Emerging Tech: Ethics and Professionalism

Ethics and Professionalism in Emerging Technologies

• The importance of ethics in technology is highlighted, with a code for professional ethics based on five basic principles: Integrity, Objectivity, Competence and due care, Confidentiality, and Professional behavior.

General Ethical Principles

• Contribute to society and human well-being, acknowledging that all people are stakeholders in computing.
• Avoid harm.
• Be honest and trustworthy.
• Be fair and take action not to discriminate.
• Respect the work required to produce new ideas, inventions, creative works, and computing artifacts.
• Respect privacy.
• Honor confidentiality.

Professional Responsibilities

• Strive to achieve high-quality processes and products in professional work.
• Maintain high standards of professional competence, conduct, and ethical practice.
• Know and respect existing rules pertaining to professional work.
• Accept and provide appropriate professional review.
• Give comprehensive and thorough evaluations of computer systems and their impacts, including analysis of possible risks.
• Perform work only in areas of competence.
• Foster public awareness and understanding of computing, related technologies, and their consequences.
• Access computing and communication resources only when authorized or compelled by the public good.
• Design and implement systems that are robustly and usably secure.

Professional Leadership Principles

• Ensure that the public good is the central concern during all professional computing work.
• Articulate, encourage acceptance of, and evaluate fulfillment of social responsibilities by members of the organization or group.
• Manage personnel and resources to enhance the quality of working life.
• Articulate, apply, and support policies and processes that reflect the principles of the Code.
• Create opportunities for members of the organization or group to grow as professionals.
• Use care when modifying or retiring systems.
• Recognize and take special care of systems that become integrated into the infrastructure of society.

Digital Privacy

• Digital privacy is the protection of personally identifiable or business identifiable information collected from respondents through information collection activities or from other sources.
• Three sub-related categories of digital privacy:
  • Information privacy: The notion that individuals should have the freedom to determine how their digital information is collected and used.
  • Communication privacy: The notion that individuals should have the freedom to communicate information digitally with the expectation that their communications are secure.
  • Individual privacy: The notion that individuals have a right to exist freely on the internet, choosing what types of information they are exposed to.

Digital Privacy Principles

• Data Minimization: Collect the minimal amount of information from individuals and businesses consistent with legal requirements.
• Transparency: Collection and use of identifiable information will be provided in a clear manner and mandated by law.
• Accuracy: Information collected will be maintained in a sufficiently accurate, timely, and complete manner.
• Security: Adequate physical and IT security measures will be implemented to ensure the collection, use, and maintenance of identifiable information.

Accountability and Trust

• Emerging technologies can provide improved accuracy, quality, and cost efficiencies for businesses in every sector, enhancing trust in the organization's operations and financial processes.

Threats and Challenges

• Ethical and regulatory challenges in emerging technologies include:
  • Counter-terrorism and law enforcement informatics via predictive analytics and artificial intelligence.
  • Real-time horizon scanning and data mining for threats and information sharing.
  • Automated Cybersecurity and information assurance.
  • Enhanced surveillance technologies.
  • Simulation and augmented reality technologies for training and modeling.
  • Safety and security equipment made with lighter and stronger materials.
  • Advanced forensics enabled by enhanced computing capabilities.
  • Situational awareness capabilities via GPS for disaster response and crisis response scenarios.
  • Biometrics: assured identity security screening solutions by bio-signature.
  • Robotic policing.

Challenges in using Artificial Intelligence

• AI is only as good as the data it is exposed to.
• AI has the potential to replace human workers.
• AI can take the burden of laborious and time-consuming tasks from humans, freeing up their time and brainpower for other things.

Challenges in using Robotics in Manufacturing

• With automation and robotics moving into other areas of work and business, the potential for humans losing jobs is great.
• As automation technologies become more advanced, there will be a greater capability for automation to take over more and more complex jobs.

Challenges in using the Internet of Things

• As more connected devices join the Internet of Things (IoT), the amount of data being generated is increasing.
• Companies will have to plan carefully how this will affect the customer-facing application and how to best utilize the masses of data being produced.
• There are severe security implications of mass connectivity that need to be addressed.

Challenges in Big Data

• The huge amount of data being generated on a daily basis has the potential to provide businesses with better insight into their customers and business operations.
• Although data can be incredibly useful for spotting trends and analyzing impacts, surfacing all this data to humans in a way that they can understand can be challenging.
• AI will play a role in utilizing Big Data.

Risks of Emerging Technology

• Driverless cars: Companies could be exposed to claims related to bodily injury and property damage.
• Wearables: Companies could be exposed to invasion of privacy claims that may not be covered by general liability or personal injury claims that weren't foreseen.
• Drones: Manufacturers and organizations that fail to protect themselves for property damage and bodily injury may be exposed to huge liabilities.
• Internet of things: The proliferation of sensors and cross-platform integration creates potential exposure from privacy invasion, bodily injury, and property damage that may connect an organization to huge liabilities.