Technology Ethics
Serena Wong

04 April 2018

"Move fast and break things" is well known as Facebook's former motto, but it may well be the motto of all of Silicon Valley. Put another way, the Valley builds first, and deals with the consequences later.

But this approach is creating bigger and bigger problems, from Facebook's fake news to lewd children's videos on Youtube.

Do universities, often the teachers of engineers, have a responsibility to address the apparent lack of ethics in our growing tech industry? A number of universities with leading computer science programs certainly believe so, incorporating new classes focusing on ethics and technology into their curricula.

Read more about the argument to address technology ethics in universities here: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/business/computer-science-ethics-courses.html

Comments (5)


Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Thursday, April 5, 2018 -- 9:19 AM

Thinking people saw this

Thinking people saw this coming, at least a dozen years ago. In an anything goes, 'fast-paced', permissive society, we allow this sort of bastardization, through the tenets of capitalism, free-enterprise, free market economics and a whole host of other modern attitudes and behaviors. I have advised friends and family against cloaking themselves in the raimants of free-wheeling information technology, but, for the most part, younger people do not see the harm in anything until some cro-mag steals the BMW (that's a metaphor, Maude). I have listened to Facebook's fresh-faced founder and CEO and thought I was listening to one of his company's machines. Seriously, he exuded the personality of a recorded message. Too much brain-power and too much money, far too soon... what more might one expect?

prenco's picture

prenco

Thursday, April 5, 2018 -- 8:07 PM

A driverless car from Uber

A driverless car from Uber
did not process the woman near the scooter
It fast wandered and steered
and never it veered
Her death was chalked up as a blooper.

Laura Maguire's picture

Laura Maguire

Thursday, April 5, 2018 -- 9:03 PM

Channeling John Perry!!

Channeling John Perry!!

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Friday, April 6, 2018 -- 11:44 AM

If you are speaking of me,

If you are speaking of me, Laura, I am flattered. If it is prenco whom you praise, that was a clever limerick and also worthy.
HGN.

Laura Maguire's picture

Laura Maguire

Friday, April 6, 2018 -- 11:58 AM

John used to write limericks

John used to write limericks for almost every episode. When he retired from the show we presented him a book with some of his best ones.