What are the ethics to consider in dealing with technological advancement?

Businesses today are technology and innovation driven. There is huge competition in the sphere and therefore like other industry or business function ethics is essential here also. Specially because ethics by itself is only a tool to create and doesn’t know ethics or morals!

Every day we have innovative products and services that announce their arrival in the market place and others that go obsolete. It is this technology and innovation that leads to ethical issues, considering the competition to stay ahead by innovating is immense. Issues like data mining, invasion to privacy, data theft and workplace monitoring are common and critical.

In technology we speak of ethics in two contexts:

  1. one is whether the pace of technological innovation is benefiting the humankind or not,
  2. the other is either severely empowering people while choking others for the same. Technology, for example, has drastically replaced people at work.

In the first case we are compelled to think about the pace at which technology is progressing. There are manifold implications here, be it things like computer security or viruses, Trojans, spam’s that invade the privacy of people or the fact the technology is promoting consumerism.

Nowadays data storage is primarily on computer systems. With the advent of internet technology the world has got interconnected and data can be accessed remotely by those who are otherwise unauthorized to do the same. This is one of the pitfalls of innovation. The other one i.e. the pace of technological change also raises the question of ethics.

New products make their way and leave the existing ones obsolete. In fact technological change and innovation is at the heart of consumerism, which is bad for economy and environment in general. The recent economic downturn makes up for a very good example.

Increasingly technological products are adding up to environmental degradation. Computer screens, keyboards, the ink used in the printers are some of the ways in which technology is polluting the environment. All these produce toxins that cannot be decomposed easily.

The other major issue in technology that brings in ethics is interface between technology and the computers. Many scientists are of the opinion that the world will come to an end with a war between the humankind and the technology. Technology they say will advance to an extent beyond the control of those who have made it!

No doubt technology has replaced people at work and made certain others redundant. On the flip side many people have been raised to power while others have been severely handicapped. The latter is especially true for third world countries. New manufacturing processes that are outsourced either replace manpower there or either exploits the latter in the name of employment by engaging them cheaper prices.

Technology has also made inroads into the field of medicine and life care. New cloning techniques, genetic modifications or other life saving drugs need continuous monitoring and surveillance. Bioethics has thus emerged as ethics in the field of medical technology.

Whereas we cannot talk of controlling technology and innovation, the better way is to adapt and change. The role of ethics in technology is of managing rather controlling the same. Continuous monitoring is required to keep track of latest innovations and technological changes and for ensuring fair practices.


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What are the ethics to consider in dealing with technological advancement?

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The article is Written By “Prachi Juneja” and Reviewed By Management Study Guide Content Team. MSG Content Team comprises experienced Faculty Member, Professionals and Subject Matter Experts. We are a ISO 2001:2015 Certified Education Provider. To Know more, click on About Us. The use of this material is free for learning and education purpose. Please reference authorship of content used, including link(s) to ManagementStudyGuide.com and the content page url.

Digital transformation represents the critical response needed by organisations to meet rising customer expectations, deliver scalable, individualised experiences, and respond to market forces with ever increasing levels of business agility. Digital services and disruptive technologies such as cloud computing, robotics, AI and big data combined with optimised operating models enable organisations to drive innovation and respond to internal and external events quicker and cheaper than ever before.

Interestingly, according to a leading research and advisory firm, over 60% of executives believe that they are behind in their digital transformation programmes. Notably, the will to drive change and availability of funds are identified as the key barriers to success within many organisations. Whilst digital transformation is, of course, enabled through technology, these observations should remind us that the human dimension is as important as technology. What we stand for and how we behave represents the fundamental concepts of ethics and, if organisations want to deliver enduring success in a digital world, they will need to ensure that above all, they understand the need to act ethically.

The need for ethics

Ethics is the practice of making a principled choice between right and wrong, revolving around how people ought to act, not how they do act. And whilst the topic has in the past, struggled to gain acceptance from the business community, things are thankfully, very different now. Ethics is not just an important consideration within an organisation, it represents a key differentiator in a highly competitive market where reputation and values are now as important as products and services. 

Whilst ethics is clearly something all organisations with a digital transformation agenda should actively embrace, the most difficult challenge will be at an individual level – organisations do not make decisions, individuals do. Digital professionals at all levels will need to determine what the ‘right’ thing to do actually is from an ethical perspective. Notwithstanding the level of ethical awareness or ethics training that may or may not already exist within organisations, what is considered ethical can vary across individuals, groups, religions and cultures, and in a global and fast-moving digital society, these leave considerable room for interpretation.

What are the ethics to consider in dealing with technological advancement?
Even when the right course of action is clear, real-world competitive pressures can cause individuals to make decisions that could have damaging consequences for others. Being ethical will ultimately mean having the skills and moral courage to challenge existing norms and act in an ethical manner. So, in a digital society, what does being ethical actually mean and how can those involved in designing, developing and deploying digital services translate ethical principles into professional behaviours that will underpin digital transformation initiatives? 

Business ethics for digital organisation

When organisations act in ways that are deemed unethical by others they are likely to attract adverse local, national and even international media attention. The events surrounding Volkswagen especially, will not be easily forgotten. Once a household name throughout the world as a pioneer in motor vehicle engineering, Volkswagen is now likely to be remembered more for its unethical behaviour than for any of its previous achievements.

If organisations are to deliver digital success, behaviours that reinforce trust and demonstrate integrity will be as important as the technical challenges that they face, such as application integration, cybersecurity and data governance. Digital initiatives have the potential to deliver sustainable benefits and increase the value of the organisation in the long-term, but these benefits must be tempered against the issues raised by declining trust, prompted by the unease at the way in which some organisations are exploiting digital technology. 

Confidentiality and data security issues remain; not only do breaches of information occur at unacceptable rates, organisations have been reluctant to inform those affected when they do. Equally, concerns regarding accountability are becoming more vocal as existing mechanisms may no longer be valid, or worse, compromised by the growth of AI and machine learning algorithms to make autonomous decisions.

Top 5 ethical principles for digital transformation

What is becoming clear is that trust in the digital economy is only likely to be achieved if digital professionals are willing to make ethical decisions despite working in highly competitive environments where the desire to rapidly deploy digital services is likely to prevail over the need to consider the ethical implications of doing so. Five ethical principles for digital transformation: 

1. Design for privacy, security and integrity
Whilst the opportunities to generate innovative and lucrative insights from big data are likely to be significant, so too are the risks from perceived unethical behaviour, whether actual or merely unintentional. How data is collected, managed and used is not just a legal issue, it is an ethical issue. 

What are the ethics to consider in dealing with technological advancement?

In the digital world, transparency and integrity must be the core values that guide professional behaviour. Organisations must use data in responsible and ethical ways; and that means not using it in ways that are considered intrusive, manipulative or disrespectful to others. Being transparent means that organisation must state their intentions regarding data usage and allow their customers to provide their consent. Organisations are often criticised for the amount of customer data that they collect and monetise. Part of the challenge here is the disconnect or lack of transparency around the value exchange between customers and service providers. Any benefit gained from collecting personal data must be shared by both parties and not exploited for monetary gain.

The concept of ‘informed consent’ is a key principle within ethics, referring to permission granted in the full knowledge of the likely consequences. This represents a significant challenge to organisation harvesting data, especially personal data for analytics as very little may be known about the intended use of the data when it is collected. In reality, obtaining informed consent may be impossible or prohibitively expensive owing to the scale of the task but, that said, the principle should still be adopted during the design and development of digital services where possible. Even then, informed consent will remain the subject of some debate as organisations will still need to consider both the validity and scope of consent provided if agreements are mandatory to access digital services.

Already, concerns have been raised over the ability of mobile phone software to track individuals’ movements even when the location services feature on the phone is inactive and reports that facial recognition applications are being used in certain countries have a darker objective - to collect personal data for reasons that are likely to be less than sincere.

2. Promote trust
Data consumers, whether they are individuals, groups or organisations must be able to trust the digital services and the data they are using. Those who collect and manage data must uphold the principle that its integrity must be assured if it is to be of value to consumers. Assuring data integrity must mean that organisations have a duty to ensure that the data they hold is subject to robust governance and audit procedures. Simply put, organisations must know that what was put there hasn't changed. 

Digital infrastructures provide the capability to not just hold data, but to enable it to be made available to others for a multitude of uses, including validation, replication and analysis. If digital consumers are to trust the underlying data driving the services they use, it must have clear provenance, end-to-end traceability from source to the user interface, and be of sufficient quality, fit for its intended purpose. If the provenance and veracity of the data cannot be verified it creates a significant level of risk for those consuming it – once the data has been processed, any actions undertaken as a consequence can’t be undone. 

A 2014 survey by the Pew Research Center in the US found that only 11% of individuals were at least ‘somewhat confident’ that online video and social media sites would keep their personal data private. Part of the challenge is the difficulty of segmentation of consumers by their attitudes to privacy, which are context-specific and defy generalisation. But it’s a challenge that businesses need to address: nine out of ten internet users in the UK and the United States would avoid doing business with companies that do not protect their privacy.

Organisations who are racing to deliver ‘the art of the possible’ without acknowledging the core principles of privacy, security and integrity are likely to leave themselves exposed to high levels of ethical risk. 

What are the ethics to consider in dealing with technological advancement?

3. Beware of bias
Unintentional ethical behaviour can be caused by many things, but one of the more likely reasons will be due to the sub-conscious biases that can influence human behaviour. Confirmation bias is probably the most well-known example, where individuals seek or interpret information in a way that that confirms their beliefs, hypotheses or expectations and dismiss opinions and information that are contrary to these. For example, ‘cherry-picking’ data that will be used to support digital transformation business cases or to drive the testing of digital services is likely to raise ethical concerns with those expecting such activities to be performed with a high level of integrity and impartiality. 

When there is bias in data there is a real risk that systems that consume this data will inherit that bias. Of particular concern must be the machine learning algorithms that are used to make millions of decisions every day. Warnings have already been aired regarding algorithmic bias, with experts suggesting that such bias is now pervasive in many industries, with little action being taken to identify or correct it. A worrying thought considering machine learning is now moving into many industry sectors including medicine, finance and law. 

The answer to the question of bias is, of course, ‘transparency’. Digital professionals will need to challenge status quo behaviour and actively identify hidden biases that may be present as they develop, assure and deploy digital service. Again, consumer trust must also be established and maintained, by ensuring customers buying systems using AI and machine learning algorithms know how the inference models have been built and the data used to drive them. 

4. Ensure there is accountability
Inference models and algorithms are fundamental components within the burgeoning range of ‘smart’ digital services that provide an artificial intelligence and machine learning capability. Owing to their ability to combine social data with decision-making engines, concerns have grown about the extent to which clear accountability structures can be maintained. For example, if algorithms are used by financial services organisations to make decisions that would normally be made by qualified and regulated professionals, questions must be raised around where accountability lies. Organisations seeking to develop digital services must, therefore, ensure that these services are not used to avoid or reduce corporate accountability.

5. Promote an ethical culture
Organisational culture can be described as the set of shared values, beliefs and norms that influences the way individuals within it think, feel and behave. Values especially, are important as they articulate what the organisation stands for, such as ‘providing an excellent digital experience’ or ‘excellence through innovation and teamwork’. Whilst corporate values can be readily found on corporate websites, publishing a list of values is not the same as adopting values. Value-driven organisations are those that actively demonstrate their values and use them to guide their behaviour, even doing so means making some difficult decisions. 

Whilst digital transformation has the potential to create opportunity, value and success at all levels within the organisation, these must be achieved through fairness, honesty and integrity. Digital organisations, therefore, have a moral responsibility to safeguard their employees from taking unnecessary risks that could ultimately prove to be damaging to both the individual and the organisation. Let’s not forget that professional reputation is as important to individuals as it is to organisations. 

Ethics for digital success

In the digital economy, the successful organisation will be the one that is not only aware of ethical values such as trust, honesty, fairness, confidentiality and accountability, but actively adopts them to do the right thing and make decisions that are above reproach.

Ethics must no longer be thought of as just a marketing tool that has no real influence on the culture of digital organisations, but instead, represent a fundamental set of behaviours that should be exhibited by all those who have a vested interest in digital transformation. If there was ever a need for ethical principles for digital transformation, it must surely be now.

What ethical considerations are there with the advancement of technology?

The uses of technology have the capability of making many innocent people suffer, and this is a moral concern. An example of such issue can be the fact that nuclear technology has the potential of killing many people and consequently destroying the environment. This issue raises some health problems.

What are the ethics of technology?

Technology ethics are principles that can be used to govern technology including factors like risk management and individual rights. They are basically used to understand and resolve moral issues that have to do with the development and application of technology of different types.

What are some ethical issues you would want to consider in using technology?

Most Important Ethical Issues in Technology.
Misuse of Personal Information. ... .
Misinformation and Deep Fakes. ... .
Lack of Oversight and Acceptance of Responsibility. ... .
Use of AI. ... .
Autonomous Technology. ... .
Respect for Employees and Customers. ... .
Moral Use of Data and Resources. ... .
Responsible Adoption of Disruptive Tech..

What are the 4 ethical considerations?

There are four main principles of ethics: autonomy, beneficence, justice, and non-maleficence. Each patient has the right to make their own decisions based on their own beliefs and values. [4].