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New Jersey Institute Of Technology *
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334
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Philosophy
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Jan 9, 2024
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PHIL-334 Final Exam Take Home Component Question 1: Grade your performance in this class, what you think you rated, focusing on
explaining the interpreting the ethics of your part in the class. Please note that this should keep in mind an A would have learned the full range of concepts and vocabulary from all the readings, would have participated in class discussions (and online analogs), performed well on exams, completed required response writings, attended most if not all class while arriving on time, and kept detailed research with written notes and writing of their project/paper. Consider how hard you 'could' have worked, what other factors and choices, what you could have learned, what you think you learned compared to others. Pay particular attention to analyzing with course concepts such as reflexivity and intentionality whether your actions were satisfactory to meeting the aims/goals you set. You must explain your answers and you must refer to course concepts.
My performance in this class has been satisfactory to say the least, I could have done more reading and taken more time to understand the questions on the quizzes. I did all the reading thoroughly, did all my responses to the best of my ability and honesty. I did learn a lot in the class a whole, because it has taught me about liability and responsibility. The other concepts are a part of learning such as consequentialism, utilitarianism, and deontological, but it has taught me about thinking about what I will do in the future. It has taught me if it hurts someone, it is wrong
and it is my duty to bring it up to proper authorities, regardless of the consequences that will come out of them for me. From the “trolley problem” question, to IBM holocaust to the incidents in Sarajevo, all those engineers/people did things that were right, because of our duty to humanity. This class has taught me to think critically and conduct actions based on right and wrong vs. cost/benefit. Question 2: One of the key aspects of making ethical arguments is that the components of the argument need to match or line up. Actions are partially defined by the goal, or intention, and partially by the outcome or effect. Particularly in engineering, this link or match between what one is trying to ‘do’ in the action and what is expected to result is important. For example, when we talked about the Amish, their system of governance of technology is aiming to make their community more tightly connected, and the mechanism to do this is limitation of technologies that would move them farther away from each other or change the culture. Drawing on your background knowledge,
course materials and readings (A) describe a problem that a technology might be expected to solve. (B) Describe two significantly different contexts and situations within which the problem and a technology may be found, and (C)
explain how different people or groups of people in that context would experience the problem differently and may want different solutions. (D) Consider how the example technology you select may produce different political/ethical effects or consequences to the different groups. Finally, (E) suggest a way that the technology could be modified to balance the different definitions of the problems, values and possible solutions that might make the technology more ethically satisfactory in the complex situation.
a). Technology can solve a lot of problems, but it can’t solve world starvation(questionable). I mean recently I read there was a group of people at the Dubai Expo 2020 that were giving people money, as they were solving problems for human beings. They gave money to a gentleman from Sweden, who created an app that helps blind people see, with what we see, using landmarks, and steps we have taken and so forth; they gave money to a man in Vietnam who came up with a rice crop, that grows faster and with lesser water, which will increase the turnover for rice production. All these technological changes don’t change the fact that around 15% of the world population starves every day. The higher production of rice doesn’t necessarily mean it will make it to those in need, it means there will
be just more to waste. b). Online search and spam in your Instagram account or Facebook account isn’t heard of these days. In fact, this is new marketing style used by entrepreneurs and anyone trying to sell something online, but through out of this our privacy is constantly neglected. For example, me searching for schools while I was applying at NJIT, and till today I
constantly get bombarded with ads for schools on all my social media accounts. Another one would be constant connectivity with our loved ones and the world, but this also gives the government, service providers and media-
marketing companies access to our locations. c). Young and old people of today face and deal with problems differently. The younger population doesn’t mind seeing a psychiatrist and getting the proper help, while the older population who doesn’t believe in depression and stress, think it is all a waste of money and time and nothing that a drink and talk can’t solve. On the same case if there are interpersonal problems, the young population go out of their way to embarrass the other party on social media or other means, while the older population would have the actual conversation with them and see if they can resolve the issue.
d). Data analysis is a big deal these days, people with certification or degrees in the field are getting handsomely rewarded for their skill. Every time we shop, research, type something on our phones our data is being gathered and things are being in turn sent to us to in terms of other products of the same type, use etc. The effects of this are if someone is trying find if their child has an ear infection or not are bombarded with ads of different kinds of medications, on the contrary if someone with a serious problem is faced with the same, they might neglect to follow through because of their thinking that it is spam. e). Technology can be modified to fit the problem, as we have seen in the past 2 years since Covid-19 came into our lives, government agencies are constantly coming up with ways to keep track of their vaccinated and unvaccinated population data. They are coming up with apps to alert of areas with high concentrations of unvaccinated with infected people and so on. Some of the way is tracking employees and their timed work due to remote work capabilities. Increasing bandwidth for homes for people working from home and investments needed to be made by service providers. Mobile security packages so now people can stop spam calling you example (AT&T call protect). Virtual Private Network companies so employees can log into remote servers without putting their private data out of the hands of people who would want to exploit that data. Question 3: QUESTION #3 - "Your Boss Says to do something you think is unethical." An 'accepted ethical system' which you have knowingly taken on by assuming a profession or role voluntarily should be higher priority than preceding personal ethics in the arena that profession or role applies. So, for a professional or role activity -once you
have accepted a job/role specific ethics you generally must follow those ethics despite any other ethical system or duty you hold. This is in part because the other ethics, your personal or culturally determined ethics, generally support doing what you promise, or being honest, and therefore also demand you do what you said you would do. If
you've accepted a professional position/job, you're directed in professional ethics to show concern for the company, but this does not stop you from your concern for the public welfare and safety. When an employer/company you work with is doing something you consider ethically questionable you may have a conflict between duty to employer based on your contract, and duty to the public based on your profession. In some cases, you will have formal mechanisms such as an oversight board or regulatory agency to report the questionable behavior, but even if you don't have an official way to respond to the conflict you may still have choices. Referring to ethics, map out three possible ways to respond to a conflict like this, where the specific employer is the source of a conflict and explain the ways, you would need to measure or gather information, or explanation of selection between duties. If you are in a situation where the professional/role based accepted ethics should apply, such as a professional work task, but where the action would be unacceptable to apply according to your other ethics, such as where you believe the demands of the profession would cause too great a harm, or would compromise important personal beliefs- what should you do?
Morals are something that seems to be eluding most of us these days because it guides many of us to do bad
things. Hackers trying to get data from people, phishing emails, ongoing scams etc. Moral principles are something that are required by all because it stops us from doing stupid things. Just like ethics for engineers’ morals are sort of a guiding light that shows us the tunnel we need to choose. Question 4: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE GOOD- Respond to the following case with an interpretation of how to balance the needs of public and private good, public, and private rights, at the national and international level around
the example of the purchase of twitter. Twitter is a communication platform, used by millions of people. An Individual, Elon Musk is buying Twitter. This presents an ethical problem for our technological governance. Should it be considered ethical for Musk to buy this communication platform? American Society and Law argues that personal and private ownership, including the right to sell what you own, is a basic societally defined economic right. As is the right to seek profit within the market using capital and property you own. Therefore, to limit his right
to buy it and make profit would be disagreeing with a basic ethical guideline/foundational principle of the society. Twitter is such a large communication platform, and so many people are reliant on it in so many ways, that it may be
said to have an obligation to protect "free speech" and there is reason to believe that Musk will change the possibility of living up to the right to free expression and communication that is a basic right defined in American Society and Law. He has access to control of the platform, setting standards for banning, and use, and will as an individual control the ‘speech’ of all users. He has acknowledged his intention to use mechanisms to advance his own profit on the platform (which may come at the expense of Free Speech.) These individual rights are always balanced against the public welfare, and societal good. Musk argues he will be better at public speech because he will allow absolute free speech, include in elimination of moderation in the technology- moderation is generally used to prevent harmful and illegal forms of speech like fraud or lies, hate-speech, or illegal threats. The current
system has been developed to meet legal requirements and public interest for the common good. He has said he will eliminate it. Twitter in general and this change may have significant effects on American politics, political discourse, public understanding of issues, and directly affects individuals. For example, by allowing threats and attacks on someone by another group. Referring to this example, suggest an interpretation of how the country might balance these competing demands.
Twitter has been one of the last if not the only social media companies that have kept markets ads to a minimum. Maybe it is why they are not the most profitable of the companies, even though they have 100 million tweets a day, and 217 million daily active users. Maybe that is why Elon Musk has decided to buy it for a sum of $44 billion and has stated recently that he will impose a charge for government users and corporations to make Twitter more profitable. This will mark end to the last social media companies that people can speak freely on without being bombarded with ads and marks the beginning of capitalist social media. EC #1 : Give a definition in your own words of one key concept/vocabulary word from this class that you consider may useful in decision-making and thinking after this class?
Consequentialism is one of the things I consider useful in decision making and thinking, because it will constantly make me consider the fact about consequences of my actions. What I do will lead to …, How will me creating this product help or hurt the community as whole? It will always make me think of the end before I even start contemplating the beginning.
EC #2: What is the one reading you felt was most interesting, helpful, and why do you think that?
The IBM Holocaust reading is something was one of the most interesting readings with the trolley problem being tied. The reason those two readings really stuck to me because the IBM holocaust reading also spoke of the designer of the concentration camps, and how he said he never knew what those would be used for. How did something not light up in his head that what he is doing or constructing be used for evil, and how can a corporation put the money in front of the lives of millions.
EC #3: What topic or ethical issue do you think would be useful or interesting to have addressed in the class, which was not discussed?
I think all the topics were discussed in this class, I don’t believe I have missed out on any issue or method that could have been taught.
EC #4: This class used the example of the complex politics and ethics of computers, algorithms, networks or alone,
digitalization, datafication as a link between several readings, looking across scale and variety of computer system. What example or ideas, if anything, can you explain as a “take away,” or something you learned about the ethics of computers from these examples?
EC #5: What Fictional/media case would you suggest has interesting ethics in the story/content/narrative? E.g. what is an ethical case in a movie, video-game, novel, comic, TV-show, etc., that you can imagine showing and being subject to an ethical discussion?
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