232,126 research outputs found

    Selling packaged software: an ethical analysis

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    Within the IS literature there is little discussion on selling software products in general and especially from the ethical point of view. Similarly, within computer ethics, although there is much interest in professionalism and professional codes, in terms of accountability and responsibility, the spotlight tends to play on safety-critical or life-critical systems, rather than on software oriented towards the more mundane aspects of work organisation and society. With this research gap in mind, we offer a preliminary ethical investigation of packaged software selling. Through an analysis of the features of competition in the market, the global nature of the packaged software market and the nature of product development we conclude that professionalism, as usually conceived in computer ethics, does not apply particularly well to software vendors. Thus, we call for a broader definition of professionalism to include software vendors, not just software developers. Moreover, we acknowledge that with intermediaries, such as implementation consultants, involved in software selling, and the packaged software industry more generally, there are even more “hands” involved. Therefore, we contend that this is an area worthy of further study, which is likely to yield more on the question of accountability

    Ethically Aligned Design: An empirical evaluation of the RESOLVEDD-strategy in Software and Systems development context

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    Use of artificial intelligence (AI) in human contexts calls for ethical considerations for the design and development of AI-based systems. However, little knowledge currently exists on how to provide useful and tangible tools that could help software developers and designers implement ethical considerations into practice. In this paper, we empirically evaluate a method that enables ethically aligned design in a decision-making process. Though this method, titled the RESOLVEDD-strategy, originates from the field of business ethics, it is being applied in other fields as well. We tested the RESOLVEDD-strategy in a multiple case study of five student projects where the use of ethical tools was given as one of the design requirements. A key finding from the study indicates that simply the presence of an ethical tool has an effect on ethical consideration, creating more responsibility even in instances where the use of the tool is not intrinsically motivated.Comment: This is the author's version of the work. The copyright holder's version can be found at https://doi.org/10.1109/SEAA.2019.0001

    Virtue Ethics and software development: debates and proposals

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    Ethical issues have a growing interest for software developers, in as much as technological developments are more andmore present in our lives, and it has become evident that technologies are morally charged (Verbeek, 2014). From aninterdisciplinary approach, gathering researchers from the fields of computer science and moral philosophy, this paperreflects on virtue ethics first defined by ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle- and explores the possibilities in whichthis classical moral notion can be addressed in contemporary contexts of software development (Haggendorf, 2020;Gamez et al., 2020). Together with general values such as interaction, correctness and security, widely discussed in thefields of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, the research also highlights the importance of intentionality. Giventhe fact that most software developers usually work in a team, and they often take items of software from differentsources available, the implementation of any new software shall be understood as a complex process fragmentedamong many agents (with their consequent and perhaps hidden intentions), hence it is difficult to identify the bearer ofmoral responsibility if that software leads to unethical consequences. The paper elaborates on the notion of intentionaldependency network to name this chain of complex interactions in the context of software development. The nodes ofthese intentional dependency networks are constituted by three elements: a human being who interacts with a softwareartefact with a declared intention. Inconsistencies may arise in a node at local level, since a software artefact can producecertain effects that are incompatible with the intention declared by the human. Thus deepening in the complex ecology ofcurrent software development and its networks provides an interesting field to explore the origins and evolution of moralagency. Once thoroughly examined the topics above mentioned, the paper ends with a preliminary proposal on someethical values and attitudes which should be shared by software developers aiming to achieve moral excellence in theirprofessional performance:First, awareness and acknowledgement of the moral dimension of software development.Second, a general attitude of responsibility and preliminary investigation about implicit and declared intentions before useof any piece of already existing software.Third, intentions should be declared as non-functional requirements for any new software. This will help to assume themoral consequences of choices and decisions made in professional contexts, mainly if those consequences are harmful,discriminatory, or lead to any unexpected misuses of software

    Ethical sourcing : an analysis of the literature and implications for future research

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    The purpose of this study is to present a rigorous, focused review on how this field of ethical sourcing research has grown and evolved over the decades, providing implications for future research. We combine two research methodologies in this study: a systematic literature review and a citation network analysis. The former is used as a scientific tool to select the most relevant ethical sourcing articles, while the latter is then applied as a research technique to analyse these selected articles. Such a combined approach allows for a rigorous investigation into this field of research in a more scientific and objective way. Based on this approach, we identify (1) distinctive features of ethical sourcing studies such as growth trends and content issues; (2) important articles that have played a significant role in developing this field; (3) evolutionary paths that show how its knowledge has been created and transferred; (4) emerging trends that have received growing attention in the recent literature; (5) main research areas that underlie the entire ethical sourcing studies; and (6) major implications that need to be pursued in future research. The results of this study provide not only the current status of the literature but also the patters of evolution in this field of research, thus contributing to the existing literature

    Ethical and Social Aspects of Self-Driving Cars

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    As an envisaged future of transportation, self-driving cars are being discussed from various perspectives, including social, economical, engineering, computer science, design, and ethics. On the one hand, self-driving cars present new engineering problems that are being gradually successfully solved. On the other hand, social and ethical problems are typically being presented in the form of an idealized unsolvable decision-making problem, the so-called trolley problem, which is grossly misleading. We argue that an applied engineering ethical approach for the development of new technology is what is needed; the approach should be applied, meaning that it should focus on the analysis of complex real-world engineering problems. Software plays a crucial role for the control of self-driving cars; therefore, software engineering solutions should seriously handle ethical and social considerations. In this paper we take a closer look at the regulative instruments, standards, design, and implementations of components, systems, and services and we present practical social and ethical challenges that have to be met, as well as novel expectations for software engineering.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, 2 table

    A Value-Sensitive Design Approach to Intelligent Agents

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    This chapter proposed a novel design methodology called Value-Sensitive Design and its potential application to the field of artificial intelligence research and design. It discusses the imperatives in adopting a design philosophy that embeds values into the design of artificial agents at the early stages of AI development. Because of the high risk stakes in the unmitigated design of artificial agents, this chapter proposes that even though VSD may turn out to be a less-than-optimal design methodology, it currently provides a framework that has the potential to embed stakeholder values and incorporate current design methods. The reader should begin to take away the importance of a proactive design approach to intelligent agents
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