Since the dawn of Covid -19, the global business environment has experienced immense growth in technological advancement. The use of social media for business ads, online investment, online banking, online learning and e-payment have become the irreplaceable gem at the apex of the pyramid of needs.
In as much as organisations play a huge role in the technological advancement, the ethical stance of technology and information management cannot be overlooked as there seems to be a constant battle between the mutual impact of business ethics and technological development.
Technology and Business Ethics
Good Technology is often a trade-off between good value (autonomy, fairness) and great profit. As technology continues to advance at a fast rate, the civic processes which encourages creative solutions to emerging crisis appears to be broken. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, for we live in a jet age where almost anything goes.
Thus, it won't be entirely wrong to consider the possibility that these technological companies are the real culprits when we reminisce about how technology could evolve in a more ethically fashioned way.
Machine Learning (ML) and Ethical concern
Machine Learning (ML) is one ground breaking technology. In its prime, it has changed the way data processing is with autonomous and advanced decision-making algorithm. However, it is not free from criticism. Danks and London (2017) pointed out that there is bound to be ethical concerns when there appears to be hasty collection and processing of “biased “data that is constantly fed to a systems or machine. It's just like the popular saying: “Garbage in, garbage out”.
Corporate Responsibility for the Ethical Challenges of Technology
One major reason why corporate responsibility rests on technological companies is that there are no agencies in charge of assessing how new technologies are penned out and applied. Hence a workable solution would be internal restrain. For example; large tech companies such as Google and Microsoft have come up with principles to make sure Artificial intelligence (AI) is used responsibly (Smith and Shun, 2018).
This goes without saying that these companies need to employ ethical choices in creating and releasing these technologies.
How Business Ethics Informs Technology Ethics
There is a chance that business ethics can give perspective to technology challenges. When you consider how businesses and markets have changed patterns and adjusted over time. Just saying that understanding the historical balance between these two areas could inform the ethical analysis of technology (Lomas, 2019). This brings to mind the question: “Where’s the room for privacy when some new household gadgets are designed with hidden cameras?”
Human Autonomy and Manipulation
Recent study have shown how technology can abuse consumers autonomy. For example; game and social media platforms are designed in a way that is addictive and makes users want to come back for more (Schüll, 2014).
Another example of threatened autonomy would be the use of aggregated data to gather personal information such as location and internet behavior to investigate their needs and concerns. For instance a pharmaceutical company would be most interested in the database of sick persons or relative of the sick to sell it's ads. By harvesting such information, targeted consumers are been robbed the choice to shop elsewhere, (Susser et al. 2019).
Values in Design (ViD)
ViD is a popular phrase in technological research and precisely crucial to business ethics. According to Friedman et al, (2017), the end product of a technological design processes works hand in hand with policy and practice decisions as the ethics of the business.
In plain terms, a tech design is the reflection of values seen and practiced in the organization. For example; Apples publicly states it's values that it does not "traffic in your personal life" and will not "monetize it's customers" and it shows in the way Apple product are designed to respect people's privacy (Wong, 2018). Asides privacy, other values that need to be considered when designing products are human well-being, personal integrity, governance and the future of employment.
References
Danks, D., and London, A. J. (2017). Algorithmic bias in autonomous systems. Proceedings of the 26th International Joint Conference on Artifcial Intelligence. Retrieved from https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/philosophy/docs/london/IJCAI17-AlgorithmicBias-Distrib.pdf
Friedman, B., Hendry, D. G., and Borning, A. (2017). A survey of value sensitive design methods. Foundations and Trends® in Human– Computer Interaction, 11(2), 63–125.
Lomas, N. (2019). Even the IAB warned adtech risks EU privacy rules. Tech Crunch.
Shüll, N. D. (2014). Addiction by design: Machine gambling in Las Vegas (Reprint edition). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Smith, B., and Shum, H. (2018). The future computed: Artificial intel- ligence and its role in society. Retrieved from https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/01/17/future-computed-artificial-intelligence-role-society
Susser, D., Roessler, B., and Nissenbaum, H. (2019). Online Manipulation: Hidden Influences in a Digital World. Available at SSRN 3306006. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Online-Manipulation%3A-Hidden-Influences-in-a-Digital-Susser-Roessler/bab5bc7c9c32911fc27138094c71bd1916e694cb
Wong, J. (2018 March 28). Apple’s tim cook rebukes Zuckerberg over Facebook’s business model. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/28/facebook-apple -tim-cook-zuckerberg-business-model
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