Computer ethics

 Computer ethics is a field of applied ethics that addresses ethical issues in the use, design and management of information technology and in the formulation of ethical policies for its regulation in society.

Computer Ethics

 Ethics deals with placing a value on acts according to whether they are good or bad. Every society has its rules about whether certain acts are ethical or not. These rules have been established as a result of consensus in society and are often written into laws. When computers first began to be used in society at large, the absence of ethical standards about their use and related issues caused some problems. However, as their use became widespread in every facet of our lives, discussions in computer ethics resulted in some kind of a consensus. Today, many of these rules have been formulated as laws, either national or international. Computer crimes and computer fraud are now common terms. There are laws against them, and everyone is responsible for knowing what constitutes computer crime and computer fraud. The Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments of computer ethics have been defined by the Computer Ethics Institute.   

1) Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people

2) Thou shalt not interfere with other people's computer work

3) Thou shalt not snoop around in other people's files

 4) Thou shalt not use a computer to steal

5) Thou shalt not use a computer to bear false witness 

6) Thou shalt not use or copy software for which you have not paid

 7) Thou shalt not use other people's computer resources without authorization

8) Thou shalt not appropriate other people's intellectual output

9) Thou shalt think about the social consequences of the program you write

 10) Thou shalt use a computer in ways that show consideration and respect

HCI and computer ethics:

Ethics in HCI

ABSTRACT

Users are human. As HCI professionals we must be sure

that our fellow humans perceive their encounter with

usability and design professionals as pleasant without

sacrificing the accuracy of our results. There are guidelines

produced by professional organizations like the APA and

the ACM about how HCI professionals should behave.

However, there are few examples from real life about how

to translate this information into everyday behavior. This

panel will discuss specific examples of HCI dilemmas that

the panelists have faced in their daily work.

Keywords

Ethics, HCI professional issues, social computing.

PANELISTS

Brenda Laurel

Art Center College of Design

Email: blaurel@tauzero.com

Carolyn Snyder

Snyder Consulting

88 Brookwood Drive

Salem, NH 03079, USA

Email: snyder3961@mediaone.net

Whitney Quesenbery

Cognetics Corporation

51 Everett Drive #103B

PO Box 386

Princeton Junction, NJ 08829, USA

Email: whitneyq@cognetics.com

Chauncey E. Wilson

Bentley College

Email: chaunsee@aol.com

Rolf Molich

D.

BACKGROUND

Ethical issues permeate our profession, but there are

relatively few public discussions of these issues, perhaps

because they are uncomfortable for many practitioners. A

quick survey of the ACM Digital library on topics

showing the key word ethics produced 69 hits with only

about 3 articles focusing on the concerns of HCI

practitioners.

Informed consent and User Self-Esteem

Consider a simple example, the use of videotape in

usability and field studies. Wendy Mackay, in one of the

few papers specific to the HCI community [4], wrote of

how easy it is to compromise our integrity when we

employ video (or audio) to present our results and

influence others. For example, a question that Mackay asks

is “do we need to have internal participants who have

already signed an employee agreement about being

videotaped also sign a consent form?” Many HCI

colleagues forego the consent form for internal participants,

but this is probably an ethical violation since a video of an

internal person doing poorly on a task could affect his/her

reputation at work.

Our belief is that internal participants should be afforded

equal (or perhaps greater) protection than external

participants, even to the extent of promising that their tape

will not be shown to anyone other than the HCI team. A

key ethical tenet is that the participant should leave a test

feeling no worse than when they arrived and ideally should

feel better because they learned

Users are human. As HCI professionals we must be sure

that our fellow humans perceive their encounter with

usability and design professionals as pleasant without

sacrificing the accuracy of our results. There are guidelines

produced by professional organizations like the APA and

the ACM about how HCI professionals should behave.

However, there are few examples from real life about how

to translate this information into everyday behavior. This

panel will discuss specific examples of HCI dilemmas that

the panelists have faced in their daily wor

Recent news has brought values and ethics in technology design to the forefront of public debate: questions about the goals and politics of human-designed devices, and whether the social interactions of those devices are good, fair, or just. For example, reporters have surfaced the role of social media platforms such as Facebook in the 2016 Designers have spoken out about the psychological tricks phone apps use to hog user attention (Lewis, 2017). Weapons of Math Destruction

, an overview of problems of bias in mathematical modeling, was a New York Times bestseller and long-listed for the National Book Award. Technically Wrong: Sexist Aps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech accused “an insular industry” of creating alienating and harmful technologies. High-profile university computing programs are reporting increased demand for ethics courses (Singer, 2018). How to avoid biased practices, and instead conduct ethical, just design has been a topic of investigation and conversation within human– computer interaction (HCI) for more than 30 years. Long the province of academic debate, it is edifying to see news and industry sources 2 Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/1100000073 3 paying close attention to bias and unfairness in the complex network of designers, technological systems, users, and indirect stakeholders that make up our sociotechnical world. This complex sociotechnical network, however, also explains why this discussion has gone on so long, and why it is so challenging. Avoiding bias and unfairness when people and systems are thoroughly entangled is a wicked problem. Technologies may have unpredictable effects, and users may have unpredictable reactions. Direct and indirect stakeholders of technologies are difficult to enumerate. Our design practices may impact people beyond our users, whether through the collection and use of information about people during design, through secondary unintended consequences, or because of the natural resources our technologies use. 

Users are human. As HCI professionals we must be sure

that our fellow humans perceive their encounter with

usability and design professionals as pleasant without

sacrificing the accuracy of our results. There are guidelines

produced by professional organizations like the APA and

the ACM about how HCI professionals should behave.

However, there are few examples from real life about how

to translate this information into everyday behavior. This

panel will discuss specific examples of HCI dilemmas that

the panelists have faced in their daily wor

Ethics in HCI

ABSTRACT

Users are human. As HCI professionals we must be sure

that our fellow humans perceive their encounter with

usability and design professionals as pleasant without

sacrificing the accuracy of our results. There are guidelines

produced by professional organizations like the APA and

the ACM about how HCI professionals should behave.

However, there are few examples from real life about how

to translate this information into everyday behavior. This

panel will discuss specific examples of HCI dilemmas that

the panelists have faced in their daily work.

Keywords

Ethics, HCI professional issues, social computing.

PANELISTS

Brenda Laurel

Art Center College of Design

Email: blaurel@tauzero.com

Carolyn Snyder

Snyder Consulting

88 Brookwood Drive

Salem, NH 03079, USA

Email: snyder3961@mediaone.net

Whitney Quesenbery

Cognetics Corporation

51 Everett Drive #103B

PO Box 386

Princeton Junction, NJ 08829, USA

Email: whitneyq@cognetics.com

Chauncey E. Wilson

Ben

BACKGROUND

Ethical issues permeate our profession, but there are

relatively few public discussions of these issues, perhaps

because they are uncomfortable for many practitioners. A

quick survey of the ACM Digital library on topics

showing the key word ethics produced 69 hits with only

about 3 articles focusing on the concerns of HCI

practitioners.

Informed consent and User Self-Esteem

Consider a simple example, the use of videotape in

usability and field studies. Wendy Mackay, in one of the

few papers specific to the HCI community [4], wrote of

how easy it is to compromise our integrity when we

employ video (or audio) to present our results and

influence others. For example, a question that Mackay asks

is “do we need to have internal participants who have

already signed an employee agreement about being

videotaped also sign a consent form?” Many HCI

colleagues forego the consent form for internal participants,

but this is probably an ethical violation since a video of an

internal person doing poorly on a task could affect his/her

reputation at work.

Our belief is that internal participants should be afforded

equal (or perhaps greater) protection than external

participants, even to the extent of promising that their tape

will not be shown to anyone other than the HCI team. A

key ethical tenet is that the participant should leave a test

feeling no worse than when they arrived and ideally should

feel better because they learned