Ethical Dilemmas Reveal Technology's Hidden Value Systems
- Ethical dilemmas are built into the technology from the start because every technological design embeds specific assumptions about what matters.
- Take facial recognition systems.
- The ethical dilemma isn't just about privacy versus security, it's about whose faces the system can actually recognize accurately.
- Early facial recognition systems were trained primarily on white male faces, making them significantly less accurate for women and people of color.
- This isn't a misuse of the technology but a direct result of whose knowledge was prioritized during development.
The communities that build technology determine whose knowledge gets embedded in the system and whose gets excluded.
Algorithmic Content Curation Shapes Democratic Knowledge
- Social media algorithms show you content you might like while also actively shaping what you think is worth knowing about.
- This creates ethical dilemmas beyond simple echo chambers.
- The ethical dilemma is about how the algorithm embeds a particular theory of democracy, one that values emotional engagement over informed deliberation.
- During the 2020 U.S. election, TikTok's algorithm amplified videos about voting irregularities because they generated high engagement through outrage and concern.
- Meanwhile, videos explaining actual voting procedures received less distribution because they were less emotionally engaging.
- The algorithm didn't intend to spread misinformation, but its design prioritized engagement over accuracy.
Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost?
- Strong ethical analysis of technology identifies not just intended benefits but hidden cost distributions.
- Take contact tracing apps during COVID-19.
- Public health officials promoted these as tools for collective benefit, helping track disease spread to protect everyone.
- But the apps worked by collecting location and proximity data from smartphone users.
- This created different risk profiles for different communities.
