Search

Deepfakes raise various concerns: risks of political destabilization, depictions of persons without consent and causing them harms, erosion of trust in video and audio as reliable sources of evidence, and more. These concerns have been the focus of recent work in the philosophical literature on deepfakes. However, there has been almost no sustained philosophical analysis of deepfakes from the perspective of concerns about honesty and dishonesty. That deepfakes are potentially deceptive is unsurprising and has been noted. But under what conditions does the use of deepfakes fail to be honest? And which human agents, involved in one way or another in a deepfake, fail to be honest, and in what ways? If we are to understand better the morality of deepfakes, these questions need answering. Our first goal in this paper, therefore, is to offer an analysis of paradigmatic cases of deepfakes in light of the philosophy of honesty. While it is clear that many deepfakes are morally problematic, there has been a rising counter-chorus claiming that deepfakes are not essentially morally bad, since there might be uses of deepfakes that are not morally wrong, or even that are morally salutary, for instance, in education, entertainment, activism, and other areas. However, while there are reasons to think that deepfakes can supply or support moral goods, it is nevertheless possible that even these uses of deepfakes are dishonest. Our second goal in this paper, therefore, is to apply our analysis of deepfakes and honesty to the sorts of deepfakes hoped to be morally good or at least neutral. We conclude that, perhaps surprisingly, in many of these cases the use of deepfakes will be dishonest in some respects. Of course, there will be cases of deepfakes for which verdicts about honesty and moral permissibility do not line up. While we will sometimes suggest reasons why moral permissibility verdicts might diverge from honesty verdicts, we will not aim to settle matters of moral permissibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, are increasingly common, but often come with significant tradeoffs and effects which may elude initial observations. Among these, the term "soft impacts" has come to signify the qualitative implications of a technological device or intervention. How can these sorts of effects be addressed, and what role do they have in the development phases of emerging technologies? In this paper, we outline our interdisciplinary Responsible Robotics project, which harnesses and builds upon an embedded ethics framework. We describe the embedded ethics approach, summarize some of its challenges, and highlight a key benefit. In short, by addressing the so-called "soft impacts" of technology, embedded ethics may stand to benefit not only the users of emerging systems, but also the developers. Although confirming this with a great degree of confidence will call for substantive longitudinal studies, we believe the aims and current roll-out of the embedded ethics approach provide grounds for optimism concerning the intended benefits described here. Accordingly, the mere prospect of increasing social and ethical sensitivity in development settings can serve to encourage a wider adoption of embedded ethics programs worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is artificial intelligence (AD virtuous? Can AI become as virtuous as hunmns? This article is intended to explore these questions with a focus on artificial moral advisor (AMA). AMA is a proposal for thefuture application of AI to human moral life. Hence, this article will be dedicated to the theoretical anal ysis of the issues surrounding AMA. Socratic AMA will be the spec#ic object Of study. To this end, this article will examine whether or not the Socratic AMA con enhance hummi virtuous lije through exploration of Thomas Aquinas's theology of virtue. It will argue thnt the Socratic AMA is not as virtuous as humans insofar ns it lacks both the subject ami ultimate end of virtue anti is diaracterized as measurable. Nevertheless, the Socratic AMA can be considered to be embedded with delegated virtues and is expected to assist humans in their cultivation of virtue in certain contexts by reason of both its capacity to gather voluminous informntion and its tremendous processing power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary ethics is currently ramifying into different sub-ethics specific to each type of technology. Although this trend has been very timely and rightly called into question by Sætra and Danaher, both these authors and their critics Llorca Albareda and Rueda leave the matter unsolved from a discipline point of view. In this commentary, we clarify the statute of the ethics of technology, which corresponds to that of a subsidiary applied ethics, and show how it is precisely that, what renders the creation of an ethics for each technology inappropriate. We thus provide a disciplinary reason to support Sætra and Danaher’s concern on tech ethics proliferation and to refute Llorca Albareda and Rueda’s relativization of it. In turn, we conclude by drawing some guidelines for tech ethics in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although gamified sustainable consumption apps (SCAs) have been on the rise, only a few have survived longer than two years. While most existing research focuses on how gamification contributes to engagement and the formation of more sustainable consumption habits, there is little about how their survival is secured. Intervention's Purpose: Twenty-one SCA creators shared their considerations and experiences managing SCAs, providing valuable insights into the field of gamified sustainable consumption and practical insights for their stakeholders. Methods: Ideal-type and narrative analyses of the interviews unraveled some relevant survival strategies and lessons learned. Results: The creators' motivation and background play a role in the app's survival. Their experiences exposed several aspects affecting their gamification strategies and their relevance for the apps, highlighting traps to avoid and opportunities to improve their standing in an increasingly competitive market. Discussion: Most creators shared stories of "learn as you go," presenting how the flexibility to adjust the apps' business models rather than the creators' professional background is a critical success factor. Since their apps represent their understanding of sustainability, SCA creators should find practical and emotional ways to engage their users while considering the objectives of their apps. Conclusion: Awareness of the risks and pitfalls when creating an SCA may not be enough for successfully undertaking this enterprise. The creators should be capable of strategically plan for all the activities that creating and managing an SCA convey even before the app is conceptualized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of AI technologies in all domains of life raises ethical debates. Children and young people are not exempt from these discussions since AI is also an increasing part of their lives. This study explores teenagers’ (aged 13 to 16 years) views on AI with a focus on ethical thinking. This is a retrospective empirical study in which data from three cases involving young people in technology learning activities have been analysed to answer the following research questions: (i) What ethical challenges around AI do young people reflect upon and (ii) what ethical dimensions do these reflections connect to? We have adapted an existing framework outlining dimensions of ethical thinking to identify young people’s ethical reflections on AI in various learning activities. Our findings show how young people reflect on AI ethics, even without dedicated teaching on it and are able to consider various dimensions and make connections to everyday uses of AI raising ethical issues. Based on our findings, we advocate for an integrated approach of AI and ethics in learning activities about technology. We believe the framework presented in this study can be a valuable tool to inform further research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unique capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) have forced theologians to develop analytical categories beyond the instrumentalist model of technology. Recent work examines AI in terms of whether it has the qualities of a person, its effects on character, and its embedding in structures of sin. Constructive responses have focused on principles, communities, and virtues. None of these responses fully addresses concerns raised by critical analyses, suggesting that moral theology is still searching for a replacement for the instrumentalist model of technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethics play a crucial role in the work of engineers, and therefore in everyone’s life, from the field of artificial intelligence ethics to the fields of environmental ethics and biomedical ethics. Analyzing critical technology case studies from the perspective of engineering ethics affords us the opportunity to understand if engineers acted ethically or not in a given situation, what they could have done otherwise, and what they should bear in mind for future case studies regarding ethics. In this article, at first, we draw upon primary and secondary sources in order to analyze two case studies that are of critical importance because, according to the engineers involved in them, it was likely they could have led to fatal accidents. Then, we offer engineering ethics perspectives into the studies. Studying engineering cases from an engineering ethics perspective is crucial for two reasons. First, engineers could have a more completed point of view regarding engineering ethics in order to understand how to act ethically during their work. Second, engineers and others (philosophers of technology, historians of technology, etc.), who analyze these cases in retrospect, could present a more adequate story that would be more useful for the engineers who are taught from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the practice of using predictive systems to lengthen the prison sentences of convicted persons when the systems forecast a higher likelihood of re-offense or re-arrest. There has been much critical discussion of technologies used for sentencing, including questions of bias and opacity. However, there hasn’t been a discussion of whether this use of predictive systems makes sense in the first place. We argue that it does not by showing that there is no plausible theory of punishment that supports it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current approaches to dealing with the climate and environmental crisis aim to motivate action by teaching skills for sustainability. This study asks whether the associated programmatic approach meets the ethical requirement for religious education to be a place for reflection on the understanding of reality. In particular it describes the relationship between the self-design of young people, the normative implications of the climate discourse, including a possible orientation towards external norms of behaviour and the reference to nature in religion. If sustainability is seen as an interpretation of our technically determined way of life and the shaping of the nature-culture process, then possibilities of self-positioning beyond heteronomous orientations open up for young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the announcement of the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk, the risks for the future of the social network suggest the advent of a "Frankenstein 2.0" – a notion that refers to large technology companies whose control escapes their creators. Behind this event, the question of technological drifts and their impact on society arises. This is an opportunity for governments, and in particular the Canadian government, which promotes open data and technology policies, to redefine the game rules. In this sense, some recommendations are proposed, especially to consolidate the normative framework of technologies in Canada. The Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA), currently in discussion at the Parliament, should go further in terms of the automated systems transparency and strengthen its requirements for the "algorithmic" data governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The humanitarian sector continually faces organizational and operational challenges to respond to the needs of populations affected by war, disaster, displacement, and health emergencies. With the goal of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of response efforts, humanitarian innovation initiatives seek to develop, test, and scale a variety of novel and adapted practices, products, and systems. The innovation process raises important ethical considerations, such as appropriately engaging crisis-affected populations in defining problems and identifying potential solutions, mitigating risks, ensuring accountability, sharing benefits fairly, and managing expectations. This paper aims to contribute to knowledge and practice regarding humanitarian innovation ethics and presents two components related to a value-sensitive approach to humanitarian innovation. First is a mapping of how ethical concepts are mobilized in values statements that have been produced by a diverse set of organizations involved in humanitarian innovation. Analyzing these documents, we identified six primary values (do-no-harm, autonomy, justice, accountability, sustainability, and inclusivity) around which we grouped 12 secondary values and 10 associated concepts. Second are two proposed activities that teams engaged in humanitarian innovation can employ to foreground values as they develop and refine their project's design, and to anticipate and plan for challenges in enacting these values across the phases of their project. A deliberate and tangible approach to engaging with values within humanitarian innovation design can help to ground humanitarian innovation in ethical commitments by increasing shared understanding amongst team members, promoting attentiveness to values across the stages of innovation, and fostering capacities to anticipate and respond to ethically challenging situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the map of technology ethics is expanding, the growing subdomains within it may raise misgivings. In a recent and very interesting article, Sætra and Danaher have argued that the current dynamic of sub-specialization is harmful to the ethics of technology. In this commentary, we offer three reasons to diminish their concern about ethical proliferation. We argue first that the problem of demarcation is weakened if we attend to other sub-disciplines of technology ethics not mentioned by these authors. We claim secondly that the logic of sub-specializations is less problematic if one does adopt mixed models (combining internalist and externalist approaches) in applied ethics. We finally reject that clarity and distinction are necessary conditions for defining sub-fields within ethics of technology, defending the porosity and constructive nature of ethical disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In terms of technological progress, students of public administration confront a challenging dilemma where normative reflection in the realm of technology ethics has not kept pace with the rapidity and magnitude of technological advancement. Consequently, this necessitates further reflection on how to best apply aspects of ethical behavior to the development and usage of technology in the public sector. The significant role of the technology ethics in public service has received meager consideration in the literature, lacking a theoretical foundation that can help guide practitioners (as techno-ethicists) through rapid transitions in technological progress. Using the philosophy of technology literature, this article seeks to address this gap in public administration theory by considering first, how technological advancements affect the nature of didactic power relationships between the public and government; and second how the concept of technological nonneutrality is framed as a basis for structuring what obligations public administrators have when adopting and using technology in public service. This includes reflection upon the expanding role of newer technologies such as Artificial Intelligence in reshaping the nature of government-society relationships. Framing techno-ethical principles in theoretical dialogue prompts greater awareness for how practitioners may effectively respond as moral agents to rapidly changing technological advancements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using fiction is a popular way to communicate sometimes-complex administrative practices. This paper uses Disney Pixar's WALL-E to examine the movie's ethical dilemmas and how to communicate those in the public management classroom. Through a content analysis of the movie, several overall ethical themes emerged: ethical use of technology, environmental ethics, and consumerism as administrative dilemma. Each is explained using exemplar stories from the film. The research builds on the growing realization that popular culture is relevant to understand governance practices and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the widespread popularity of autonomous vehicles (AVs), researchers have been exploring the ethical implications of AVs. Researchers believe that empirical experiments can provide insights into human characterization of ethically sound machine behaviour. Previous research indicates that humans generally endorse utilitarian AVs; however, this paper explores an alternative account of the discourse of ethical decision-making in AVs. We refrain from favouring consequentialism or non-consequential ethical theories and argue that human moral decision-making is pragmatic, or in other words, ethically and rationally bounded, especially in the context of intelligent environments. We hold the perspective that our moral preferences shift based on various externalities and biases. To further this concept, we conduct three Amazon Mechanical Turk studies, comprising 479 respondents to investigate factors, such as the "degree of harm," "level of affection," and "fixing the responsibility" that influences people's moral decision-making. Our experimental findings seem to suggest that human moral judgments cannot be wholly deontological or utilitarian and offer evidence on the ethical variations in human decision-making processes that favours a specific moral framework. The findings also offer valuable insights for policymakers to explore the overall public perception of the ethical implications of AV as part of user decision-making in intelligent environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current humanitarian use of drones is focused on two applications: disaster mapping and medical supply delivery. In response to the growing interest in drone deployment in the aid sector, we sought to develop a resource to support value sensitivity in humanitarian drone activities. Following a bottom-up approach encompassing a comprehensive literature review, two empirical studies, a review of guidance documents, and consultations with experts, this work illuminates the nature and scope of ethical challenges encountered by humanitarian organizations embarking upon innovation programmes. The Framework for the Ethics Assessment of Humanitarian Drones (FEAHD) identifies five values and five key questions related to ethical considerations along the decision chain of humanitarian drone activities. It fills a gap between high-level, principle-based guidance related to humanitarian innovation, and detailed operation-oriented checklists for projects involving the use of drones. In this way, the FEAHD contributes to support value sensitivity in the humanitarian use of drones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine behavior that is based on learning algorithms can be significantly influenced by the exposure to data of different qualities. Up to now, those qualities are solely measured in technical terms, but not in ethical ones, despite the significant role of training and annotation data in supervised machine learning. This is the first study to fill this gap by describing new dimensions of data quality for supervised machine learning applications. Based on the rationale that different social and psychological backgrounds of individuals correlate in practice with different modes of human–computer-interaction, the paper describes from an ethical perspective how varying qualities of behavioral data that individuals leave behind while using digital technologies have socially relevant ramification for the development of machine learning applications. The specific objective of this study is to describe how training data can be selected according to ethical assessments of the behavior it originates from, establishing an innovative filter regime to transition from the big data rationale n = all to a more selective way of processing data for training sets in machine learning. The overarching aim of this research is to promote methods for achieving beneficial machine learning applications that could be widely useful for industry as well as academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New media synthesis technologies are rapidly advancing and becoming more accessible, allowing users to make video and audio clips (i.e. deepfakes) of individuals doing and saying things they never did or said. Deepfakes have significant implications for the integrity of many social domains including that of elections. Focusing on the 2020 US presidential election and using an anticipatory approach, this article examines the ethical issues raised by deepfakes and discusses strategies for addressing these issues. Eight hypothetical scenarios are developed and used as the basis for this analysis, which identifies harms to voters who view deepfakes, candidates and campaigns that are the subjects of deepfakes, and threats to electoral integrity. Four potential forms of intervention are discussed with respect to multi-stakeholder responsibility for addressing harms, including education and media literacy, subject defense, verification, and publicity moderation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address the rising concern that algorithmic decision-making may reinforce discriminatory biases, researchers have proposed many notions of fairness and corresponding mathematical formalizations. Each of these notions is often presented as a one-size-fits-all, absolute condition; however, in reality, the practical and ethical trade-offs are unavoidable and more complex. We introduce a new approach that considers fairness—not as a binary, absolute mathematical condition—but rather, as a relational notion in comparison to alternative decisionmaking processes. Using US mortgage lending as an example use case, we discuss the ethical foundations of each definition of fairness and demonstrate that our proposed methodology more closely captures the ethical trade-offs of the decision-maker, as well as forcing a more explicit representation of which values and objectives are prioritised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct-to-consumer tele-mental health services—therapy delivered by video conference, email, and text message—is a burgeoning model of service delivery. The practice of on-demand digital psychotherapy presents ethical questions, as new economic models, service delivery systems, and therapeutic models are introduced. Virtual therapy, now offered on a subscription basis by third-party providers, requires users to accept Terms of Service (ToS) agreements to access services. This article describes the results of a survey in which participants (n = 579) were asked to compare the values of the Human Rights Framework with the language of one tele-mental health platform's ToS user agreement. Findings suggest that those clients with prior experience with a mental health professional will find the ToS agreements to be the most ethically compromised. Similarly, employed and better educated individuals also found the ToS to be ethically suspect. The most vulnerable of the groups we surveyed, individuals who hold less education and those who are unemployed, may be at most risk for signing consent to a system they do not understand. The study provides one example of the ethical questions that emerge from the introduction of a new model of for-profit service provision in mental health. Recommendations for consumers and practitioners are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins by summarizing the chief, original contributions to technology ethics in Shannon Vallor’s recent book, Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (Vallor 2016), highlighting especially the book’s distinctive inclusion of not only the western virtue ethics tradition but also the analogous traditions in Buddhist and Confucian ethics. But the main point of the paper is to suggest that the theoretical framework developed in the book be extended to include an analysis of the distinctive civic virtues that are crucial to the well functioning of communities of makers, marketers, consumers, and regulators of technology, constituting, as it were, technomoral civic virtue ethics. It is suggested that prominent among these civic virtues is what is dubbed “Socratism,” the habit of regular querying of community aims and practices for the purpose of keeping community action focused on the goods internal to community practice, and the goods of the larger communities in which these local communities are embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Der menschliche Körper ist auffällig mit der Aufforderung zur Veränderung und Überschreitung eines vorgefundenen Zustands verbunden. Die Plastizität des Körpers erlaubt dabei ein gehöriges Quantum Transition. Der Transhumanismus, eine neuere philosophisch-naturwissenschaftliche Bewegung, antwortet entsprechend auf die Grundfrage der Anthropologie mit dem Hinweis auf diese Überschreitungspotentiale und auf die Grundfrage der Ethik mit einem Imperativ zur akzelerierten technischen Verbesserung menschlicher Körper. Auf die Frage nach der Methode antwortet der Transhumanismus unter anderem mit Verweis auf Nanotechnologien und die Vorstellung nanokleiner Werkzeuge, mit deren Hilfe die Materie auf Zellebene kontrolliert werden soll. Zwar ist das Thema Transhumanismus in der theologischen Debatte bisher wenig vorgekommen, allerdings werden einzelne Aspekte transhumaner Visionen diskutiert. Einige aktuelle theologische Stellungnahmen, überwiegend katholischer Provenienz, immunisieren sich gegen ein konstruktives Gespräch mit dem Transhumanismus, in dem Ketzerhüter verteilt und invasive Körpermodifikationen als Neuauflage klassischer Häresien aufgefasst werden. In komparativer Perspektive ist aber ein Zugang innerhalb der Theologie denkbar, der zwar nicht jede invasive Körpermodifikation vorschnell begrüßen, aber auch nicht exorzieren muss. Die Hoffnung auf Fortschritt animiert einen Konnex zwischen Theologie und Transhumanismus, wobei auch erhebliche technische Modifikationen dazu beitragen könnten, menschliche Körper-Wünsche nicht allein auf eine gedachte Zukunft bei Gott zu beziehen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internet protocol development is a social process, and resulting protocols are shaped by their developers’ politics and values. This article argues that the work of protocol development (and more broadly, infrastructure design) poses barriers to developers’ reflection upon values and politics in protocol design. A participant observation of a team developing internet protocols revealed that difficulties defining the stakeholders in an infrastructure and tensions between local and global viewpoints both complicated values reflection. Further, Internet architects tended to equate a core value of interoperability with values neutrality. The article describes how particular work practices within infrastructure development overcame these challenges by engaging developers in praxis: situated, lived experience of the social nature of technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collection of data on citizens through digital portals is viewed by organizations as an opportunity to create value, leverage competitive advantage, and maximize productivity and efficiencies in service and product delivery. As a condition of accessing digital media, individuals implicitly agree to allow the collection of data they generate while on a site, as well as content on the devices used to access the sites, unless steps are taken to limit such access. The growth in the amount of data collected has increased exponentially and has vastly outpaced awareness of or concerns about privacy; liability; ownership; property rights; and ethical issues that are emerging as citizens become aware of the consequences of trading privacy for access. While dominant in the professional press, the scholarly literature has only just begun to investigate ethical issues in the age of big data. This treatise will outline the scope of the issues; emerging problems; key ethical considerations; and areas in critical need of research and development moving forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the best ways for design teams attend to issues of power, inequity, trust and other ethical concerns as they arise in design? Literature on value-sensitive design (VSD) and technology ethics has advocated for a range of design methods that propose different roles and responsibility for ethics during technology development. This paper explores four provocations that imagine different roles and responsibilities for moral and ethical reasoning on design teams: participatory design (in which diverse stakeholders may represent their own values in the design process), values advocates (introducing experts to lead values discussions or conduct ethics interventions), embedding values discussions within design and encouraging 'moral exemplars' within design. Each of these posits different logistical arrangements as well as different levels of expertise in ethical practice. The paper uses examples from the VSD and computer ethics literatures as well as the authors' ethnographic work to explore the advantages, challenges and consequences of each approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethics researches morality in respect to humans and animals. Usually, it implies human morality; therefore, the focus is on human-human relationships (generally in ethics) and human-animal relationships (in animal ethics). Ethics can also deal with the morality of machines such as unmanned aerial vehicles, robots and agents or of self-driving cars and computers in automated trading, in other words more or less autonomous systems and programs. Machine ethics almost exclusively concentrates on machine-human relationships rather than on machine-animal relationships. Before this background, this article contributes some basic considerations about the relationship between animal and machine ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technical details of Internet architecture affect social debates about privacy and autonomy, intellectual property, cybersecurity, and the basic performance and reliability of Internet services. This paper explores one method for practicing anticipatory ethics in order to understand how a new infrastructure for the Internet might impact these social debates. This paper systematically examines values expressed by an Internet architecture engineering team-the Named Data Networking project-based on data gathered from publications and internal documents. Networking engineers making technical choices also weigh non-technical values when working on Internet infrastructure. Analysis of the team's documents reveals both values invoked in response to technical constraints and possibilities, such as efficiency and dynamism, as well as values, including privacy, security and anonymity, which stem from a concern for personal liberties. More peripheral communitarian values espoused by the engineers include democratization and trust. The paper considers the contextual and social origins of these values, and then uses them as a method of practicing anticipatory ethics: considering the impact such priorities may have on a future Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many scientists and engineers insist that technologies are value-neutral, philosophers of technology have long argued that they are wrong. In this paper, I introduce a new argument against the claim that technologies are value-neutral. This argument complements and extends, rather than replaces, existing arguments against value-neutrality. I formulate the Value-Neutrality Thesis, roughly, as the claim that a technological innovation can have bad effects, on balance, only if its users have 'vicious' or condemnable preferences. After sketching a microeconomic model for explaining or predicting a technology's impact on individuals' behavior, I argue that a particular technological innovation can create or exacerbate collective action problems, even in the absence of vicious preferences. Technologies do this by increasing the net utility of refusing to cooperate. I also argue that a particular technological innovation can induce short-sighted behavior because of humans' tendency to discount future benefits too steeply. I suggest some possible extensions of my microeconomic model of technological impacts. These extensions would enable philosophers of technology to consider agents with mixed motives-i.e., agents who harbor some vicious preferences but also some aversion to acting on them-and to apply the model to questions about the professional responsibilities of engineers, scientists, and other inventors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Paul B. Thompson suggests in his recent seminal paper, ''There's an App for That': Technical Standards and Commodification by Technological Means,' technical standards restructure property (and other social) relations. He concludes with the claim that the development of technical standards of commodification can serve purposes with bad effects such as 'the rise of the factory system and the deskilling of work' or progressive effects such as how 'technical standards for animal welfare... discipline the unwanted consequences of market forces.' In this reply, we want to append several points to his argument and suggest that he rightly points out that standards can promote various goods; however, there are peculiar powers wielded by standardization processes that might profitably be unpacked more systematically than Thompson's article seems to suggest. First, the concealment of the technopolitics around standards is largely due to their peculiar ontological status as recipes for reality. Second, technical standards can and do commit violence against persons, but such violence is often suffered not in the formation of class consciousness, as Marx might have put it, but as a failure to conform to the laws of nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standards for technology ethics were first introduced into the Code of Professional Ethics for Rehabilitation Counselors in 2002. Since that time, the proliferation of technology has enhanced practice, changed the American vernacular, and become infused in the delivery of services to and teaching of individuals, families, and groups. The 2010 revision to the Code updates and reinforces standards involving behavior, accessibility, confidentiality, informed consent, security, assessment, records, legal issues, advertising, research and publication, counseling unavailability, disclosure, and distance counseling. However, it introduces new standards that are absent from the literature in the counseling and helping professions specific to technology ethics involving consultative and distance group counseling as well as in teaching, supervision, and training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the word 'ethical' becomes synonymous with specious, you know that something is amiss. With each data governance scandal, with each creation of a corporate 'ethics board', 'ethical standards' seemingly lose a few more feathers, to the point of generating instant suspicion when invoked in any official report. We argue that a key challenge in this regard is to more precisely define the ethics-regulation interface. In order to do this, we first provide an overview of recent endeavours to develop ethical frameworks around technology. We then look at a successful process of refinement of the ethics-regulation interface: the case of healthcare ethics in the UK. The third section develops an account of what a more robust ethics-regulation interface could look like, which would support a process of cross-fertilisation between the political, ethical and legal approaches. Finally, the fourth and last section critically examines a 'live' implementation of such ethics-regulation interface, as put forward in Quebec's 'Bill 29′. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]