Course Readings

Overview of Ethical Frameworks

• A Framework for Making Ethical Decisions
• Aristotelean Ethics
• Confucian Ethics
• Deontological Ethics
• Egoist Ethics
• Epicurean Ethics
• Ethics of Care
• Legalist Ethics
• Stoic Ethics
• Utilitarian Ethics
• Optional: Seven Themes of Catholic Social Teaching

Codes of Ethics in Computer Science

• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Code of Ethics
• Association for Computing Machinery Code of Ethics
• Institute for the Certification of Computing Professionals Code of Ethics

Diversity and Immigration Issues in Technology

Diversity

• Why Doesn’t Silicon Valley Hire Black Coders?
• Addressing Ethnic Diversity in Computer Science
• Just Because You Always Hear It, Doesn’t Mean It’s True: Gender Difference Explanations For Disparities in Tech Are Not Supported by Science
• Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?
• The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google

Immigration

• H-1B Specialty Occupations, DOD Cooperative Research and Development Project Workers, and Fashion Models
• Commentary: The H-1B Visa Problem as IEEE-USA Sees It
• Engineers Are Leaving Trump’s America for the Canadian Dream

Corporate Ethical Responsibility

Corporate Personhood

• How Corporations Got The Same Rights As People (But Don’t Ever Go To Jail)
• If Corporations Are People, They Should Act Like It
• Are Google, Amazon and Others Getting Too Big?
• ‘Corporations Are People’ Is Built on an Incredible 19th-Century Lie
• ‘World Without Mind’: How Tech Companies Pose An Existential Threat

Corporate Social Responsibility

• What is Corporate Social Responsibility?
• The Rise of Corporate Social Responsibility
• The Techlash Against Amazon, Facebook and Google — and What They Can Do
• Playing Monopoly: What Zuck Can Learn From Bill Gates

Corporate Malfeasance

IBM and the Nazis

• IBM and the Holocaust
• This is the Hidden Nazi History of IBM - And the Man Who Tried to Expose It
• IBM Statement on Nazi-Era Book and Lawsuit
• IBM Sales to the Nazis: Assessing the Culpability

Muslim Registry

• Muslim Registries, Big Data, and Human Rights
• Tech Workers Pledge to Never Help Trump Build Muslim Registry
• America Already Had a Muslim Registry
• The Lesson America Never Learned from the Internment Camp Precedent

Fight for the Net

Net Neutrality

• A Guide to the Open Internet
• Big Tech to Join Legal Fight Against Net Neutrality Repeal
• Am I The Only Techie Against Net Neutrality?

Echo Chambers

• Who Gets Caught in Online Echo Chambers?
• The Reason Your Feed Became An Echo Chamber — And What To Do About It

Online Censorship

• How Facebook Checks Facts and Polices Hate Speech
• Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
• Deplatforming Conservatives From Social Media
• Good Riddance, Alex Jones: The Year in Deplatforming

Supplementary Readings on the Internet as a Public Utility

• Is Broadband Internet a Public Utility?
• Why American Internet Should Be a Public Utility
• Do Not Make the Internet a Public Utility

Automation

Job Automation

• What is McDonaldization?
• A World Without Work
• Foxconn Replaces 60,000 Workers with Robots
• Technology Isn’t Working

Self-Driving Cars

• The Menace and the Promise of Autonomous Vehicles
• Self-Driving Uber Car Kills Pedestrian in Arizona, Where Robots Roam
• Full Tilt: When 100% of Cars Are Autonomous

Supplementary Readings on Job Automation

• This Fast Food CEO Wants to Replace Workers With Robots
• New McDonald’s in Phoenix Run Entirely By Robots
• Automation Arrives at Restaurants (But Don’t Blame Rising Minimum Wages)
• Fast Food Chain Automation

Weapons Development and Warfare

• Ethical Robots in Warfare
• War Goes Viral
• Codename: Delphi

Pervasive Computing

Internet of Things

• The New Age of Surveillance
• The Internet of Things Needs a Code of Ethics
• How a Bunch of Hacked DVR Machines Took Down Twitter and Reddit

Intrusive/Pervasive Advertising

• Why Using an Ad Blocker is Stealing
• What Would Kant Do? Ad Blocking is a Problem, but It’s Ethical
• Welcome to the Age of Privacy Nihilism
• Facebook Knew I Was Gay Before My Family Did

Government Surveillance

Surveillance

• How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand?
• The FBI Could Have Gotten Into the San Bernardino Shooter’s iPhone, But Leadership Didn’t Say That
• American Spies: How We Got to Mass Surveillance Without Even Trying
• The Wiretap Rooms: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

Social Credit Score

• China’s Citizen Tracking System Can Wreck People’s Lives
• China ‘Social Credit’: Beijing Sets Up Huge System
• Algorithms are Taking Over – And Woe Betide Anyone They Class as a ‘Deadbeat’
• Germany Edges Toward Chinese-Style Rating of Citizens

Mission Critical Systems

Mission Critical Systems

• How Challenger Exploded, and Other Mistakes Were Made
• The Worst Computer Bugs in History: The Ariane 5 Disaster

Life Critical Systems

• The Worst Computer Bugs in History: Race Conditions in Therac-25
• Killed by a Machine: The Therac-25

Whistleblowing

Government Whistleblowing

• The 10 Biggest Revelations From Edward Snowden Leaks
• Last Week Tonight: Government Surveillance (Some Coarse Language)
• Once Reserved For Spies, Espionage Act Now Used Against Suspected Leakers

Corporate Whistleblowing

• Two Auditors Not Entitled to Whistleblower Protection, Court Rules
• An Enemy of the People (Read for Thursday)

Hackers and Piracy

Hackers

• The Conscience of a Hacker
• The Word ‘Hacker’
• Great Hackers

Piracy

• Digital Millennium Copyright Act
• What Is the DMCA, and Why Does It Take Down Web Pages?
• The History of Software Patents
• EU Study Finds Piracy Doesn’t Hurt Game Sales, May Actually Help
• Goodbye to Piracy

Speculative Issues

Transhumanism

• What is Transhumanism, or, What Does it Mean to be Human?
• Transhumanism and the Future of Humanity: 7 Ways the World Will Change by 2030
• A New Generation of Transhumanists Is Emerging

Virtual Reality

• I Spent a Week in a VR Headset, Here’s What Happened

Killer Robots

• Rossum’s Universal Robots (R.U.R.) (Read for Thursday)