Session from XP Manchester meetup in November 2017. Co-delivered with Debbie Roycroft

1. Morals and Ethics in
technology
That means you...
Debbie Roycroft (@DebbieRoycroft)
Coop Digital
Andy Longshaw (@andylongshaw)
Coop Digital

2. What are we going to do?
Explore some of the ethical and moral dimensions of technology and software
Try to identify points of contention about what is ethical/moral
Identify some tools and techniques that can help

3. How are we going to do it?
Intro and context
Tools for moral and ethical thinking
Group work exploring moral and ethical aspects to technology work scenarios
Bringing it all back together - what can we do about it and what still puzzles us?
And finally...Real or Not Real

4. Context

5. Context (/rant)

6. How ethical are YOU?
We sent out a survey..
...and our survey says

8. “It’s not for you to decide,
that’s a business decision”
“That’s not our call.
It would be cool and we could make lots of money”
“It’s our responsibility to come up with the ideas
not to decide how they are used.
Guns don’t kill people; people kill people”

9. Morals Ethics
Me Everyone
Want to Do Ought to Do

10. Moral
Non-Moral
Ethical
Non-Ethical
Morally-Neutral Ethically-Neutral

11. Moral
Non-Moral
Ethical Non-Ethical
Neutral
Neutral

12. Utilitarian Kantian
Take action that results
in the greatest good
Some actions are right,
some actions are wrong
“Torture justifiable if it
saves the most lives”
“Torture is never right”
PlatoBenthamMill
AristotleKantDescartes
How to Act?
Deontological
You have a duty to act a certain
way because of who you are

13. Moral
Non-Moral
Ethical Non-Ethical
Neutral
Neutral
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3PATTERNS
Actions
Thoughts
Puzzles
Do I consider this Ethical ?IfIweretodothis,onwhatbasiswouldIbeacting?
1
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I

14. Group work
Organise into groups
Exploring and discussing examples (20 mins)
Fitting scenarios to a simple framework
Write your post-its and then “reveal”
Discuss differences and what can be done? (15 mins)
Present it back (20 mins)

15. Share and discuss
What did we disagree about?
Why did we disagree?
What should we do about it?

16. Real or Not Real
The ethical gameshow...

17. Tools and techniques
Ethical black box, social contract thinking
Dan Ariely Ethical systems design, honest cultures (leaders walk the talk),
growth mindsets balancing outcomes/goals
Do your own research into ethics, moral dilemmas and cognitive biases

18. Thank you
Debbie Roycroft (@DebbieRoycroft)
Coop Digital
Andy Longshaw (@andylongshaw)
Coop Digital