Ethics in the Information Age*

Terrell Ward Bynum

As we stand on the verge of the information age, the social and ethical implications of information and communication technology (ICT) are enormous – and mostly unknown! ICT is developing so rapidly that new possibilities emerge before the social consequences can be fathomed (Rogerson and Bynum 1995). New social/ethical policies for the information age, therefore, are urgently needed to fill rapidly multiplying “policy vacuums” (Moor 1985). But filling such vacuums is a complex social process that will require active participation of individuals, organizations, and governments – and ultimately the world community (See Bynum and Schubert 1998, also van den Hoven 1996).

Globalization – Górniak (1995) has perceptively pointed out that ICT makes possible – for the first time in history – a genuinely global conversation about ethics and human values. Such a conversation has implications for social policy that we can only begin to imagine. Traditional borders and barriers between countries have now become less meaningful because most countries are interconnected by the Internet. For this reason, individuals, companies and organizations in every culture can engage in global business transactions, distance education, cyber-employment, discussions of social and political issues, sharing and debating of values and perspectives. Will this “global conversation” bring about better understanding between peoples and cultures? – new shared values and goals? – new national and international laws and policies? Will individual cultures become “diluted,” homogenized, blurred? These are just a few of the many social/ethical issues emerging from globalization of ICT. (See Bynum and Rogerson 1996.)

The worldwide nature of the Internet has already led to many issues in need of policies to resolve them. For example, if sexually explicit materials are provided on a web site in a culture in which they are permitted, and then they are accessed by someone in a different culture where such materials are outlawed as “obscene,” whose laws and values apply? Should the “offending” person in the first culture be extradited to the second culture and prosecuted as a purveyor of pornography? Should the values of the first culture be permitted to undermine those of the second culture via the Internet? How can such cultural clashes be reasonably resolved?

Or consider business transactions in cyberspace: Whose laws apply to business on the Internet? When people in one country purchase goods and services from merchants in another country, who should regulate or tax the transactions? And how will “cyberbusiness” in a global market affect local business? – local tax collections? – local unemployment? What new laws, regulations, rules, practices should be adopted, and who should formulate them? What policies would be fair to all concerned?

And how will global cyberbusiness affect the gap between rich nations and poor nations? Will that gap get even worse? Will ICT lead to a “new colonialism” in which the information rich lord it over the information poor? Will economic and political rivalries emerge to threaten peace and security? What kinds of conflicts and misunderstandings might arise, and how should they be handled? – and by whom?

Or consider cyber medicine: Medical advice and psychological counseling on the Internet, “keyhole” surgery conducted at a distance, medical tests and examinations over the net, “cyber prescriptions” for medicine written by doctors in one part of the world for patients in other parts of the world – these are just a few of the medical services and activities that already exist in cyberspace. How safe is cyber medicine? Who should regulate, license, control it?

Or consider education in cyberspace: Hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide now offer educational credit for courses and modules. But when students earn university credits from all around the globe, who should set the standards? Who should award degrees and certify “graduates”? Will there be a “Cyber University of the World”? Will thousands of “ordinary” teachers be replaced by a handful of “Internet-superstar teachers”? – or perhaps by teams of multimedia experts? – or even by educational software? Would such developments be wonderful new learning opportunities, or instead be educational disasters? What policies, rules, practices should be adopted and who should develop them?

At the social/political level of education, what will be the impact upon previously uneducated peoples of the world when they suddenly gain access to libraries, museums, newspapers, and other sources of knowledge? How will access to the world’s great newspapers affect “closed” societies with no free press? Are democracy and human rights necessary consequences of an educated population with access to a free press? Will the Internet foster global democracy? – or will it become a tool for control and manipulation of the masses by a handful of powerful governments? – or powerful corporations?

Human Relationships – Of course, not all social/ethical issues which arise from ICT depend upon its global scope. Consider, for example, the impact of ICT on human relationships. How will family relationships or friendships be affected by mobile phones, palmtop and laptop computers, telecommuting to work and school, virtual-reality conferencing, cybersex? Will the efficiency and convenience of ICT lead to shorter work hours and more “quality time” with the family? – or will ICT create instead a more hectic and breathless lifestyle which separates family and friends from each other? Will people be isolated in front of a computer hour after hour, or will they find new friendships and relationships in “virtual communities” in cyberspace – relationships based upon interactions that never could occur in regular space-time settings? How fulfilling and “genuine” can such relationships be, and will they crowd out better, more satisfying face-to-face relationships? What does all this mean for a person’s self-realization and satisfaction with life? What policies, laws, rules, practices should be put in place?

Social Justice – As more and more of society’s activities and opportunities enter cyberspace – business opportunities, educational opportunities, medical services, employment, leisure-time activities, and on and on – it will become harder and harder for ICT “have-nots” to share in the benefits and opportunities of society. Persons without an “electronic identity” may have no socially recognized identity at all! Therefore social justice (not to mention economic prosperity) requires that society develop policies and practices to more fully include people who, in the past, have had limited access to ICT resources: women, the poor, the old, persons of color, rural residents, persons with disabilities, even technophobes.

A good example is “assistive technology” for persons with disabilities. A variety of hardware and software has been developed in recent years to enable persons with disabilities to use ICT easily and effectively. As a result, people who would otherwise be utterly dependent upon others for almost everything suddenly find their lives transformed into happy, productive, “near-normal” ones. Visual impairments and blindness, hearing impairments and deafness, inability to control one’s limbs, even near-total paralysis need no longer be major impediments to happiness and productivity. Given such dramatic benefits of assistive technology, as well as rapidly decreasing costs, does a just society have an ethical obligation to provide assistive technology to its citizens with disabilities?

Work – Work and the workplace are being dramatically transformed by ICT. More flexibility and choice are possible (e.g., teleworking at home, on the road, at any hour or location). In addition, new kinds of jobs and job opportunities are being created (e.g., webmasters, data miners, cybercounselors, and so on). But such benefits and opportunities are accompanied by risks and problems, like unemployment from computer-replaced humans, “deskilling” of workers who only push buttons, stress keeping up with high speed machines, repetitive motion injuries, magnetism and radiation from computer hardware, surveillance of workers by monitoring software, and ICT “sweat shops” that pay “slave wages.” A wide range of new laws, regulations, rules and practices are needed if society is to manage these workplace developments efficiently and justly.

Government and Democracy – ICT has the potential to significantly change the relationship between individual citizens and governments – local, regional and national. Electronic voting and referenda, as well as e-mailed messages to legislators and ministers, could give citizens more timely input into government decisions and law making. Optimists point out that ICT, appropriately used, can enable better citizen participation in democratic processes – can make government more open and accountable – can provide easy citizen access to government information, reports, services, plans and proposed legislation. Pessimists, on the other hand, worry that government officials who are regularly bombarded with e-mail from angry voters might be easily swayed by short-term swings in public mood – that hackers could disrupt or corrupt electronic election processes – that dictatorial governments might find ways the use ICT to control and intimidate the population more effectively than ever before. What policies should be put in place to take account of these hopes and worries?

Intellectual Property and Ownership – In the information age, the “information rich” will run the world, and the “information poor” will be poor indeed! Possession and control of information will be the keys to wealth, power and success. Those who own and control the information infrastructure will be amongst the wealthiest and most powerful of all. And those who own digitized intellectual property – software, databases, music, video, literary works, educational resources – will possess major economic assets. But digitized information is easily copied and altered, easily transferred across borders, and therefore the piracy of intellectual property will be a major social problem. Even today, for example, in some countries over ninety percent of the software is pirated – not to mention the music and video resources! What new laws, regulations, rules, international agreements and practices would be fair and just, and who should formulate or enforce them?

It is also possible to mix and combine several types of digitized resources to create “multimedia” works of various kinds. A single program, for example, might make use of bits and snippets of photographs, video clips, sound bites, graphic art, newsprint and excerpts from various literary works. How large must a component of such a work be before the user must pay copyright royalties? Must the creator of a multimedia work identify thousands of copyright holders and pay thousands of copyright fees in order to be allowed to create and disseminate his work? What should the rules be and who should enforce them? How can they be enforced at all on the new frontiers of cyberspace?

Concluding Comment – The above paragraphs identify only a small fraction of the social and ethical issues that ICT will generate in the coming information age. The vast majority of such issues are still unknown, and they will only come into view when the powerful and flexible new technology of ICT generates them. It is the goal of computer ethics to identify and analyze the policy vacuums and help to formulate new social/ ethical policies to resolve them.

* A multimedia version of this paper was presented at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK in May 1998 at the Research Seminar “Living and Working in the Information Age” hosted by the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility.

References

Terrell Ward Bynum and Simon Rogerson, eds., Global Information Ethics, Opragon Press, 1996 (published as the April 1996 issue of Science and Engineering Ethics).

Terrell Ward Bynum and Petra Schubert, “How to Do Computer Ethics – A Case Study: The Electronic Mall Bodensee” in M. J. van den Hoven, ed., Computer Ethics – Philosophical Enquiry, Erasmus University Press, 1998, pp. 85 – 95.

Krystyna Górniak, “The Computer Revolution and the Problem of Global Ethics” in Bynum and Rogerson, 1996, pp. 177 – 190.

James H. Moor, “What Is Computer Ethics?” in Terrell Ward Bynum, ed., Computers and Ethics, Blackwell, 1985, pp. 266 – 75 (published as the October 1985 issue of the journal Metaphilosophy).

Simon Rogerson and Terrell Ward Bynum, “Cyberspace: the Ethical Frontier” in The Higher Education Supplement to the London Times, June 9, 1995.

M. J. van den Hoven, “Computer Ethics and Moral Methodology” in Porfirio Barroso, Simon Rogerson and Terrell Ward Bynum, Eds., Values and Social Responsibilities of Computer Science, Proceedings of ETHICOMP96, Complutense University Press, 1996, pp. 444 – 453. (Republished in Metaphilosophy, July 1997, Vol. 28, No. 3)

Home > Research Resources > Global Information > Ethics in the Information Age 

Back to the Main Site

HOME | IN THE NEWS | RESEARCH RESOURCES
TEACHING RESOURCES | STUDENT RESOURCES | LINKS

The Research Center on Computing & Society
at Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent Street | New Haven, CT 06515
Director: (203) 392-6790 | e-mail: webmaster@computerethics.org

© 2000 – 2007 – Research Center on Computing & Society