The Ethics Problem in Technology Companies and What Can Be Done About It

1. The Ethics Problem in Technology Companies and What Can Be Done About It Don Rickert Alycen Whiddon

2. Introduction • Recent History of Technology Biting Back • Eli Whitney • A “Better” Plow = the “Dust Bowl • Physicists Having Fun

3. Modern Innovations and Their Side Effects • Lack of privacy • De-skilling of the work force • Chronic anxiety, stress, and lack of focus • Job displacement resulting from “outsourcing” • Financial ruin for thousands (e.g. Enron, Adelphia Communications, Tyco)

4. True human cost may be much higher • Chronic lack of purpose • Impaired ability to formulate goals • Ultimately, the possibility of happiness itself

5. Why is Ethics Such a Low Priority in Business (Maxwell)? • Serious Ethical Reflection Rare • According to Maxwell • We do what is most convenient. • We do what we feel we must do to win, whether ethical or not. • We rationalize our actions with moral relativism. • A Far Cry from Hutcheson

6. Maxwell Points the Finger at “Situational Ethics • The situational ethics movement started with the book, Situational Ethics (Fletcher, 1966). • Central theme of situational ethics—Love is the answer. • The Idea the “Business is Business” is Not New • William Morris

7. Tavani’s “Discussion Stoppers” • ‘People disagree about morality, so how can we reach agreement on moral issues?' • ‘ Who am I/who are we to judge others and to impose my/our values on them?' • ‘ Isn't morality simply a private matter?' • ‘ Isn't morality simply a matter that different cultures and groups should determine for themselves?'

8. Experts in Many Disciplines Disagree… • … but that does not invalidate these fields of study • Engineers and Computer Scientists disagree on programming languages and operating systems • Consumer Researchers disagree on quantitative vs. qualitative methods

9. There really is basic agreement on moral principles • Don’t kill. • Don’t cause pain. • Don’t disable. • Don’t deprive of freedom or opportunity. • Don’t deprive of pleasure. • Don’t deceive. • Keep your promise. • Don’t cheat. • Do your duty.

10. Blindness to the Problem • If people do not see a problem, they certainly are not going to seek ways to solve it! • The Philosophical Perspective • Those of who live in a technological society, and especially those of us who work in the technology fields, have lost our ability to see the world in any other way than a techno-centric way.

11. William Barrett’s Illusion of Technique • In the late1970s, philosopher William Barrett, cautioned that— • We may become no longer free for the kind of thinking that would redeem us from the world we ourselves have created. We may have made ourselves incapable of such thinking….

12. More Barrett • … So long as we can negotiate the triumph of technology successfully, we are unconcerned to ask what the presuppositions of this technical world and how they bind us to its framework. Already these presuppositions are so much the invisible medium of our actual life that we have become unconscious of them. We may eventually become so enclosed in them that we cannot even imagine any other way of thought but technical thinking (Barrett, 1978, pp. 222-223). • Other philosophers have shared Barrett’s worries (see Ellul, 1964; Postman, 1993; Neiman, 2005).

13. If You Doubt Barrett… • How many of us ‘mulit-task’? • Take conversations ‘off-line’? • Have an ‘impedance match’ with people with like?

14. A Psychological Perspective—Flow • Flow— • ‘…the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost for the sheer sake of doing it.’ (1990, Csikszentmihalyi)

15. The Conditions Necessary for Personal Growth • When these conditions are met, one often enters a state of “flow.” • having the opportunity (e.g. a fulfilling job) to perform tasks that are challenging, • for which we have some skill, • we like doing and, most importantly, • without interruption.

16. Working in a technology-centric organization • Can have a major impact on one’s ability to see beyond tomorrow’s deadline. • In such and environment, seeing the long term consequences of your company’s products is unlikely.

17. Characteristics prevalent in technology-centric organizations • Unclear and ever-changing goals, arising from a quest to keep up with or beat the competition in the marketplace • Chronic interruption and divided attention • Fear of being “downsized” due to outsourcing • Pressure to keep up with every “new new thing” • Unreasonable schedules and deadlines • Too few people to do the assigned work • Poor communication due to flat organization structures and geographic distance • Pressure to be available through many channels • “Hidden work”, also due to flat organizational structures.

18. The principal mechanisms by which this occurs are— • Distracting the individual with seemingly random pieces of information that preclude one from organizing his or her conscious energy into more stable and complex patterns of adapted behavior. • Forcing individuals to question their goals and thus interfere with growth activities that may be directed toward those goals.

19. One More… • Pressure to keep up with the latest technology forces one constantly modify his or her goal structure. • It is a moving target, so staying current does not amount to much more than a rat race.

20. Use of Technological Artifacts • Massive distraction and lack of focus, accompanied by vague goals. • Even technologies now accepted as commonplace necessities of contemporary American work life (e.g. The web, email, video-conferencing, voice mail, mobile phones, palm devices, etc.) are problematic in significant ways.

21. Constant distraction by seemingly random bits of information • Interferes with the type of reflection necessary for a purposeful life. • When a person receives hundreds, or even thousands, of inputs from various channels (e.g. telephone calls, instant messages, email, television, web sites, spam, pop-up ads), it all becomes a random mess of distraction. • Constant barrage of new “new things” can lead to a type of rat race where progress towards a stable set of goals is not nurtured.

22. Diffusion of Responsibility • The more people there are in an aggregation (ranging from a crowd to an entire organization), the less responsibility that any individual will feel with respect to stopping wrongdoing (see Latane & Darley, 1970; Latene & Nidam 1981).

23. Doing the Right Thing… • …requires an organizational culture where every individual believes that he or she plays and role and feels empowered to exercise his or her responsibility. • Much of the discussion on the role of Chief Ethics Officers in organizations underscores the importance of widespread individual responsibility • If one is blind to the problem in the first place, there is little hope that he or she might feel responsible to take an ethical stand.

24. Ignorance of Current Ethical Issues • Education of workers in technology has not generally included the study of ethics. • Many engineers, designers and marketers of technology products simply don’t know any better.

25. Are Technology Businesses Any Different From Other Business? • Technology sector has racked up an impressive list of products of questionable value—nuclear weapons, spam, spyware and unethical data-mining, to name but a few. • Technology has a huge impact, as it is part of the business sector that truly does have the capability to change the world for better or worse.

26. An Illustrative Case Study: Neuromarketing • Neuromarketing uses medical equipment such as fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to identify the combination of words and images that push people’s “buy buttons.” • Targeted Marketing • Manufactured Desire

27. Commercial Alert put on the brakes. • Cited the Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research (Belmont Report, 1979). • Risks cited • Increased incidence of marketing-related diseases, including alcoholism, eating disorders and obesity. • More effective political propaganda. In the wrong hands, neuromarketing could serve the ‘information dissemination’ goals of political parties and totalitarian governments. • More effective promotion of ‘degraded values’ (i.e. poor character), including materialism, addiction, violence, gambling, pornography, and other anti-social behavior.

28. Dealing with the Problem • What Not to Do • “Ethical flea dip” • Remedial Ethics

29. Questionable Intervention • Evangelize the message that ethics is actually good for business • There is some evidence that companies committed to the principle of beneficence (doing good beyond the minimum), have written social responsibility policies, and act on them with fidelity are more profitable than those who don't (see Tavani, 2004; The Ethics Resource Center, http://www.ethics.org/). • While I do not doubt the claim and am delighted by it, the very utilitarian notion of linking company profits to ethical behavior seems to miss the point.

30. What Should be Done? • Deal with the Blindness Problem • Human-Centered Product Design and Consumer Research for Consumers • The Belmont Report • Focus Responsibility • Education • The Chief Ethics Officer (maybe)

31. Dealing with the Blindness Problem • Happy workplaces are a prerequisite for becoming ethical workplaces. • This is all about creating workplaces that are conducive to the type of reflection and responsibility needed on the part of every individual in the making of an ethics-driven company. • See Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s recent book, Good Business: Leadership, Flow and the Making of Meaning (2003)

32. Good workplaces don’t have… • Periodic staff reductions, especially when outsourcing is used to fill the deleted positions • Mergers (culture clashes and staff reductions are almost always a result) • Too few staff combined with aggressive development schedules • Vague and ever changing goals • Frequent reorganizations and reshuffling of staff • Dysfunctional politics

33. Human-Centered Product Design • Human-centered design is all about attempting to meet the real needs of consumers, not the development of new and improved manufactured desires. • What is important is that all companies, especially technology companies, need an organized and empowered group, whose duty it is to focus on the actual needs of customers.

34. The Belmont Report • Prescribes the essential responsibilities of researchers working with human beings, including informed consent, assessment of risks and benefits and selection of research participants. • Three key ethical principles • Respect for Persons • Beneficence • Justice

35. Focus Responsibility (Making ethical considerations everyone’s problem) • While the Belmont Report is a tool for focusing ethical decision-making for researchers, The Social Impact Statement helps engineers and others involved in the design of new products.

36. The Social Impact Statement • Attributed to Ben Shneiderman • Its explicit purpose is to provide a framework for designers to investigate the social impact of the systems they are responsible for. • Every product development team should prepare a detailed Social Impact Statement for whatever it is they produce. The report includes the following sections— • Executive summary • Description of the system • Analysis of the ethical issues (stakeholders, principles, risks, etc.) • Recommendations for actions, with analysis of the possible outcomes • Reader's guide to literature on the issues in more depth • Appendix that describes the methods used to collect data and prepare the analysis.

37. Education • What we need is true education in ethical principles. • Such education happens in university programs, not in two-day workshops. • The real hope is with the next generations. • Beacons of light • Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science at Case Western Reserve (http://onlineethics.org/).