Computers and Ethics in the Cyberage

by Hester, D. Micah; Ford, Paul J.

• ISBN13: 9780130829788
• ISBN10: 0130829781
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-06-26
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

This anthology of essays, contributed and compiled by experts in a variety of fields, addresses both perspectives in the debate regarding the proliferation of computers in our lives.Topics ranges from privacy copyright and computer crime issues to the global impact of computers, online communities and virtual reality.For anyone interested in a broad-based interdisciplinary view of the ethical issues facing society in light of the computer's proliferation in our personal and professional lives.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Section One Technology, Computers, and Values	1	(92)
From Ethics of Technology of Ethics of Computers	3	(54)
Assimilation of the Machine: New Cultural Values	3	(4)
Lewis Mumford
Views of Technology	7	(27)
Ian Barbour
Selections on Technology	34	(5)
Melvin Kranzberg, ed.
Unique Ethical Problems in Information Technology	39	(18)
Walter Maner
Computer Technologies as Value-Laden	57	(36)
Creating the People's Computer	57	(6)
Michael Dertouzos
Computers and Reason	63	(11)
Theodore Roszak
Logic and Intuition	74	(11)
Michael Heim
Fairy Tales	85	(8)
Allen Newell
Selected Bibliography for Section One	90	(3)
Section Two Computers and the Quality of Life	93	(100)
Community and Intermediacy	95	(23)
Social Strategies for Software	95	(5)
Jon Dorbolo
The Virtual Community	100	(11)
Howard Rheingold
Is There a There in Cyberspace?	111	(7)
John Perry Barlow
Alienation, Anonymity, and Embodiment	118	(35)
In the Age of the Smart Machine	118	(11)
Shoshana Zuboff
Implantable Brain Chips? Time for Debate	129	(12)
G. Q. Maguire, Jr.
Ellen M. McGee
Epicac	141	(6)
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Computers and the Human Identity Crisis	147	(6)
Raymond Gozzi
Computers in Developing Nations	153	(40)
The State, Computers, and African Development: The Information Non-Revolution	153	(13)
Bruce Berman
The Social Implications of Information Technologies: A Latin American Perspective	166	(12)
Judith Sutz
Cool Runnings: The Contradictions of Cybereality in Jamaica	178	(9)
Joerge Dyrkton
The Ethical Dilemma Caused by the Transfer of Information Technology to Developing Countries	187	(6)
Yero Baldeh
Selected Bibliography for Section Two	191	(2)
Section Three Uses, Abuses, and Social Consequences	193	(160)
Computer Professionals and the Professional Use of Computers	195	(38)
Does Professional Ethics Include Computer Professionals? Two Models for Understanding	195	(9)
Michael P. Hodges
Professional Relationships	204	(14)
Deborah G. Johnson
Developing Ethical Practices to Minimize Computer Misuse	218	(15)
Shalini Kesar
Simon Rogerson
Freedom, Privacy, and Control in an Information Age	233	(45)
Electronic Power to the People: Who Is Technology's Keeper on the Cyberspace Frontier?	233	(16)
Michael R. Ogden
Remarks at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference	249	(7)
Edward J. Markey
Privacy, Respect for Persons, and Risk	256	(22)
Dag Elgesem
Piracy and Ownership	278	(32)
The Morality of Software Piracy: A Cross-Cultural Analysis	278	(14)
W. R. Swinyard
H. Rinnie
A. Keng Kau
Should I Copy My Neighbor's Software?	292	(16)
Helen Nissenbaum
So You Want to Be a Pirate?	308	(2)
Pirate editorial
Hacking and Viruses	310	(43)
Hacking and Viruses	310	(21)
Tom Forester
Perry Morrison
The Conscience of a Hacker	331	(1)
The Mentor
Are Computer Hacker Break-ins Ethical?	332	(12)
Eugene Spafford
Interview with a Hacker	344	(4)
Richard Spinello
The Computer Virus as Metaphor	348	(5)
Raymond Gozzi
Selected Bibliography for Section Three	351	(2)
Section Four Evolving Computer Technologies	353	(114)
Artificial Intelligence	356	(37)
Baku: Epicac XIV	356	(6)
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Some Aspects of Ethics and Research into the Silicon Brain	362	(12)
Dan Remenyi
Brian Williams
Misrepresenting Human Intelligence	374	(13)
Hubert Dreyfus
What Are We Thinking About When We Are Thinking About Computers? Thinking About Aliveness by Playing Computer Games	387	(6)
Sherry Turkle
Virtual Environments	393	(31)
Effects of Participating in Virtual Environments	393	(15)
John Wilson
The Virtual Sky Is Not the Virtual Limit: Ethics in Virtual Reality	408	(12)
Blay Whitby
Being and Believing: Ethics of Virtual Reality The Lancet	420	(4)
Networking and the Internet	424	(43)
Remarks on the Internet and Information Technologies	424	(12)
Albert Gore, Jr.
Losing Our Souls in Cyberspace	436	(3)
Mark A. Kellner
Douglas Groothuis
A Rape in Cyberspace	439	(13)
Julian Dibbell
On Space, Sex, and Being Stalked	452	(15)
Pamela Gilbert
Selected Bibliography for Section Four	463	(4)
Appendix A ACM/IEEE Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice	467	(10)
Appendix B Codes of Ethics of Selected Foreign Professional Societies	477	(10)
Appendix C Selected ``Appropriate Use'' Regulations	487	(10)
Appendix D Further Resources in Computer Ethics	497

Excerpts

Preface Our Current LandscapeComputer technologies permeate our everyday lives. Even the quickest, simplest survey of daily experience proves laden with digitally based instruments and information. We find World Wide Web addresses on our cereal boxes, ATMs, magazines, cleaning detergent bottles, and evening news programs. The "Y2K bug" was not a biological entity but a political and economic concern. Not only are "Nintendo" and "Sega" a part of our common vocabulary, they are rites of passage for today's children. An estimated 55 million Americans have access to the Internet, which provides an entree into a vast array of information and entertainment. Computers even reach into our understanding of religion and what is sacred, as evidenced by a headline fromUSA Todaythat reads "Cyberfaith: Teenagers expect the Internet will substitute for their current churchgoing experiences in coming years." Of course, this is only a very small sampling of how computers and computer-based technologies pervade and shape aspects of our daily lives and thoughts.With this revolution, or shift in paradigm, a great deal of hyperbole and myth making arises from a variety of sources. People in commerce and industry try to show how their computer products are necessary for our existence, as demonstrated by the bombardment of advertising showing that computers bring order to people's businesses and lives. Politicians try to ride the wave of technophilia to get the popular vote. The military produces propaganda concerning the precision and effectiveness of computers in expensive defense projects. According to these and many other sources, computers are the penicillin for the problems of life, liberty, and society. Ideas about the magic of computer technologies have been integrated into, and further supported by, the modernethosof our culture: "faster, better, stronger." Of course, in reality, these claims are much too optimistic and overstated.On the other side of the debate we see cautionary tales presented by entertainment media, among others. In the same way that novels like Mary Shelley'sFrankensteinarticulated a nineteenth-century anxiety about new technologies, films likeTerminator, War Games, Brazil, The Net,andThe Matrixact as heralds of the danger of computer proliferation into important aspects of our lives. Backlash movements of neo-Luddites have also arisen calling for a return to simpler times where experience felt less mediated by technological apparatuses.But no matter the perspective, all sides agree that computer technologies mean power. Computer technologies create new abilities to be exercised. But with such power comes a need for reflective thought concerning the use of these technologies. This reflection ought to be done before implementation of the new technologies. As we are inundated with images and information about computers, we need to be attentive to the possible harms and goods that the integration of computer technologies brings. If we want to implement them in the best possible way, we need to guide the current love of technology in directions that will improve our daily lives, not just for today but for tomorrow as well. One way to do so is to recognize the hyperbole, the politics, and the basic desires expressed on both sides of the debate. Once we get by this hype, then we are better able to ask the important questions concerning the impacts and underlying values associated with these technologies. Preliminaries About the Book: The Complexity of the IssuesNo one textbook can have both the breadth and depth to cover exhaustively the challenges created by the microchip, cyberspace, and related technologies. For example, in this text references to computer technologies correspond not only to the box sitting on your desk (or the microchips therein) but also to the political organizations created through the implementati