Abstract
PurposeComputing ethics represents a long established, yet rapidly evolving, discipline that grows in complexity and scope on a near-daily basis. Therefore, to help understand some of that scope it is essential to incorporate a range of perspectives, from a range of stakeholders, on current and emerging ethical challenges associated with computer technology. This study aims to achieve this by using, a three-pronged, stakeholder analysis of Computer Science academics, ICT industry professionals, and citizen groups was undertaken to explore what they consider to be crucial computing ethics concerns. The overlap between these stakeholder groups are explored, as well as whether their concerns are reflected in the existing literature.Design/methodology/approachData collection was performed using focus groups, and the data was analysed using a thematic analysis. The data was also analysed to determine if there were overlaps between the literature and the stakeholders’ concerns and attitudes towards computing ethics.FindingsThe results of the focus group analysis show a mixture of overlapping concerns between the different groups, as well as some concerns that are unique to each of the specific groups. All groups stressed the importance of data as a key topic in computing ethics. This includes concerns around the accuracy, completeness and representativeness of data sets used to develop computing applications. Academics were concerned with the best ways to teach computing ethics to university students. Industry professionals believed that a lack of diversity in software teams resulted in important questions not being asked during design and development. Citizens discussed at length the negative and unexpected impacts of social media applications. These are all topics that have gained broad coverage in the literature.Social implicationsIn recent years, the impact of ICT on society and the environment at large has grown tremendously. From this fast-paced growth, a myriad of ethical concerns have arisen. The analysis aims to shed light on what a diverse group of stakeholders consider the most important social impacts of technology and whether these concerns are reflected in the literature on computing ethics. The outcomes of this analysis will form the basis for new teaching content that will be developed in future to help illuminate and address these concerns.Originality/valueThe multi-stakeholder analysis provides individual and differing perspectives on the issues related to the rapidly evolving discipline of computing ethics.
Highlights
Computers and technological applications are central to many aspects of life and society, from industry and commerce, government, research, education, medicine, communication to entertainment systems
The history of computing ethics goes hand-in-hand with the history of computers themselves; since the early days of the development of digital computers, pioneering computer scientists, such as Turing, Wiener and Weizenbaum, spoke of the ethical challenges inherent in computer technology (Weizenbaum, 1976; Bynum, 1999, 2000, 2006, 2018), but it was not until 1985 that computing ethics began to emerge as a separate field
We present a literature review of recent work on computing ethics to understand the pertinent topics currently under discussion in the literature and the results of a series of focus groups that explored computing ethical concerns with Computer Science academics, Information communication technology (ICT) industry professionals, and citizens
Summary
Computers and technological applications are central to many aspects of life and society, from industry and commerce, government, research, education, medicine, communication to entertainment systems. Algorithmic decision-making, pervasive technology, surveillance applications and automating human intelligence for robotics or autonomous vehicles frequently undergo scrutiny in the media and are increasingly coming into public discourse. These technologies have wide ranging impacts on society where those impacts can be beneficial but may at times be negative. This was the year that two seminal publications were produced, Deborah Johnson’s book Computer Ethics (Johnson, 1985) and James Moor’s paper, “What Is Computer Ethics?” (Moor, 1985)
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