The Unintended Consequences of Technology

CHAPTER 13Ethics: Are Universal Ethical Principles Possible in Technology?

The year 2020 was a particularly interesting time to be thinking about ethics in technology. I think it's safe to assume we all ended 2020 at least a little different than we entered it. The pandemic left a lasting impact on all of our lives, just as older generations were forever changed by world wars. Life will never be the same for people who lost a loved one. The year made it clear how polarized society has become and how set so many people seem to be in their ways, values, and beliefs. Paradoxically, ethics and values seemed to be shifting in many different ways.

A cocktail of technology, fables, misinformation, and herd mentality is playing a huge role in the exponential change in our understanding of right and wrong. It starts with the little things: white lies that become big lies, that are recorded as data, that are then encoded as algorithms. They turn into strong, powerful software programs, powered by faulty data, and they control our lives. As we have explored in this book, such lies have many real-world negative consequences.

Let's take the COVID-19 vaccine roll out as an example. When goods are scarce, people sometimes behave badly. When the right thing to do is also the hardest, people sometimes adjust their ethics for temporary convenience. This was on full display during COVID-19 vaccine distribution. The attempt to do it in an equitable, ethical, trustworthy, prioritized manner faced ...