Third, these idea of ethics are not unique to computing though we have given focus to issues more strong associated with computing because of the nature of this course. However, these ideas should also be largely relevant to you as a professional exercise your professional power in other spheres of activity.