3. X
1. As a future IT Educators, what are the importance
of computer ethics in our daily life?
2. What do you think will happen to computer ethics in
the past two decades? Explain?
3. Do you think the computer ethics should be
respected by majority (or all) the human inhabitants of
the Earth?
6. In most countries of the world, the ―information revolution‖ has altered many aspects of
life significantly: commerce, employment, medicine, security, transportation,
entertainment, and so on. Consequently, information and communication technology
(ICT) has affected — community life, family life, careers, freedom, and democracy .
8. An
innovative
developments in science
and philosophy led to the
creation of a new branch
of ethics that would later
be
called
―computer
ethics‖ or ―information
ethics‖.
Norbert Wiener
a
professor
of
mathematics
and
engineering at MIT.
9. Together with
colleagues in
The world would undergo
―a second industrial revolution‖
— an ―automatic age‖ with
―enormous potential for good
and for evil‖ that would
generate a staggering number
of new ethical challenges and
opportunities.
While engaged in
this war effort, Wiener
and colleagues created
a new branch of applied
science that Wiener
named ―cybernetics‖
(from the Greek word
for the pilot of a ship).
Even while the War was
raging, Wiener foresaw
enormous
social
and
ethical implications of
cybernetics combined with
electronic computers.
10. Cybernetics (1948)
In
which
he
described his new branch
of applied science and
identified some social
and ethical implications
of electronic computers.
―It has long been clear to me that the
modern ultra rapid computing machine was
in principle an ideal central nervous system
to an apparatus for automatic control; and
that its input and output need not be in the
form of numbers or diagrams. It might very
well be, respectively, the readings of
artificial‖
11. Wiener‘s book included, for example:
The Human Use of
Human Beings (1950)
A book in which he
explored a number of
ethical issues that computer
and information technology
would likely generate.
1. An account of the purpose of a
human life
2. Four principles of justice
3. A powerful method for doing applied
ethics
4. Discussions of the fundamental
questions of computer ethics
5. Examples of key computer ethics
topics
12. ―It seemed,‖
Parker said, ―that
when people entered
the computer center,
they left their ethics at
the door‖.
Donn Parker
- Computer scientist
In 1968 he published
―Rules of Ethics in
Information Processing‖
Headed the development of
the first Code of Professional
Conduct of the Association
for Computing Machinery
(eventually adopted by the
ACM in 1973).
13. Joseph Weizenbaum
created a computer
program that he called
‗ELIZA‘.
As an experiment, Weizenbaum
used ELIZA to provide “a crude
imitation
of
a
Rogerian
psychotherapist engaged in an
initial interview with a patient”.
14. Some
practicing
psychiatrists saw ELIZA as
evidence that computers soon
would
be
performing
automated psychotherapy.
Joseph Weizenbaum
created a computer
program that he called
‗ELIZA‘.
Wrote the book Computer
Power and Human Reason,
which forcefully expressed his
ethical concerns. The book,
together with his courses at MIT
and the many speeches he gave
in the 1970s, inspired a number
of thinkers and projects in
computer ethics
15. He began to use the
term ‗computer ethics‘ to
refer to ―ethical problems
aggravated, transformed or
created
by
computer
technology‖.
Walter Maner
Teacher in a university
course in medical ethics
These efforts spurred
the
study
of
computer ethics at a
number of colleges
and universities in
the United States.
He
developed
a
university computer ethics
course and offered a
variety of workshops and
lectures at conferences
across America.
16. Parker, Weizenbaum and Maner
had raised the computer ethics
consciousness of a number of American
scholars.
In
addition,
several
computing-related social and ethical
problems had become public issues in
America and Europe: computer-enabled
crime, disasters from computer failures,
invasions of privacy via computer
databases, and major law suits
regarding software ownership. The time
was right for exponential growth in
computer ethics.
17. Parker, Weizenbaum and Maner
had raised the computer ethics
consciousness of a number of American
scholars.
In
addition,
several
computing-related social and ethical
problems had become public issues in
America and Europe: computer-enabled
crime, disasters from computer failures,
invasions of privacy via computer
databases, and major law suits
regarding software ownership. The time
was right for exponential growth in
computer ethics.
19. Have recently argued that
computer ethics will disappear as a
branch of applied ethics?
Deborah Johnson perspective is
that fundamental ethical theories will
remain unaffected – that computer
ethics issues are simply the same old
ethics questions with a new twist – and
consequently computer ethics as a
distinct branch of applied philosophy
will ultimately disappear.
Wiener-Maner-Górniak
point of view sees computer
technology
as
ethically
revolutionary, requiring human
beings to reexamine the
foundations of ethics and the
very definition of a human life.
