Egoist Ethics

“The good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view (if I may so say) of the Universe, than the good of any other; unless, that is, there are special grounds for believing that more good is likely to be realized in the one case than in the other.”

― Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics

WEBSITE POST 1

Statement of Purpose

What makes an action ethical?

The basic theory of egoist ethics is that one’s self is, or should be, the motivation and goal of one’s actions. Egoism has three main forms, psychological, ethical, and rational. For our purposes, the crucial form is ethical, as the other two make claims outside the boundaries of morality. Psychological egoism argues that every action an actor makes necessarily contributes to self-interest, and rational egoism claims that every rational action must be in an actor’s self-interest. Ethical egoism, however, is a consequential ethical framework. Under it, an action is ethical if and only if the result of that action maximizes the self interest of the actor.

What triggers the need to evaluate an action?

As mentioned earlier, ethical egoism is consequentialist. As a result, all actions are measured by the consequences of their actions. Thus, in terms of ethical egoism, actions are evaluated as ethical or not after the action has occurred. If an action results in the maximization of self interest for the individual actor it is ethical. In this case, intent does not matter, and neither does the result of the action on other people, unless those people contribute to the self interest of the actor. For example, someone who almost gets caught stealing a generous sum of money from someone else, but is not caught, has, according to ethical egoism, acted ethically. Despite the fact that the victim loses their money and the actor almost got caught, intentions and consequences upon someone else are irrelevant to ethical egoists. This person acted in their own self-interest, and as long as they face no long term consequences or psychological issues, they have acted ethically.

Predisposition to act in accordance to Egoist ethics

Many would argue that in our capitalistic society, most people are prone to prescribing to egoist actions. This is the thought between psychological and rational egoism, which both proclaim that people have predispositions towards egoistic behavior. In particular, psychological egoism argues that every action a human being ever takes must be in their self-interest or they would never do it. According to this framework, even things that we would often consider selfless, such as charity or sacrifice, are done because of self-interest: maybe the actor wanted fame, acclaim, or a feeling of accomplishment. Rational egoism does not make a bold claim regarding “every action.” Instead, it argues that the only rational decisions that people make are the ones in their self-interest. Any other decision is necessarily irrational. Thus, exorbitant sacrifice would be considered irrational, but possible, under this framework.

Three issues in computer technology

Issue #1: Affirmative Action in Technology.

Say, in this hypothetical, that the person we are talking about is a white male in technology. Using ethical egoism as our ethical foundation for this, the actor would be firmly against the implementation or maintenance of affirmative action in technology. Given that ethical egoism demands actions that have the consequence of maximizing self-interest, white men in technology would be acting ethically if they fought against affirmative action policies. These policies, while vastly beneficial towards creating equity in technology and lifting up marginalized voices, also result in the leveling of the playing field and thus harming the success of some white men. Since ethical egoism is consequentialist, the consequences of affirmative action would prove to be unethical for a white male.

Issue #2: Plagiarism

Consider a scenario where a developer is working under a tight deadline on an area of computer science that is not necessarily well documented or thoroughly explored. The developer finds code on the internet that solves all of their current problems. From an egoist perspective, it would be perfectly ethical for the developer to copy and paste the code without citing it or giving the proper credit to the original creator. Plagiarism such as this harms creator of the original code, but it benefits the developer who copy-pasted it. Although most ethical frameworks would consider this action to be unethical and, unless the code was open source, would most likely be considered illegal. However, the egoist ethical framework has no problem with a developer stealing the intellectual property of someone else because it benefits the developer.

Issue #3: Whistleblowing

For example, in a scenario where a company is doing something illegal, an employee could choose to not disclose it to the proper authorities and continue to let it happen. This would be within the guidelines of an egoist ethical framework because it would not be in that employee’s best interest to expose that information. Say that they are working for the government. Then, leaking this information would be illegal, and they could face serious legal repercussions and end up incarcerated. Therefore, this definitely would not in the best self-interest of the employee.

IEEE Code of Ethics:

Briefly summarize the similarities between the code of ethics and your ethical framework.

The main similarity between the IEEE code of ethics and egoist ethics deals with point 6, which calls on people to “maintain and improve [their] technical competence”. Doing so is quite obviously beneficial to the self and so aligns with egoist philosophies. Another similarity between the two is in point 7, which talks about seeking and accepting honest criticism. Honest criticism has a focus of self-improvement and someone seeking out criticism has an opportunity to benefit themselves by learning from their mistakes.

Briefly summarize the differences between the code of ethics and your ethical framework.

The areas in which the IEEE code of ethics differs from the egoist framework are those which deal with the protection, education, and fair treatment of others, most notable in points 1, 5, 8, 9, and 10. According to the egoist ethical framework, one should do what is in their own self interest. This says nothing about the well-being or interests of others. So, while the points listed above do not directly contradict with the egoist framework, they would be of no concern to an egoist as they say nothing about whether they promote the interests of the egoist themself.

State something that is missing from the code of ethics which your ethical framework can provide.

What the IEEE code of ethics is missing is a purpose or motivation for the ethical decisions made by one following the code. While not all points of the IEEE code of ethics align with the egoist ethical framework (as explained above), egoist ethics can give a purpose to the areas in which egoist ethics apply. In the egoist ethical framework, all ethical actions have a purpose, namely to benefit oneself. If the IEEE code had a purpose behind them, it can guide people on the way to act in a situation in which the code of ethics cannot provide guidance or is ambiguous. Although the IEEE code of ethics need not have the purpose of self-promotion as egoist ethics has, it can still benefit from a greater meaning that motivates the principles of the code of ethics.

ACM Code:

Briefly summarize the similarities between the code of ethics and your ethical framework.

The ACM code of ethics gives some guidelines to the individual, such as telling them to be honest and trustworthy. This aligns with an egoist ethical framework because it is usually is in one’s best interest to be honest and disclose any mistakes in the present in order to maintain trustworthiness with other professionals in the future. That said, if a bug is discovered by someone and he does not think anyone will notice it, he could choose to not disclose it. This would be in line with an egoist ethical framework because if it will not affect him in the future, it is not in his best interest to spend the extra time fixing the bug.

Briefly summarize the differences between the code of ethics and your ethical framework.

The ACM code of ethics discusses the consequences of certain actions that affect other people and society in general, which is not taken into account in egoist ethics. The very first point made in the ACM code of ethics is that members must contribute to society and avoid doing harm to others. From the perspective of an egoist ethics framework, one does not have to worry about other people and should focus on maximizing their own self-interest. In the ACM code of ethics there is also a focus on educating the public and participating in outreach initiatives. Again, these are not relevant to egoist ethics unless these activities somehow aligned with an individual maximizing their own self-interest.

State something that is missing from the code of ethics which your ethical framework can provide.

The ACM code of ethics does not say anything about any sort of ethical hacking. It says that under no circumstance should one enter a system, software, or files without explicit permission. An egoist ethical framework could provide some helpful guidelines on this. For example, say there is a malicious system that is attacking your software. Hacking into and stopping that system would be in line with egoist ethics because it would be in your best interest to stop it.

ICCP:

Briefly summarize the similarities between the code of ethics and your ethical framework.

Some of the statements in the ICCP are largely in agreement with egoist ethics; for example, section 3.1 recommends that members should continue their education in their fields of study. Continued education is likely a good investment for even the most self-interested members due to its ability to increase job performance. Also, while section 2.7 on accountability may not seem to be done primarily out of self-interest, a lack of accountability my negatively affect the judgements of one’s coworkers, and hamper attempts at promotion. Furthermore, by not being accountable for the quality of one’s work, clients may receive a poorly developed product, making them less likely to continue the professional relationship. Thus, being accountable on the job is in accordance with the egoist ethical framework.

Briefly summarize the differences between the code of ethics and your ethical framework.

Section 2.2 of the ICCP code of ethics notes that the members are expected to act with a sense of ‘Social Responsibility,’ meaning that they should act to improve ‘public safety’ and try to educate the general public about their professional field. Actions such as these are not encouraged by the egoist ethics unless they are done in self-interest as well, so this section represents a significant departure from what would be encouraged. Section 2.5 of the code states that members should not claim falsely claim competence that is not possessed. However, egoist ethics would likely allow for one to lie about competence if it caused a direct benefit to the liar. For example, lying during a job interview to increase the chance of getting the job would be considered acceptable.

State something that is missing from the code of ethics which your ethical framework can provide.

While the code of ethics may not make any comments about general self-interested business decisions, the egoist framework does. For example, if an employee is being told to frequently work overtime while being paid under market value, then it may seem reasonable for the employee to seek out an employer that would treat them more fairly. The code of ethics makes not comment on this, while the egoist framework would label this move as ethically correct.

WEB POST 2

Write a summary and response to the controversy surrounding H-1B visas

A brief summary of arguments in favor of the H-1B visa system

Support of the H-1B visa system is two fold allowing it to both bolster the United States economy and protect the interests of its citizens that are also trying to find gainful employment in a competitive tech landscape. The world is filled with highly educated and trained employees and a lot of them want to take advantage of the opportunities that are present within US companies. The H-1B visa allows for rolls to be filled - up to 65,000, plus an extra 20,000 for those who graduate with a masters of PhD from a US institution - that would otherwise be left empty. This helps companies grow and provide more benefits to the people of the country where they pay taxes, the United States. While companies want to have access to the best talent around the world, the H-1B visa does a strong job of protecting the interests of the citizen also seeking similarly advanced roles within companies. By enforcing the aforementioned limits on the numbers of visas issued and by adding a cost that the employer must pay to get access to the visa’ed workers, US workers are given two advantages. They create a cost advantage, where a company that hires a citizen does not have to pay the cost to support their presence in the country. In addition, by limiting the overall number of visas, you can create an upper ceiling where after a certain point companies that chose to work in the United States, have to find talent at home. The benefits of the H-1B visa allows it to be a powerful tool to spur growth in the US in high talent fields, without compromising the american worker.

A brief summary of arguments in opposition to the the H-1B visa system

The H-1B system, while it may have the intention of stimulating the american economy by bringing over bright and talented workers, in reality provides an opportunity for companies to outsource their work and use the cheap labor to undercut companies that hire american citizens. In order to avoid certain regulations for workers on visas, companies that hire H-1B employees must pay them at least $60,000 which, especially for major tech companies such as Google and Microsoft, is far below the competitive salary for american workers. However, the real problems with the H-1B system don’t typically come from the major tech companies. In fact, in 2014 Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Uber only employed 2 percent of the H-1B workers. The real problems come from companies like Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro, and Tata, who in 2014 accounted for a quarter of all private sector H-1B visas. These companies bring in workers using the H-1B visa then rent them out as consultants for much cheaper than companies hiring american workers. While some may make the argument that the cap on H-1B visas means that they can only displace a certain amount of U.S. jobs, the effects of hiring workers on H-1B visas for significantly less than american citizens can expand beyond the simple 65,000 visa allotment. When these consulting companies fill their positions with H-1B workers, not only do they take these positions away from U.S. citizens, but they also take away positions at other consulting companies that were run out of business because they were paying their american employees a competitive wage instead of outsourcing their labor. The H-1B system is easily abused by companies that pay their employees on visas significantly less than american citizens, enough to offset the cost of the visa and then some. Allowing people to work in america without citizenship denies them certain right, which means companies can abuse the inherently flawed H-1B system to outsource work for cheap labor that takes thousands of jobs from american citizens.

A response containing insights your ethical framework may provide to the controversy.

From an egoist perspective and if we take the view of a US citizen, H-1B visas are not a good thing. As a US citizen, it is in my own personal best interest that people from other countries are not given the opportunity to work US jobs. Offering H-1B visas allows companies to pay non-American citizens less to do work that an American citizen could do for a competitive wage. From an American company’s perspective, however, H-1B visas are in their self-interest. Just as the company’s described above used the H-1B visa program to outsource much of their consulting work, it is in a company’s self interest to pay as little as possible to their employees to turn the greatest profit. Additionally, H-1B visas allow companies to bring in talent from outside the US that they might not be able to find here, and gives them the opportunity to hire non-US citizens who have specialized skill sets. From the egoist opinion of a non-US citizen, H-1B visas are absolutely a good thing. This program allows them to get hired for work in the US, an opportunity that may be much more difficult without it. They might be paid less than their American counterparts, which they almost certainly (and many would say, rightly) disagree with, but it still allows them to get their foot in the door of the American job market. An egoists view of the H-1B visa thus depends on which actor they are in the process. From an egoist perspective, there’s not a way to make everyone happy here, if each party is truly acting in their own self-interest. But egoism doesn’t attempt to make everyone happy.

Write a response to the Google internal memo

A brief summary of the content of the memo.

The Google internal memo is one Google employee’s critique of Google’s efforts at addressing diversity and inclusion issues internally. His arguments center on his belief that Google has become an “Ideological Echo Chamber”, where people who disagree with the majority views are shamed into silence, while prevailing rhetoric generates a left-leaning, “politically correct monoculture.” He addresses the gender gap in tech by appealing to supposed biological differences between men and women, as well as personality differences. He proposes what he considers to be non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap that target the differences he previously mentioned. Additionally, he purports striving for better gender and racial diversity, but disagrees with programs and practices created specifically for underrepresented groups in tech on the basis that they exclude others. He exhorts employees to confront their biases, stop alienating conservatives, de-moralize diversity, open up programs to everyone, and talk more openly about the effectiveness of current programs and practices. The writer believes the focus at Google should be on psychological safety rather than race or gender diversity, claiming that this focus will keep out unfair discrimination. He believes that empathy should be kept out of the issue and that focus should be transferred from microaggressions and unconscious bias to an openness about the “science of human nature.” Overall, this employee is using this “screed” as an attempt to address the biases he sees in Google’s ideology and is calling for an “open and honest discussion with those who disagree” to highlight Google’s “blind spots and help [them] grow.”

A discussion of the aspects in the memo your ethical framework finds either valid or ethical.

The memo points discuss the notion of an echo chamber and an intolerance for ideas that do not fit in a certain ideology which in turn can lead to the bias, potentially psychologically harmful, running of a company. The writer of the memo argues that this type of environment does not allow for the problem of diversity in tech to be solved due to lack of discourse. From the perspective of an egoist, this point is valid as it is in the best interest of one’s self to allow others to feel safe in sharing their own opinion as this sort of treatment will then be extended towards oneself. Additionally, diversity and inclusion bring benefits to oneself, so any discussion or debates that further the issue, is something that is in one’s best interest to participate in. The memo also discusses treating people like individuals and not as part of a group. The egoist would agree with this point in that often it is in one’s self-interest to be treated as an individual and not lumped in with a group that is subject to stereotypes and assumptions.9

A discussion of the aspects in the memo your ethical framework finds either invalid or unethical.

While egoist ethics claims that individuals show prioritize themselves over others, the google memo presents a critique on how the organization’s culture as a whole was ineffective and biased against conservatives, and made suggestions about what the company could do in response. However, egoist ethics would say that the other members of the company should base their actions on their own interest rather than the interests of the company as a whole (which may value diversity for economic or recruiting reasons) or according to an ideal of freedom of speech and belief. So, even though the memo may have represented the author’s interests, other employees may choose not a change their behavior in accordance with the memo unless it benefits them. Since Google may value the presence of underrepresented groups and a restriction on the expression of potentially offensive ideas, the other employees may find that the memo does not represent their interests, and find it unconvincing and disregard its argument, in accordance with egoist ethics. To put it simply, the memo makes a normative statement about how other people in the company should behave, which violates the egoist ethics idea that people should prioritize their own interests over the interests of others.

Write an analysis of gender bias issues in tech

A brief summary of outstanding gender issues in tech.

Stereotypes have always played a part in the technology field. The two major areas where I believe gender bias and misrepresentation are most prevalent are in the education field and in hiring and promotion at technology firms. In education, even as more women join CS programs across the nation, they find themselves rarely taught by women. Even as top programs are searching high and low, the talent pool of women teachers in Technology has not been built up to the necessary levels. In often male-dominated classes, and possibly facing discrimination and jokes, women must carve their own path to surpass unnecessary expectations. In the field of technology corporations, the issue of gender in some cases is even more extreme. Facing discrimination at the hiring level, as you work up the corporate ladder the lack of female representation is obvious. As mentioned in one of the articles, women often have to ignore and brush off comments in order to obtain respect and avoid labels of being “emotional” or “over-reactionary”. At upper levels as well, recently rules have had to be enforced by the government requiring women on the boards at tech companies, a voice of long missing from the tables at very prestigious Silicon Valley names. Both of these disparities highlight a larger issue, a lack of role models and career milestones for women to follow and look to emulate. They have been strong enough to continue to push forward, but men enjoy the ability to envision themselves in the place of their peers, while women have to continue to break glass ceilings. Floor by floor, until gender diversity is no longer something that companies feel required to fulfil, but something that is celebrated by all.

A response to each issue from the perspective of your ethical framework.

The two issues we believe are the most important in today’s technology world are hiring and promotion in the workplace and the education field. According to an egoist ethical framework, the current situation of gender bias in technology is not a problem. If one is looking out for their own self-interest, it does not matter if certain groups are underrepresented. It only matters that individuals are doing what is in their own self-interest. If you also include a female perspective to this issue, this could actually be seen as a good thing because there is a push for women in technology roles, meaning that there may be more opportunities for women. The second issue we brought up is gender bias in the workplace. From an egoist ethical framework, if you are running a company and there is a gender bias in the treatment of employees, this is unethical. It is not in your best self-interest because this could slow production or even cause legal problems for you and your firm which would lead to less profits, less money in your pocket, and less job security for you. In the case of gender discrimination in hiring, it may not be unethical depending on if you are a part of the group being discriminated against. It would depend on if you have more opportunities given to you based on your gender. For example, males in the workplace are given jobs or promoted over women impart due to their gender and attributes commonly associated with their gender. In this case, it is ethical if you are male because this would benefit you, therefore being in your best self-interest. If you are a part of any other gender group, you would be discriminated against, which would be unethical according our egoist framework.

Write an analysis of race and ethnicity issues in tech

A brief summary of outstanding race and ethnicity issues in tech

As noted earlier, stereotypes and biases have always played an outsized role in thwarting equality in technology. This is seen not just in a lack of gender equity, but also in the racial disparities in the tech field. While issues regarding equity in fields outside of technology are often regarding salary or leadership positions, in technology there is also a huge ethnic gap in all positions, including entry-level coding jobs. White Americans are vastly overrepresented in technology, and African-Americans and Latinx-Americans are vastly underrepresented. In terms of the number of computer science majors every year, Asian-Americans are the only minority group to put out a proportionate amount of majors to population. This could be for a host of reasons, but biases and opportunity to study CS earlier in life both play a big role in the issue. Notably, while the fact that black and latinx people are underrepresented in computer science majors may be troubling, the statistics at big technology companies are even worse. Only 2.5% of Google workers are black, 3.6% latinx, and 0.3% native. Asian Americans, on the other hand, are incredibly overrepresented, making up 36.3% of Google’s workforce. In terms of leadership positions, the numbers fall drastically for all of the minority groups, including Asian Americans. This means that while we are slowly closing in on the gap between population proportions and computer science degrees among ethnic groups, we are failing to close that gap in elite tech companies. While tech as a whole might be getting more diverse, leading corporations, specifically those in Silicon Valley, remain heavily white and heavily asian-american.

A response to each issue from the perspective of your ethical framework

The egoist would consider the underrepresentation of minorities, specifically African-Americans and Latin-Americans, in computer science programs across the country an issue. Since we are responding to this issue as prospective computer scientists that value the best interest of the tech industry, it is best to have as many people studying computer science as possible so there are more qualified candidates available to work in the tech industry. Thus, it would be in the best interest of the tech industry to have more minorities pursuing computer science education. Consequently, the egoist would advise tech industry leaders to try to address the driving forces of this issue including biases and the opportunity to study CS earlier in life.

Despite providing seemingly charitable advice to the tech industry regarding the lack of minorities studying computer science, the egoist advice regarding the lack of diversity in the workforce is quite harsh. The egoist would likely interpret this issue through an objective lense by asking the following question: “Are the best developers being hired?” If the answer is no, and bias is causing companies to turn away qualified minorities for less qualified majorities, the egoist would advise the company to correct this issue because their best interest is to hire the best developers. However, if companies are in fact hiring the most qualified candidates and still have vastly underrepresented minorities, the egoist would not consider it an issue, and would advise the companies to continue operating in this manner.

WEB POST 3

Summary

Summary of three outstanding issues in corporate ethical responsibility in tech

The landscape under which technology companies are able to operate and grow is undergoing a massive change from the internet boom of the 1990’s and 2000’s. We have seen the scale with which they can operate and the power which they can wield through society.

The first outstanding issue will be to better define the relationship that companies, especially tech companies enter with their employees. We can see this in the recent open letter to end project Dragonfly, which was work to create a censored search engine for China. They felt that this went against the core beliefs that they bought into when he joined the Google team, and Alphabet - their parent company that has almost a hundred thousand employees. It will take effort to define if a corporation can really have beliefs, and how those are reconciled when they may not be in the best interest of the bottom line.

Secondly, we are tasked with defining the philanthropic efforts that we are comfortable with corporations undergoing. Currently, the major tech companies enjoy a very low rate of taxation, due to the ability to leverage loopholes present in a tax code not designed for a digital economy. This allows them to have evaluations, and war chests of cash, that are larger than some countries’ GDP. However, they do have a track record of trying to provide a lot of public good. The economy has grown along with them and we are going to need to soon address the issue of how much of a role they should be able to play in social good. Are we selling ourselves too much when we look to corporations, whose goal is to make money, to provide more of basic quality of life than the government? In addition, what spirit are those donations being made? Do we want to be remembered for being too naive to see a clever marketing tool when we see one?

Finally, I think privacy is going to become a defining issue with regards to technology companies. We have to acknowledge that if a service or product is free to use, like Facebook, then we are the product that they are selling - not the other way around. Tech companies and society are going to have to find a way to bridge the gap between their products and a population that overall is not as digitally literate. When a user signs up or uses a product, what guarantees of safety and anonymity are they entitled to, and are we, as a society, willing to give up a tailored song or ad recommendations if that is the cost.

It is not going to be a unilateral decision on any front, but I think the conversation starts with being honest about how pervasive these companies are in our lives. Once we can understand how little we know, can we then make steps through regulation and culture to resolve the questions that come up at such a pivotal time in technology?

Critique

A summary of Uber’s action being analyzed

In 2017, Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan and his subordinates paid hackers their ransom note of $100,000 in order to delete data that the hackers had stolen and did not disclose it to the public or the affected users/drivers. To get access to the data, hackers found a public GitHub being used by engineers at Uber that had login credentials that enabled them to access the data. The data stolen affected 50 million riders and about 7 million drivers in the form of their names, email addresses, phones numbers, and driver’s license numbers. At the time of the breach, Uber was undergoing proceedings for previous accusations of privacy violations by the Federal Trade Commission and Sullivan did not want this new hack and loss of data to cause additional issues. However, an investigation into Sullivan’s team quickly revealed the cover-up.

Travis Kalanick, the previous CEO of Uber, knew of the incident as it happened and allowed for the cover-up to happen. State and federal laws require companies to alert people and government agencies when sensitive data breaches occur. Uber is no exception to this. Uber’s current CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, said there was no excuse for what happened because Uber was obligated to report the hack of driver’s license information and failed to do so. This is not the first of Uber’s maleficence and they have faced many suits in the past. In fact, some governments have taken steps toward banning the service, citing what they say is reckless behavior by Uber. In response to the news of the attack hitting the public, Uber told customers that is has not seen any evidence of fraud or misuse tied to the incident. Uber also offered free credit protection monitoring and identity theft protection to drivers who had their licenses compromised.

An identification of why that action is unethical as defined by your ethical framework

The most obvious signs of the unethical action in this scenario is the negative effects it had on the company. Not only did Uber lose $100,000 as a ransom to the hackers, but their attempts to cover up their actions provoked a negative response by the public, most likely affecting people’s trust in the company. As stated above, this mistrust has led some governments to ban Uber, reducing Uber’s revenue and damaging their progress as a company. While egoist ethics call for the agent (in this case Uber) to act in a way that is most beneficial to themselves, sometimes this may require an action that does not necessarily benefit the agent in the short term, but has greater benefits in the long term. With the fear of adding another incident to their already mounting security issues, Uber tried to forgo the short term setback of questionable security in exchange for the possibility of doing later harm if the coverup was ever discovered. If they had announced the security breach earlier, it may have dealt a lighter blow to their reputation than trying to cover it up. The difficult part of situations such as these is that, from the perspective of egoist ethics, it’s very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to know which decision will have the greater positive effect. However, with the benefit of hindsight, we can definitively say that the decision to cover up the security breach was unethical according to the egoist ethical framework because it was detrimental to Uber’s own self interest, which is to be a thriving and successful company.

A conclusion of how the corporation may have acted ethically in the situation, according to your framework

In this situation, it is important to consider the following distinction: if Uber covers up the breach, is it reasonable for them to expect that no one will ever find out about it? Based on whether the answer to this question is yes or no, the egoist framework will have a different response to how Uber could have acted ethically in this situation.

If the answer to this question is yes, which means that it is reasonable to assume that Uber can effectively, entirely cover up the breach, it is in their best interest to go ahead and cover it up. If they are able to successfully cover it up without anyone ever knowing, their reputation will never take a hit and the company will never be negatively affected by the hack. It is worth noting that in this case the customers whose information was stolen may be negatively affected but they will never know that it was Uber’s doing so this does not affect Uber’s self-interest.

However, based on both the number of people within the company that knew about the breach and the likelihood that the hackers would publicize the attack after they received the ransom, Uber should have assumed that the breach would eventually be made public. Since this was a reasonable expectation, according to the egoist ethics framework Uber should have immediately disclosed all of the information that they had about the breach and the hackers to the FTC and other appropriate government entities and alerted all of the customers that could have been affected by the breach. Foremost, this would have been in Uber’s best self-interest because there was still an opportunity for Uber to catch the hackers, pursue legal action, and secure users’ information. Even if the hackers could not be caught, by immediately reporting the incident Uber could have minimized the negative publicity and maintained their image as an honest, transparent company. However, by not doing this, they acted against their self-interest by putting their users’ privacy at risk, losing $100,000, and damaging their public image.

Comparison

A summary for both proposed methods to solve unethical corporate behavior

The first method for solving unethical corporate behavior is making harsher legal sanctions on companies for such unethical conduct. This would include such things as mandates for companies to have legal compliance programs, which many companies have already made for themselves to protect themselves against unethical behavior within the company. These types of programs would increase internal policing by increasing surveillance and making harsher penalties. Harsher legislation that requires full disclosure of actions and makes unlawful the non-disclosure of improprieties, could serve to better police corporations and keep them honest. The idea here is that more laws will force corporations to be more ethical.

Many believe, however, that this type of method is often counterproductive and less helpful than it may seem. A second method for solving unethical corporate behavior is one based on instilling an integrity strategy in business. This type of strategy puts ethics first and outrightly places integrity as the guiding force within the company. This type of method often includes internal programs for educating employees on legal matters and practices, has a code of conduct, builds clear, organized structures for handling unethical behavior within the company, and consistent “check-ups” to ensure such standards and behaviors are being met. If a business decides to use such a method, it may be more difficult, but it will weave ethical behavior into the fabric of the organization and ideally make ethical behavior natural and unethical behavior easy to spot and handle.

A comparison between the two proposed methods

The first proposed method for solving unethical corporate behavior is making harsher legal sanctions on companies. One issue with following this method is that if something is not illegal, then the company is still free to do it without thinking about the ethics of their decision. This means that unethical behavior can still happen as long as there is no law that bans it. This type of approach also overemphasizes surveillance and punishment in order to keep employees in check with the law. This can backfire on employers when employees do not agree with or do not fully understand why a sanction was put into place, and they rebel against the system, meaning that unethical corporate behavior is not stopped.

Another solution to unethical corporate behavior that we proposed is based on integrity rather than only law. It would work by instilling an integrity strategy in the business. This approach rests on the fact there is a set of principles that guides a company and all of their decisions. These principles define the company and what it stands for. Unlike the first method, this would give employees a set of rules that are aligned with ethical behavior, rather than just the legality of a decision. This should help prevent unethical behavior, even if it is legal. Also by sharing a company’s principles publicly, this type of approach would give employees more of an understanding of why they need to follow the guidelines set before them. This understanding means that employees are much more likely to follow the rules and take the guiding principles to heart. This system places a greater focus on attitude rather than actions and consequences.

A conclusion stating which proposal is more favorable according to your ethical framework

From the point of view of a company, public knowledge of unethical behavior can cause considerable damage to the company’s image, which affects its ability to remain successful. Thus, it is imperative that the company avoid this negative publicity and damage by ensuring that business is conducted with integrity (or, that any nefarious behavior is hidden). Since the employees and leadership of a company derive value from the success of the organization, they will likely act in the best interest of the company; thus, they will choose to install a robust system of maintaining integrity within the business. This is in contrast with the first proposal of government punishment and oversight; while the oversight may reduce potentially damaging behavior, the punishments are likely damaging to the company, while the second option avoids further punishment.

Furthermore, by creating internal programs that encourage ethical behavior, the opportunity to mold the culture of the company is created, and employees may be educated on practices that benefit the company. Then, as a result of the ethical behavior, the company will be better able to attract talent and keep employee morale high, as other technology companies may not have such high standards of behavior. Without these standards, forging a company culture will be much more difficult.

Another extrinsic reward of this proposal is that the reputation of the company in the public eye may be enhanced, which will improve future business. This is especially relevant if the company is situated in industries known for unethical practices, as the ethical behavior will be seen as even more laudable. Lastly, the ability for the company to choose its own punishments for rule-breaking behavior allows it to ensure that the company is not considerably harmed. However, if the government chooses punishments, it may punish the company as a whole, which is not in many of the employee’s best interests.

Proposal

A general overview of how your ethical framework would enforce or reinforce corporate social responsibility

As seen by the examples above, egoist ethics approaches decisions regarding corporate responsibility (CSR) through the lense of how the decisions will help the company. As a result, in terms of CSR, whether in activism, lobbying, or philanthropy, egoism would advise companies to do whatever helps their bottom line. This seems to be the prevailing lense through which most corporations view CSR today: how can they use “social good” as a selling point or publicity effort.

Thus, the egoist ethical framework will often be in favor of corporate social responsibility as long as it is well publicized. Say that Comcast donated a million dollars to broadband services for poor neighborhoods while actively making billions from its monopolization that caused that same situation. In this case, if Comcast was able to run TV ads and build goodwill through its donation, it would be acting ethically. The only time its actions would be considered unethical from the egoist framework is if the donation didn’t help Comcast’s end goal.

That may have been a drastic example, but it is analogous to most CSR happening right now, and seems to be the reason CSR has made such a huge uptick in recent times. Egoism reinforces this trend, and would definitely support the use of CSR for corporate success.

A brief example of an instance where the proposed overview would correct unethical behavior

An example of how an egoist perspective would allow for the correction of unethical behavior can be found when we look at social networks and data privacy. While running a social network, companies are trusted to store a large amount of data about the users. Places they have checked in, photos they post, and messages between friends all must be saved in order to provide the best user experience. It is tempting for companies to take this data both private and public and sell it to the highest bidder. Allowing them to bring in non-ad revenue and take advantage of the large demographic pool they have collected. However, a large amount of liability is accepted by the company if anything was to go wrong with if the user data was misused. In the current privacy environment, an Egoist perspective would cause the business to reduce this liability for the sake of the company’s reputation and instead use the lack of selling data as a selling point to drive user growth. When what happens to be unethical is also bad for the company, the egoist perspective can allow for the correction of bad practices. This hypothetical social network would be encouraged to correct this behavior by notifying their users about the use and restriction levels put on their data and then launching an ad campaign promoting the control and clarity of the platform’s data usage.

It is important to realize that the egoist perspective, however, does require the company to sell data in the first place. This behavior would not have had to be corrected until it became a liability to the bottom line. Facebook for example did not have to worry about privacy nearly as much until its selling habits were exposed. If data can be sold while still maintaining a certain amount of digression to who knows the parties involved and what types of data are sold, an egoist would maintain this is the best course of action.

In this day and age, we are seeing much more social conscious consumers, and the egoist perspective reacts to those consumers needs by making social responsibility and charity almost a requirement. It is a way to drive business and, in the case of the social media company above, it is a chance to create a dedicated user base. With how many social media platforms people have to choose from, loyal users are invaluable.

WEB POST 4

Case Brief

A summary of relevant facts which could be used to determine the culpability of IBM.

There are several specifics of IBM’s involvement with Nazi Germany that are especially relevant to the determination of their culpability. The first is that they ‘designed, executed, and supplied’ the technology required by Hitler and the Nazi party to orchestrate the scale of killing desired (Black). Specifically, they used census operations and punch cards to identify Jews, disenfranchise them, and then starve and deport them. Then, during World War II, IBM supplied and maintained the machines that handled the computing of the war operation itself, including the organized killing of millions in the holocaust.

Additionally, IBM Germany was fully aware of the application of their machines throughout their time working with the Nazi party. They even adopted a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, demonstrating lack of concern with the outcome of their partnership (Black). This is even more obvious given that IBM leased the machines to the Nazis, which means that they serviced and upgraded the machines themselves; thus, they must have known about the applications of their product.

Lastly, the article by Jack Smith states that the author of the ‘IBM and the Holocaust’ found documents in 2012 demonstrating that IBM New York had managed asses of IBM Germany for years after the war - refuting IBM’s claims that they ‘lost’ the IBM Germany branch to the Nazis, and thus had no control.

A listing of the stakeholders in this controversy (as it stands today) and their positions.

There are many stakeholders in the IBM controversy as it stands today. One of the main stakeholders is Edwin Black, the author of the book that brought the IBM scandal back into the public light and subsequently resulted in a lawsuit of IBM. His position is that IBM should be help culpable for the Nazi extermination of Jews among the other causes of the Holocaust. He claims IBM was a key role in the “Final Solution” of the Nazi regime. Another stakeholder in the controversy is IBM and other internet/tech corporations. When it comes to data collection and information, these companies have a big responsibility in deciding what to do with that information. They must realize the decisions they make affect not just today’s generations but future ones, as shown by IBM’s involvement in the Holocaust and its lasting repercussions. In light of this, one more obvious stakeholder in this issue is the general public, and even more specifically, those that are marginalized for race, gender, sexual orientation, or background. Although the general public does not necessarily make the decision about what companies do with their data, they perhaps have the most to lose should a company make the wrong or an unethical decision. This puts the general public as the most important stakeholder in the issue of the IBM controversy.

A statement on the ethical culpability of IBM with respect to your ethical framework.

In terms of the Egoist Framework, IBM’s ethical culpability is rather cut and dry. As a company charged with growing profits and pushing innovation, I think to work with the Nazi’s, though not popular in the light of history, was the right decision for the company. The Nazi Party was a popular movement in Germany, a strong potential partner, and was looking to expand its influence across Europe. At face value, it is a great chance to not only bring in revenue, but a chance get in on a reoccurring and growing source of business. I think also, IBM could take comfort as well in the current information environment. Unlike today with social media and very conscious consumers, IBM could also safely conduct business from a Western Headquarters more discreetly.

Analysis of Muslim Registry Controversy

A summary of relevant facts regarding the current state of the controversy.

The idea of a Muslim registry gained significant prominence during the 2016 Presidential campaign, when then candidate Donald Trump proposed the idea. It was met with an immense amount of backlash, although core parts of the Trump base seemed to be in favor of the idea. However, despite the uproar the Muslim registry created then, it was not well known that America had already assembled something similar in the past. From 2002 until 2011, a program called National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) acted as a defacto Muslim registry, which targeted immigrants based on if their country of origin was Muslim majority. Regardless, calls to update NSEERS or create a new, more targeted Muslim registry were renewed by the President’s supporters upon his inauguration. The backlash, again, was significant. Many CEOs and employees of large tech companies signed pledges or released statements refusing to support the construction of any religious registry, and the White House has not made any public attempts to change their opinions. At the same time, however, organizations such as Amnesty International are concerned that building a Muslim registry may not require big tech companies at all. Given the amount of information available for purchase from data brokers, Amnesty predicts that with very minor work, the White House could create a registry through simply purchasing and cleaning targeted data. Thus, in the current state of the controversy, there seems to be unanimous disapproval from tech corporations and employees in supporting the registry. However, that may be inconsequential, as the White House could likely create a Muslim registry without their support.

An argument for or against the implementation of a Muslim registry by a private corporation, citing at least three specific pieces of evidence to make your point.

A company that applied the framework of egoist ethics to this issue would primarily consider the following question regarding their best self-interest: what decision will provide our company with the most short term and long term net value? It is worth noting that the impact that certain decisions have on a company’s public image also affect its value, but there is not enough room in this response to fully consider this category of impact, so we will be solely considering this through a financial lense. In doing this, egoist ethics would argue for a private corporation to implement a Muslim registry because according to history there has been a market for it, the United States has a dormant registry structure that can be restored, and there is already an immediate market that can be entered.

First of all, when assessing this decision the company would research whether or not it is likely that there has ever been a market for such a registry. Based on IBM’s involvement in the Holocaust as described in Edwin Black’s “IBM and the Holocaust,” the answer is yes. Throughout this piece Black explains how IBM’s card sorting system allowed Nazi Germany to reorganize and sort through their existing census data to create a registry of Jewish citizens. This is significant because it shows that even though the market was not necessarily apparent when IBM began developing the technology, when it emerged a powerful government was willing to pay a lot of money for it.

In fact, the United States government has shown interest in such technologies in recent years. Specifically, in Kaveh Waddell’s article “America Already Had a Muslim Registry,” Waddell explains the structure of a registry-like system that G.W. Bush instated along with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after the September 11th attacks. Although this system was only actively built and maintained between 2002 and 2005, it is not entirely dismantled. Rather, it is just in dormancy and could be added to and updated if a president feels it is necessary. This is particularly relevant because in the beginning of his term, President Trump often mentioned keeping track of Muslims, and it is reasonable to assume that he would make use of this system. Thus, if a company could compile a Muslim registry that is compatible with the existing structure that the US has from 2005, it would be a very valuable product that President Trump may be interested in in the near future.

Finally, the last piece of evidence that egoist ethics would draw upon to support a private company creating a Muslim registry is the fact that there is already a market of non-federal entities that are interested in buying personal information of citizens. Specifically, in Tanya O’Connell’s Amnesty International article, she refers to ExactData.com which allows anyone to go to their site, filter based on a few different characteristics such as marital status, and buy personal data in bulk at a price of 7.5 cents per individual. This means that if a company is able to successfully compile a registry of Muslims, they are likely able to use the same method to compile other relevant registries that could be sold in a manner similar to that of ExactData.com.

While just about everything about this concept of encouraging a company to create a Muslim registry is dubious, it is important to consider this argument because not all business leaders have strong moral compasses and it is possible that now or in the future a leader of a tech company could apply the egoist ethics framework in this manner to decide to pursue a product as morally dubious as this.

A summary of whether or not your analysis would change (and why) if the registry was implemented by a government entity instead of a corporation.

From an egoist perspective, we have two primary stakeholders in this list to consider: the government and the people that would be put on that list. The corporate entity that creates a list to add value to their company is not too far off from a government that believes it is creating a list that will keep the citizens of the country at large safe. As safety in the event of a threat is one of the promises and beliefs that citizens share, our analysis of that side of the list will remain positive. The egoist wants to be able to act in their own interest and expects others to do the same. However, when we look at the persons being put on that list, when a government is making it, that line becomes more blurred. A corporation, when making a list, can’t force anyone on it. Think about your ability to disable cookies or delete your search history. If the individual doesn’t think it is in their best interest to be on that list, they can take measure to not be on it. When you have the law, and the enforcement of the law, behind a list then it becomes significantly harder to act in your own interest. Also, consider if it were a list of Christians, would a child be added at baptism? The child has no agency to exercise his/her choice at that point. While a government creating the registry still has aspects that an egoist would support, overall, it would limit the ability of the citizens of that place to act in accordance to their best interest.

Legalist Framework Interview

A statement on how and why you believe your argumentation for or against a Muslim registry diverges from the arguments you anticipate from the Legalist framework.

The arguments above provide two different viewpoints on the implementation of a muslim registry. On one hand, if a private organization were to implement the registry, egoist ethics seems to say that this would be advantageous for the company in that it could sell the registry to the government to increase its profits. From the perspective of legalist ethics, I would assume this situation would be unethical because it takes advantage of the possible lack of resources of the government. If the government was able to implement the registry themselves, they wouldn’t have to deal with any fees or extra charges that the private organization might tack on and could therefore save money. In this case, I believe legalist ethics would diverge from the egoist ethics perspective.

As stated in the above section, there are two different stakeholders whose viewpoints should be considered when deciding whether it is ethical for the government to implement a muslim registry. I would argue, however, that the legalist ethics deals strictly with the government viewpoint. With this viewpoint in mind, egoist ethics and legalist ethics would seem to agree that the government creating a muslim registry would be an ethical decision. A government-created muslim registry would give the government more power and authority in governing and maintaining the safety of its citizens. From the perspective of these two frameworks, this is in no way unethical.

A summary of the statements made by the Legalist Framework. State whether your initial thoughts were accurate or not (and why).

In my interview with someone from the legalist ethical framework, a different perspective was offered on the creation of a muslim registry by a private organization. Instead of focusing on the use of the registry by the government, the legalist I interviewed focused on the use of the registry by the private organization. He said that, were the private corporation to use the muslim registry on their own to commit acts that break the law, the formation of the registry in this case would be seen as unethical because it is being directly used to break the law. This is a perspective that our previous analysis had not considered in that the private corporation may be developing the muslim registry not to sell to the government, but to use with their own purposes. With this in mind, it would seem that my initial thoughts were both correct and incorrect. They were incorrect in the sense that, if a private corporation were to develop a muslim registry and use it for illegal means, legalist ethics would consider this unethical because it breaks the law, and egoist ethics would consider it unethical because breaking the law is typically not in the best interest of a corporation. In this way, they do not diverge, but agree that this scenario is unethical. However, my initial thoughts were also correct to an extent, because there are other areas in which a private corporation might benefit from the development of a muslim registry without actually breaking the law, meaning this action is ethical from the egoist perspective. However, the legalist ethics representative I interviewed said legalist ethics cannot really say whether this would be ethical or unethical. While they don’t necessarily give conflicting viewpoints in this scenario, legalist ethics has nothing to say about a situation that egoists would readily call ethical.

In the case of the government developing the muslim registry, my initial thoughts were confirmed in that, because the registry might benefit the government in some way, it is ethical from the perspective of both legalist and egoist ethics.

Epicurean Framework Interview

A statement on how and why you believe your argumentation for or against a Muslim registry diverges from the arguments you anticipate from the Epicurean framework.

As stated previously, from an egoist perspective, private corporations absolutely have an incentive to create a Muslim registry. However, I believe that those from the epicurean framework would wholeheartedly disagree with this egoist perspective. Epicureans believe in maximizing pleasure, especially mental pleasure. It does not seem that building a Muslim registry would would be maximizing pleasure. It might increase profits for the few people within the private corporation, but could massively negatively affect the happiness of those on the registry because of what could be done with that information in the hands of the government. That being said, epicureans who believe that a Muslim registry could lead to the increased safety of the country might think that the creation of the Muslim registry would lead to the most happiness because of peace of mind. From an individual epicurean’s point of view though, I would think that they would be very against such a thing because of the possible pain it could bring. Additionally, I would expect epicureans to dislike the possibility of the government creating such a registry as well because the government is supposed to protect its inhabitants, bringing them pleasure, not making them afraid, causing them pain. An egoist might agree with this because the government would possibly be limiting individuals to act in their own self interest.

A summary of the statements made by the Epicurean Framework. State whether your initial thoughts were accurate or not (and why).

After interviewing a member of the epicurean framework group, it seems that my initial thoughts were mostly accurate. The epicureans vehemently disagreed with the creation of a Muslim registry both from the private sector and the government. In the private sector, the representative I spoke to stated that creating the registry could bring the pleasure of more money to the the company, but epicureanism focuses largely on the pleasure of others and thus the pain caused to those affected by the creation of the registry would be far worse. This is what I thought originally, thought the epicureans emphasize the pleasure of others more than I had previously expected. From a governmental perspective, the representative I spoke to stated that the creation of a Muslim registry would be especially unethical in this case. This was the case because the program previously implemented didn’t increase the government’s ability to solve terrorist-related crime at all. So the epicureans believe that even those who feel the registry would bring pleasure because it would make our country safer, are wrong. This was similar to what I expected but not exactly the same. The epicureans strongly believe that the government has a responsibility to the happiness of those in its country and that this registry does exactly that. I was focused more on the fear aspect of the registry, whereas the representative of the framework I spoke to emphasized how such a registry would have no impact on safety in addition to contributing to the pain of many people who live in the US. Another interesting note made by the epicureans is that because the program doesn’t actually help make the country any safer, it is actually causing pain to taxpayers. Taxpayer funds are wasted on a program that doesn’t work, causing pain to those who payed money that went into doing something useless. This was not a point that I had considered when evaluating what the epicureans would think about the Government and the Muslim registry.

WEB POST 5

Summary

A listing of each key group of stakeholders in the issue of net neutrality

There are a number of stakeholders in the issue of net neutrality, especially given that different groups have a lot on the line when it comes to whether net neutrality persists or not. The ISP’s, or Internet Service Providers, are the first major stakeholders. The removal of net neutrality allows them to start charging for certain services and deciding what content they make available to whom for what price. The end of net neutrality gives them a significant amount of power on the internet, even more than they used to have. Businesses outside the ISP’s are also a major stakeholder in net neutrality. For instance, Netflix could face charges for it’s content, making net neutrality unfavorable to business. This goes for many content providers, small and large businesses alike. The American people are a very important stakeholder in this issue. Net neutrality keeps the internet open and inexpensive for Americans, allowing for freedom of speech and equal access to content for the same price (or free). Many argue that removing net neutrality opens up innovation in the space and reduces the barrier of entry, allowing emerging companies to compete with the ISP behemoths, but overall, Americans are scared of what getting rid of net neutrality might mean, making this a high stakes issue for them. Lastly, the government is also a stakeholder in net neutrality. Some argue that it’s easier for the government to monitor the internet if it’s open and free.

A summary of their core beliefs and position on the issue

ISPs - Internet Service Providers believe in the optimization of the internet. Though the internet was founded on the principals of Net Neutrality, the prevalence of it highlights the need for innovation. By repealing Net Neutrality, ISP can make the internet better for all. They can give increased speed towards the sites that people use the most, and not have to worry about indexing sites that only receive a few hundred visitors.

Internet Business - The beliefs of Internet Business vary based on their user amount and the products that they are delivering. Companies that deliver content through the internet require Net Neutrality in order to keep their business competitive and to allow for an even playing field. This is very important to up and coming sites, as they are treated the same as the large players and it protects them from being bullied out of competition with steep start up costs. Other companies may stand to generate profit from Net Neutrality. Amazon for example could throttle competitors like Netflix, who actually host their content on Amazon Web Services, either forcing them to pay more, or slowing them down and forcing them to build up their own hosting hardware.

American People - The American people hold a core belief in the importance of Net Neutrality. It is part of the American Dream that an individual can stand up and compete against a large company, no matter the circumstances. Net Neutrality promotes innovation and allows for every small business to have the same access to the Internet, a service which is we believe is quickly become a necessary resource for all people.

Governments - Governments have been split on Net Neutrality, however no matter how it is enforced, government must believe in the ability to uphold the ruling. I think it is in best interest of the government to support Net Neutrality. This will make it easier for them to enforce, with similar policies and less private interest. It also protects individual citizens from the potential of monopolistic activity from companies like AWS.

Analysis of Deplatforming

A summary of the opposition to deplatforming

Last year saw a great deal of individuals and groups that were viewed by the public and social media platforms as promoting hate speech and threatening content were removed from said social media sites in what is referred to as deplatforming. While many see this as the first step to ending hate speech and bigotry in the world, there are many who oppose this view and hold to the idea that deplatforming is a dangerous game. One such argument claims that deplatforming a person does not necessarily mean they will not find other avenues to publish their content nor stop believing in that content all together. Say someone gets kicked off of all social media sites, that does not stop them from having their own website to post their content. This is especially worrisome in cases of hate speech in that hate speech posted on social media is met with instant refutation, which would not be the case on a website run by the hate speech creators. If someone cannot see the refutation of such hate speech claims, they may be more easily swayed to join the movement or side that the hate speech calls for. In this way, deplatforming becomes a temporary solution for a much bigger problem. On a similar note, some argue that deplatforming can lead to more extremism from the deplatformed groups in the form of violence as retaliation or other more extreme viewers speaking out in a person’s place. Additionally, the opposition to deplatforming claims that it silences debate and discussion over key policies or movements. When looking at America specifically, this can be troublesome to the so called democracy and its touting of free speech.

A summary of the proponents of deplatforming

Others see deplatforming as a necessary step towards maintaining a safe and inclusive internet. America is a no doubt in a divisive era, and often social media is the frontlines of that controversy. Hate speech, harassment, misinformation, and even threats now play an outsized role in the mainstream of the internet. As a result, many see deplatforming as the only way to help stifle these issues before they become more serious. The Alex Jones controversy is perhaps the best known deplatforming story. Jones, who has harassed parents of school shooting victims, made up government conspiracies, and essentially led his followers to sometimes seriously threaten the safety of others, was deplatformed from many social media and content sites. The argument was simple: Jones was a threat to public safety, and by deplatforming him, some of that threat would be mitigated. This argument is shared by a vast majority of people: if someone is a threat, they should be removed. However, many proponents of deplatforming believe that it should be taken further. If say, a white supremacist site is publishing purely opinion that is negative about people of color, many argue that they should be removed too. Since social media sites are private entities, they have every legal right to remove those who engage in hate speech. Proponents of deplatforming argue that they also have a moral responsibility to do so, both to ensure the inclusion of their customers, and also to make progress in society.

An analysis either in favor or against deplatforming, citing specific elements of your ethical framework to make your point

Considering that egoism refers to acting primarily according to one’s interests, rather than for others, egoist’s stance on deplatforming depends on which party they are a member of. Executives and employees at information dissemination companies, such as Twitter or Facebook, are likely in favor of deplatforming, as long as the act of deplatforming does not result is a significant net loss of users. This is because the company is most interested in running a viable business, and hosting content that is extremist or calls for violence likely hurts reputation enough to harm the company. So, in this case, major companies would be in favor of deplatforming. However, if someone affiliated with a large group were to be deplatformed (say, a popular political candidate), then many users may switch platforms too, hurting the business. In this case, egoist members of the platform would argue against deplatforming. In terms of real-world examples, a company like Google or Twitter may choose to operate in countries with oppressive regimes while opting not to deplatform political leaders within the regime, as doing so may lead to the platform being restricted in that country.

Egoist individuals would either be in favor of or against deplatforming depending on their personal beliefs. If their views disagreed with the individuals or groups being deplatformed (Infowars, for example), then they would most likely agree with the deplatforming, as the spread of those beliefs could lead to policies or actions that they do not agree with. However, egoists with beliefs that are contrary to the mainstream would be strongly against deplatforming, as it would pose a threat to their ability to quickly spread their message to a large audience, or to hear from others with their worldview.

Proposition

A summary of facts about online echo chambers

Echo chambers are environments such that their content reflects the viewpoints and opinions of its users. Consequently, echo chambers constantly provide their users with confirmation bias and shield them from differing views and ideas. Typically when echo chambers are discussed, it is with respect to social media platforms. While social media companies aim to act as a medium to connect users with the incredible amount of free information that the internet has to offer, they are confronted by two competing interests: providing free and impartial information and attaining enough screen-time and “clicks” to produce a profit. These two conflicting interests are most accentuated when discussing echo chambers.

In order to make the social media platform enjoyable and keep users engaged, it is in each company’s best interest to provide users with groups and content that take user-interests into account to provide information that the user likes and disclude information that they do not like. Consequently, the social media communities and personalization algorithms that do this lead content viewers to narrower choices- choices that reaffirm their existing ideas opinions. The danger of this is when people spend more time in echo chambers the views of the echo chamber become more polarized and they become less open to competing views. Since more and more people in society have begun immersing themselves in echo chambers with social media’s rise in prominence, more and more of our society is being affected by echo chambers.

A summary of recent deplatforming attempts and their outcomes

One of the more notable recent examples of deplatforming was the deplatforming of Alex Jones in the summer of 2018. Over about a week in August of 2018, Alex Jones was removed from over 5 social media platforms, including Facebook, Youtube, Spotify, and Mailchimp. Most of the bans were due to common occurrences of hate speech and harassment. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had previously argued for keeping Alex Jones on the platform, however after all the bans from major social media companies, Twitter also banned Alex Jones. Jones attempted to use the bans as a rallying cry for free speech in america, calling himself “banned from the internet”.

A large amount of recent deplatforming attempts have been bans of various alt-right groups and leaders who propagated misogynist, anti-Semitic, and racist attitudes. Some have been successful, such as the ban of Milo Yiannopoulos from Twitter in 2016. He made multiple posts on Facebook about the effects that the deplatforming has had on his life, including sending him into over $2 million worth of debt. However, for those that might not have the notoriety or fame of Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos, deplatforming attempts have only been temporarily successful at removing people who spread hate through social media because of the ease of creating another account under a different name. While surely people will notice if Alex Jones creates a new twitter account, lesser-known people that are banned for hate speech and harassment don’t illicit the same social pressure on big social media companies, meaning they don’t work as hard to uphold the ban.

An argument whether deplatforming could affect online echo chambers

Deplatforming could and has played a significant role in the presence and strength of online echo chambers. To understand how, it is important to take a look and how we define these communities and how they are influenced by an idea. I think the most notable example could be Alex Jones. In the wake of national disaster and especially during the most recent presidential race it was clear that Mr. Jones was not doing his part to present a reasonable over even truthful account of the events. This eventually lead him to be kick off of several platforms. Initially, this reduced the scope and severity of the echo chamber; they have lost a voice that they were used to seeing and believing in their news feeds. This can help keep the scope of influence limited as the credibility of the chamber as a whole has been reduced. You make sure that the conversation that exists in the chambers is limited to parts of the site and to parts of the internet.

Though the effect on echo chambers is not always positive. When a influencer within a community is driven to use another platform, this can also cause those who believe in his/her cause to be driven to follow them to greener pastures. This could then result in an echo chamber that exists without any chance of conflicting information breaking in. It becomes a far more complex issue once you start to realize that the echo chamber can be curated against. People who participate in echo chambers being taken off a platform can not guarantee that the negative effects of the chamber will go away.

WEB POST 6

Summary

A listing of at least three key groups of stakeholders in the issue of job automation

The issue of job automation is incredibly wide-reaching. Aside from the immediate impact that it has on the dichotomy and efficiency of companies, it directly affects the current and future employees of companies and indirectly affects governments and consumers. Thus, these four parties- companies, employees, governments, and consumers- are the four key groups of stakeholders in the issue of job automation.

A summary of the effects of job automation on each of these stakeholders

Companies - For companies, Job Automation is going to be a constant thought for the foreseeable future. Not just looking at their bottom line, as has been mentioned in earlier posts, companies will have to look at how Job Automation will affect their brand. Will the increase in efficiency outweigh the potential of bad press as they could have to lay off a worker who now has no role to fill? Companies are also going to have to look at what parts of work they can implement automation. Production lines are an easy solution, but I think the real winners in automation will be found in those that can take things like paperwork, oversight, and Quality Control and turn those into an automated process, allowing humans to be creative and impactful without the weight of meaningless and repetitive tasks.

Workers - Regardless if their jobs can be replaced by automation or not, workers will have to adapt as the world becomes more automated. Whether it is getting used to working with interfaces or next to robots, or looking into how to re-train as the workforce develops. I think workers that adapt well will have the ability to be empowered by automation. Though there will be some who are worse off, we will also see more people able to take control of their lives and potentially work less due to automation. With our generation very focused on the “purpose” of work, automation will allow us to work on things that matter and challenge us, not things that weigh us down.

Governments - Governments have the potential to be greatly affected by job automation. On one hand, government systems are notorious for paperwork, repeated steps, and the requirement for oversight and approvals. Automation has the potential to help solve and simplify a lot of those processes and with that, allow the government to run smarter and faster. The government also will have a large part in the protection of workers as automation spreads throughout the workforce. They need to be protected and re-educated. They will need to know that their job will not disappear after 40 years of working in an industry. Not everyone will be better off because of automation, but it is in the government that we put our trust that those who lose their jobs will not go without aid. Governments need to make sure that the efficiencies that companies gain will be translated into an increase in value that is distributed to those that need it the most.

Consumers - Consumers have the most to gain from job automation. As processes improve and companies can produce more with less cost of labor, those price savings, in theory, should be passed on to consumers. Job automation will lead to creating cheaper products, with computer guaranteed quality, at a never ending rate. Consumers also will see job automation potentially de-humanize parts of their life and will have to adjust for that. For some people, seeing a barista at Starbucks or someone who helps them at a store is a big part of the experience and sometimes an important tool. Consumers will have to adjust as the world changes, but things might get a bit easier eventually.

A brief statement on the culpability of engineers in designing job automation system when human workers lose their jobs

If we are representing the engineers in this scenario, they are only morally culpable if they end up automating their own jobs, or in some other way hurt their own self-interest. This more complex than the expected egoist take: “automate everything because it’s your job.” Instead, engineers need to think carefully about how they might be acting against their self interest, and thus immorally, if they automate some jobs. For example, automating food jobs might result in a lower quality of food or rising prices in non-automated food. This would be against the self interest of engineers who enjoy good food, even if it was their job. Worse would be engineers who end up automating engineering jobs. Very soon the consequences of their work could be used to replace them, which is obviously against self interest. Since engineers are consumers, too, their moral culpability in an egoist framework rests on whether the tools they develop for automation harm them and other consumers.

Analysis of Job Automation

A summary of the opposition to job automation

One major opposition to job automation is that of the effect it will have on the job market and those that are only qualified to work minimum wage jobs. If all the jobs that are normally done by humans, such as bagging french fries at McDonalds, are replaced by robots, then many people would be left without jobs and really any avenue to make a living for themselves. This can cause more people to be on the streets as well as lots of emotional and physical harm to these replaced employees. There are people in the world that do not have the capacity or the background to do any other job besides the ones that are being targeted by job automation and many argue this should be heavily considered when looking at developing and implementing job automation. Another argument against replacing humans with technology is that those who are highly-skilled workers may be put into lower paying service industry jobs or might fall victim to permanent unemployment. In a world of job automation, there are two types of people, those who control computers and those who will be controlled by computers. In this way, people who have college degrees in things other than computer science, engineering, or in some cases business, will not have the necessary skills to have a job in society. This is a huge concern. The last argument against job automation is that our current political atmosphere and economy is not equipped to make the kinds of decisions that come along with the massive amount of change that job automation would bring. The sort of change promised by job automation would leave many things up for debate. For example, how do you legally classify a robot as an employee and what laws govern its treatment and freedoms? Furthermore, many people would be unemployed and decisions will have to be made on how to redistribute wealth to support them. These are large political and economic implications that cannot be ignored when discussing job automation, especially since it seems like the world is unready for these changes.

A summary of the proponents of job automation

The end of the 20th century had many promises, we explored the internet, we could talk to people around the world, and we started to see computers and robots take over the jobs that we used to do. It set the groundwork for companies that have made things like looking up information in an encyclopedia something we used to do when we were little, before it could be googled in a computer about the size of your hand. Job automation is the process through which jobs that previously required tedious effort can now be done by a machine that doesn’t get tired and doesn’t make mistakes. Automating jobs has the potential to revolutionize the work that we are able to do. We can now give every office worker a partner that can search through a large amount of the worlds knowledge, and can do math without getting bored. We chose to embrace the industrial revolution and that allowed the world to develop at a pace that has yet to be replicated. Job automation isn’t coming after the art, athletics, or design, it’s taking away work that humans don’t really want to do. It can eliminate the need for farmers to spend hours on end in a field, it can prevent a workplace accident on a car assembly line, and it can reduce the fatigue that the people delivering the mail feel when it’s too cold, too hot, or just uncomfortable outside. Finally, there is the argument that jobs will actually be created through automation. First, there are going to need to be people to service and maintain all of the infrastructure. Secondly, and I think more importantly it is going to take people with industry experience to design robots or software that can do their job. The people who will benefit from having to do less stressful work will also benefit from being a part of the process and reaping the economic benefit of doing so.

An analysis either in favor or against job automation, citing specific elements of your ethical framework to make your point

The egoist perspective on job automation depends on who’s egoist perspective one takes. An analysis based on the perspective of an American making minimum wage is going to be strikingly different from an analysis based on a highly-educated American with a PhD in computer science, for instance. Because egoism is based on personal gain and desire, people are going to have differing opinions. An egoist who views job automation as putting their job in jeopardy is almost certainly going to be against job automation. It would not be in their best interest for their job to be automated because might be difficult or impossible for them to find a job and support themselves. For those whose jobs wouldn’t be threatened by job automation, the prospect of efficiently produced goods and robotically reliable services, it would be in their best interest to be in favor of job automation. From a business owner’s perspective, there’s less liability if employees are robots, and much error would be removed from processes, so they would almost certainly be in favor of job automation if taking an egoist perspective; it would be better for business. Egoists benefit from the improvement of their societies and positive technological innovation. In the same vein, egoists might have a vested interest in the well-being of a large portion of members in society who would be negatively affected by job automation because this could rock the national economy and culture in a way that an egoist would find displeasing. We have no way of knowing exactly how the process of job automation is going to shake out, but from an egoist perspective, if this process happens slowly and finds a way to divert the workforce whose jobs are taken to another productive area of a society, then egoists would absolutely be in favor of job automation. In the A World Without Work article, the author gives an anecdote at the very end concerning Jesko, a man whose life was nearly destroyed by the removal of the steel industry jobs in his hometown, but who was consequently forced to go to school and became a teacher, which was his true passion. While a rosy, feel-good story that likely doesn’t describe the typical result of such troubling times, it serves as an image of the potential job automation may have for every individual. If job automation could produce a society in which people could spend more time pursuing their passions and less time working a boring, dangerous, or laborious job, then that would be positive for everyone and an egoist would absolutely say that that is in their best interest, and in society’s best interest. But it is unlikely that job automation occurs in such an idyllic way. People will likely lose jobs or suffer lack of purpose and the economy could take a massive hit. For a large part of society, job automation would negatively affect them, and it would not be in their best interest for it to happen. But it’s possible that it would be in the best interest of their children or their children’s children, if we can figure out how to make job automation a positive force in our society.

Analysis of Self-Driving Cars

A summary of the opposition to self-driving cars

With the implementation of widespread use of self-driving cars, our entire landscape would change. Our entire culture around commuting would shift. People would probably be more likely to take their own car than to carpool or take public transit because it’s much simpler and faster to plug in an address and ride. This would lead to a detrimental environmental impact as more carbon dioxide is released into the air. Self-driving cars would lead to more freetime to do things, but companies could potentially take that extra time and expect their employees to be at work for longer. In order to have the most efficient highways, that would require for their to be only self-driving cars. Would driving then become illegal? There are also some people who just enjoy driving and would be upset if that was taken away from them. One big problem about the implementation of self-driving cars that affects us today is that some people, such as innocent pedestrians, are going to have to die in order for them to be fully implemented and work correctly.

A summary of the proponents of self-driving cars

Taking human error out of the equation when it comes to driving cars can have multiple benefits including better traffic flow, fewer accidents, and even less roadkill. With cars that can communicate with each other and know where each other are going, there is no need for things such as stop lights and traffic signs. Self-driving cars could communicate with each other to implement an algorithm that minimizes the stopping time of all cars that might cross through an intersection at one time. This would greatly reduce the amount of time spent sitting at traffic lights and could reduce the amount of traffic in general. No only would this kind of intersection monitoring save time, it could make these intersections safer. According to the New York Times article, 43% of car accidents in the US occur at intersections. If these intersections could be algorithmically managed and free of human error (that is, the human error of those driving the cars) then these intersections could potentially become much safer for all drivers.

Beyond humans, self driving cars could also create a safer environment for animals. Humans may not be able to see well at night, but cars can be equipped with technology that can see better than humans in darkness and can sense an animal that is on a collision course with the vehicle. By seeing these accidents before they happen, self-driving cars can decrease the amount of roadkill that happens each year because humans don’t have the capabilities to see the accidents happen as soon as technology could.

With safe self-driving cars, we could also eliminate crashes caused by distracted drivers. People wouldn’t have to worry about focusing on the road and could text or maybe even catch up on some sleep while their car delivers them to their destination. The time and focus that people typically spend driving could be dedicated to more fulfilling activities such as socializing or forming a new hobby. Not needing to take a break to sleep, self-driving cars could make cross country trips much faster than human drivers and deliver goods to people faster and more efficiently. As long as self-driving cars are implemented with safe algorithms, they can have a number of positive effects.

An analysis either in favor or against self-driving cars, citing specific elements of your ethical framework to make your point

Given that the egoist framework would advocate that each person should make the decision to support self-driving cars based on their own self-interest, people’s decisions on the matter may vary. However, given that self-driving cars will likely (eventually) lead to fewer traffic accidents and fatalities, as well as a number of convenient features, most people would choose to support them. These features may include the ability to do work or relax while in the self-driving car, being able to be dropped off in high-traffic areas, being guaranteed to have a ride home after late nights (at the library, of course), and increased personal safety. Additionally, if a large grid of self-driving cars were implemented, the economy may pivot away from a personal ownership model, and instead allow individuals to essentially rent cars from the network. Given that enough people support this infrastructure, it is likely that the costs associated with travel by car could decrease, especially when taking into account that the unpredictable costs of car repair would be distributed amongst all users. Thus, a majority of egoists would support using a self-driving network, as it would provide a direct benefit to their lives.

However, there may be a small group of users who would still support having personal, traditional cars. As we saw in class, some people enjoy that act of driving enough that they would stay attached to traditional cars. Also, cars are seen in our society as a sign of independence, especially to teenagers gaining the ability to drive. While these people may not resist a partial adoption of self-driving cars, they would fight for the right to still own and operate a traditional car on public roads.

WEB POST 7

Net Neutrality

The internet has become a place where people communicate, do business, expresses political ideas and more. As it grows in prevalence within our lives, we need to decide if we want ISP’s to build a system of pipes that they can squeeze or a system of roads with access to all information. This is important to egoist because it’s important to decide what’s in our best interest and what system will allow us to pursue our own goals. Net Neutrality, in terms of the Egoist Framework, is ethically based on your position. As a small company, Net Neutrality allows for a truly fair playing field where all sites and services are given the same chance to compete. As a service provider, however, allowing the speed of the net to drive revenue and business is an ethical choice as it can be used as to a great of the company. Egoists allow for no universal ethical solution and the final ruling will depending on who in the real world gets to make the rules of enforcement.

Computer-Assisted Warfare

There is a lot of information to suggest that machines and computers can play a role in war. As technologies role becomes more prevalent it is important to address the questions of what is in the best interest of the people involved, and how technology will affect the people not only fighting but who will face the end result. From an egoist perspective of an average American citizen, using machines and computers at war could absolutely be in my best interest. If such technology allows the government to do their job more effectively and keep the country safer, then it would be in my best interest for them to do so. Even if I was a soldier using such technology, it is very likely that using machines and computers in warfare would be in my best interest since I probably wouldn’t have to put myself in as much physical danger. The parties who could be negatively affected by computer-assisted warfare are those who might be caught in the cross-fire of these weapons. Some may argue however that computer-assisted weapons could be more accurate and less destructive than traditional weaponry. This might not be true today, but could be true in the future. For the average American or soldier, though, it would be in their best interest to use machines and computers in warfare because they lose nothing from it and it’s safer for them.

Diversity in the technology sector

Diversity has been a complicated issue for technology to address. It has been hard for many to break into what has traditionally been a field of white men. As technology becomes easier for people to use and develop it is important to address what teams are most effective. For an egoist, the concern surrounding diversity is who the diversity benefits and who it harms. As are many issues in egoism, the ethics of diversity depend on who the actor is. An egoist might argue that a white male should be against diversity in tech, as that would harm their employment chances. Conversely, an egoist might argue that a minority woman should be for diversity in tech, as, currently, the odds are stacked against her. However, for this purpose, we will call the corporation the actor. In this case, egoists would be in favor of diversity, as it has been shown in the past to objectively help team outcomes in big corporations.

Algorithm For Egoist Framework

Inputs/Assumptions

The two main inputs to the algorithm are the person and the action. The egoist framework is applied from the perspective of the person given as input. We assume that the person in this case knows exactly what is in their self interest and that we can know what the outcomes of a particular action are. These assumptions are made in order to simplify the algorithm and convey the purpose of the egoist framework. In practice, however knowing the outcomes and knowing what is in one’s own self interest are two of the most difficult aspects of the egoist framework and can sometimes be impossible to determine.

Class Person{

public:
string * get_selfinterests()
void doAction(Action action)


private:
string self_interests[]
string type = egoist

}

int main(){

Action action;
Person person;
if action.result is in person.self_interests():
* person.doAction(action);
else:
* return;