Computer Ethics
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Computer Ethics

John Weckert, John Weckert

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eBook - ePub

Computer Ethics

John Weckert, John Weckert

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About This Book

The study of the ethical issues related to computer use developed primarily in the 1980s, although a number of important papers were published in previous decades, many of which are contained in this volume. Computer ethics, as the field became known, flourished in the following decades. The emphasis initially was more on the computing profession: on questions related to the development of systems, the behaviour of computing professionals and so on. Later the focus moved to the Internet and to users of computer and related communication technologies. This book reflects these different emphases and has articles on most of the important issues, organised into sections on the history and nature of computer ethics, cyberspace, values and technology, responsibility and professionalism, privacy and surveillance, what computers should not do and morality and machines.

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Publisher
Routledge
Year
2017
ISBN
9781351949811

Part I
Computer Ethics - Its History and Nature

[1]
Ethical Challenges to Citizens of ‘The Automatic Age’: Norbert Wiener on the Information Society

Terrell Ward Bynum
Research Center on Computing & Society,
Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, USA
Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the foresight of philosopher/mathematician Norbert Wiener who, in the 1940s, founded Information Ethics as a research discipline. Wiener envisioned the coming of an “automatic age” in which information technology would have profound social and ethical impacts upon the world. He predicted, for example, machines that will learn, reason and play games; “automatic factories” that will replace assembly-line workers and middle managers with computerized devices; workers who will perform their jobs over great distances with the aid of new communication technologies; and people who will gain remarkable powers by adding computerized “prostheses” to their bodies. To analyze the ethical implications of such developments, Wiener presented some principles of justice and employed a powerful practical method of ethical analysis.
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1. INTRODUCTION

In Chapter I of his foundational information-ethics book, The Human Use of Human Beings (1950, 1954) Norbert Wiener said:
It is the thesis of this book that society can only be understood through a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it; and that in the future…messages between man and machines, between machines and man, and between machine and machine, are destined to play an ever-increasing part. (1954, 16)
To live effectively is to live with adequate information. Thus communication and control belong to the essence of man’s inner life, even as they belong to his life in society (1954, 18)
KEYWORDS
Information
Ethics
Entropy
Human
Purposes
Justice
communications in society…are the cement which binds its fabric together. (1954, 27)
Wiener believed that, in the coming ‘automatic age’ (as he called today’s era), the nature of society, as well as its citizens’ relationships with society and with each other, will depend more and more upon information and communications. He predicted that, in our time, machines will join human beings in the creation and interpretation of messages and communications, and indeed in shaping the ties that bind society together. There will be, he argued, machines that learn – that gather, store and interpret information — that reason, make decisions, and take actions on the basis of the messages which they send and receive. With the help of information technology, he predicted, mechanical prosthetic devices will merge with the bodies of disabled persons to help them overcome their disabilities; and indeed even people who are not disabled will acquire ‘prostheses’ to give them powers that a human never had before. According to Wiener, the social and ethical importance of these developments cannot be overstated. “The choice of good and evil knocks at our door,” he said. (1954, 186)
Today we have entered Wiener’s ‘automatic age’, and it is clear that he perceptively foresaw the enormous social and ethical importance of information and communication technology (ICT). Remarkably, he even foresaw – more than a decade before the Internet was created – some of the social and ethical problems and opportunities that came to be associated with the Internet. (Some examples are given below.)

2. HUMAN PURPOSES AND THE PROBLEM OF ENTROPY

Although he thought of himself primarily as a scientist, Wiener considered it important for scientists to see their own activities in the broader human context in which they function. Thus, he said, “we must know as scientists what man’s nature is and what his built-in purposes are.” (1954, 182) As an early twentieth-century scientist, who was philosophically alert to recent developments in physics, Wiener faced the challenge of reconciling the existence and importance of human purposes and values on the one hand, and the thermodynamic principle on the other hand that increasing entropy — that is, growing chaos and disorder – eventually will destroy all organized structures and entities in the universe. In Chapter II of The Human Use of Human Beings, Wiener described contemporary science’s picture of the long-term fate of the universe:
Sooner or later we shall die, and it is highly probable that the whole universe around us will die the heat death, in which the world shall be reduced to one vast temperature equilibrium…. (1954, 31)
According to Wiener, the social and ethical importance of these developments cannot be overstated
In that same chapter, however, Wiener rescued his reader from pessimism and point-lessness by noting that ‘the heat death’ of the universe will occur many millions of years in the future. In addition, in our local region of the universe, living entities and even machines are capable of reducing chaos and disorder rather than increasing it. Living things and machines are anti-entropy entities that create and maintain structure and organization locally, even if the universe as a whole is ‘running down’ and losing structure. For millions of years into the future, therefore, human purposes and values can continue to have meaning and worth, despite the overall increase of entropy in the universe:
In a very real sense we are shipwrecked passengers on a doomed planet. Yet even in a shipwreck, human decencies and human values do not necessarily vanish… [Thus] the theory of entropy, and the considerations of the ultimate heat death of the universe, need not have such profoundly depressing moral consequences as they seem to have at first glance. (1954, 40-41)

3. JUSTICE AND A GOOD HUMAN LIFE

Having rescued the meaningfulness of human purposes and values, Wiener could discuss what would count as a good human life. To have a good life, human beings must live in a society where “the great human values which man possesses” (1954, 52) are nurtured; and this can only be achieved, he said, in a society that upholds the “great principles of justice” (1954, 106). In Chapter VI of The Human Use of Human Beings he stated those principles, although he did not give them names. For the sake of clarity and ease of remembering them, let us attach names to Wiener’s own definitions:
The Principle of Freedom: Justice requires “the liberty of each human being to develop in his freedom the full measure of the human possibilities embodied in him.” (1954, 105)
The Principle of Equality: Justice requires “the equality by which what is just for A and B remains just when the positions of A and B are interchanged.” (1954, 106)
The Principle of Benevolence: Justice requires “a good will between man and man that knows no limits short of those of humanity itself.” (1954, 106)
Wiener considered humans to be fundamentally social beings who can reach their full potential only by active participation in a community of similar beings. For a good human life, therefore, society is indispensable. But it is possible for a society to be oppressive and despotic in ways that limit or even stifle individual freedom; so Wiener added a fourth principle of justice, which we can appropriately call “The Principle of Minimum Infringement of Freedom”: (Wiener himself did not give it a name.)
The Principle of Minimum Infringement of Freedom: “What compulsion the very existence of the community and the state may demand must be exercised in such a way as to produce no unnecessary infringement of freedom.” (1954, 106)
According to Wiener, the overall purpose of a human life is the same for everyone: to realize one’s full human potential by engaging in a variety of chosen actions (1954, 52). It is not surprising, therefore, that the Principle of Freedom would head his list, and that the Principle of Minimum Infringement of Freedom would limit the power of the state to thwart freedom. Because the general purpose of each human life, according to Wiener, is the same, his Principle of Equality follows logically; while the Principle of Benevolence follows from his belief that human freedom flourishes best when everyone sympathetically looks out for the wellbeing of all.

4. WIENER’S METHOD OF DOING INFORMATION ETHICS

Wiener was keen to ask questions about “what we do and how we should react to the new world that confronts us” (1954,12). He developed strategies for analyzing, understanding, and dealing with ICT-related social and ethical problems or opportunities that could threaten or advance human values like life, health, security, knowledge, freedom and happiness. Today, half a century after Wiener founded Information Ethics as an academic research subject, we can look back at his writings in this field and examine the methods that he used to develop his arguments and draw his conclusions. While Wiener was busy creating Information Ethics as a new area of academic research, he normally did not step back – like a metaphiloso-pher would – and explain to his readers what he was about to do or how he was going to do it. Instead, he simply tackled an ICT-related ethical problem or opportunity and began to analyze it and try to solve the problem or benefit from the opportunity.
Today in examining Wiener’s methods and arguments, we have the advantage of helpful concepts and ideas developed later by seminal thinkers such as Walter Maner and James Moor. We can use their ideas to illuminate Wiener’s methodology examining what he did in addition to what he said. In Chapter VI of The Human Use of Human Beings, for example, Wiener considers the law and his own conception of justice as tools for identifying and analyzing social and ethical issues associated with ICT. Combining Maner’s ideas in his “Heuristic Methods for Computer Ethics” (1999) with Moor’s famous account of the nature of computer ethics in “What Is Computer Ethics?” (1985), we can describe Wiener’s account of Information Ethics methodology as the following five-step heuristic procedure:
Step One: Identify an ethical problem or positive opportunity regarding the integration of ICT into society. (If a problem or opportunity can be foreseen before it occurs, we should develop ways to solve the problem or benefit from the opportunity before we are surprised by – and therefore unprepared for – its appearance.)
Step Two: If possible, apply existing ‘policies’ [as Moor would call principles, laws, rules, and practices that already apply in the given society] using precedent and traditional interpretations to resolve the problem or to benefit from the opportunity
Step Three: If existing policies appear to be ambiguous or vague when applied to the new problem or opportunity, clarify ambiguities and vagueness. [In Moor’s language: identify and eliminate ‘conceptual muddles’.]
Step Four: If precedent and existing interpretations, including the new clarifications, are insufficient to resolve the problem or to benefit from the opportunity, one should revise the old policies or create new ones using ‘the great principles of justice’ and the purpose of a human life to guide the effort. [In Moor’s language, one should identify ‘policy vacuums’ and then formulate and ethically justify new policies to fill the vacuums.]
Step Five: Apply the new or revised policies to resolve the problem or to benefit from the opportunity
Thesen policies enable a citizen to tell whether a proposed action should be considered ethical
It is important to note that this method of engaging in Information Ethics need not involve the expertise of a trained philosopher (though such expertise often can be helpful). In any society, a successfully functioning adult will be familiar with the laws, rules, customs, and practices (Moor’s ‘policies’) that normally govern one’s behavior in that society. These policies enable a citizen to tell whether a proposed action should be considered ethical. Thus, all those in society who must cope ethically with the introduction of ICT – whether they are public policy makers, ICT professionals, business people, workers, teachers, parents, or others – can and should engage in Information Ethics by helping to integrate ICT into society in ways that are socially and ethically good. Information Ethics, understood in this very broad way, is too vast and too important to be left only to academics or to ICT professionals. This was clear to Wiener, who especially challenged government officials, business leaders, and public policy makers to wake up and begin to address the ‘good and evil” implications of the coming information society.

5. UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE ‘AUTOMATIC FACTORY’

After World War II, Wiener became concerned about the possibility that unprecedented unemployment could be generated if ‘automatic factories’ were created with robotic machines to replace assembly-line workers and with information processing devices to replace middle-level managers. Such a factory would “play no favorites between manual labor and white-collar labor”. (1954, 159) An automatic factory, said Wiener, would be very much like an animal with a computer functioning like a central nervous system; industrial instruments such as thermometers and photoelectric cells serving as ‘sense organs’; and ‘effectors’ like valve-turning motors, electric clutches, and newly-invented robotic tools functioning like limbs:
The all-over system will correspond to the complete animal with sense organs, effectors, and proprioceptors, not…[just] to an isolated brain. (1954, 157)
Such a factory, said Wiener, would need far fewer human workers, blue-collar or white-collar, and the resulting industrial output could nevertheless be copious and of high quality.
Wiener noted that there is at least one good feature of ‘automatic factories’ that speaks in favor their creation; namely, the safety that they could offer to humans. Since such factories would employ few humans, they would be ethically preferable for the manufacture of risky items like radioactive products or dangerous chemicals. Far fewer people would be killed or injured in cases of emergency or accident in such a factory Nevertheless, Wiener was concerned that the widespread creation of automatic factories could generate massive unemployment:
Let us remember that the automatic machine…is the economic equivalent of slave labor. Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic conditions of slave labor. It is perfectly clear that this will produce an unemployment situation, in comparison with which the present recession and even the depression of the thirties will seem a pleasant joke. (1954, 162)
Thus the new industrial revolution is a two-edged sword. It may be used for the benefit of humanity …It may also be used to destroy humanity, and if it is not used intelligently it can go very far in that direction. (1954, 162)
Wiener was not a mere alarmist, however; nor was he just a theoretician. Instead, having identified a serious threat to society and to individual workers, he took action. In the early 1950s, he met with corporate managers, public policy maker...

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