"As the custodians of the most powerful and flexible technology humankind has ever created," [16] computing professionals bear some of the responsibility to ensure that computing technologies are used ethically and responsibly. Unfortunately, new technologies often intended to be used for good, are either immediately harnessed by bad actors for bad purposes or are used by end users in ways for which they were not intended, resulting in unintended harmful consequences. Periscope's hearts, for example, were originally designed to give the person broadcasting a live experience to encourage continued broadcasting. The number of viewers watching a live broadcast is visible throughout the broadcast to those attending and those not in attendance to give broadcasters an indication of which shows were currently drawing a larger audience compared to others. While broadcasters could communicate with their audience using video and audio, the viewers could interact with broadcasters, or each other, via short text messages, which they could enhance with emojis, or a simple tap on the screen. When viewers tapped the screen, the arts appeared on the live video, communicating the message "we love what you are doing, continue." It was when the volume of hearts decreased and the number of viewers dropped, that some users exploited these features to coerce broadcasters, particularly women, into removing their clothes during their live broadcasts. As I have noted [1], to keep the hearts coming and the number of viewers increasing, some women felt compelled to comply with these demands. This overlooking of the potential for abuse and misuse of new technologies begs the question: has computing ethics education failed society in preventing these technologies from being abused for nefarious reasons or not used for what they were intended? There is no doubt that academic institutions and professional organizations worldwide make an effort to educate computing professionals to ensure that their creations are used to benefit society and mitigate any negative consequences. However, bad actors' abuse of new technologies and end users' misuse of these technologies raise concerns about the effectiveness of the current education efforts. It is obvious computing ethics education is facing challenges. This article highlights five challenges facing computing ethics education.
Computing Ethics Is Multidisciplinary
Computing ethics is multidisciplinary [6,15,17] and this presents a challenge for computing ethics teaching. This specific teaching requires strength in computing technology, moral philosophy, and an understanding of the ethical issues in computing. Moral philosophers often don't teach the ethics courses in computing programs, either because they are situated in humanities schools or departments, Luck [12] comes to mind, or because they are thought to lack the required computing knowledge and skills to teach these computing ethics courses [13]. The culture of gatekeeping within academic domains also plays a role in preventing multidisciplinarity from becoming the norm and practice. For example, academic staff from Department B can't teach courses in Department A, because, if they did, the income from students' fees, would go to Department B. As a result, even if moral philosophers are interested in teaching computing ethics courses or conducting research in this area, there is less incentive for them to engage in the scholarship of computing ethics. On the other hand, computing academics with strength in computing and potentially an understanding of the ethical issues in computing, but who lack the philosophical underpinnings, are often the ones who teach computing ethics courses. This is assuming computing ethics courses are included in computing programs as standalone courses. Often, there are no such courses. If there are these courses, then there are challenges with computing ethics courses being taught as standalone courses too [7]. Fiesler et al.'s [7] outline three potential flaws.
- Students who take computing courses but who don't enroll in computing majors, may not have the opportunity to learn ethics. (Likewise, if the ethics course is not a requirement for graduation, many computing students may elect not to take the standalone ethics course, and thus, may graduate without having exposure to ethics in computing).
- Teaching computing ethics courses as a standalone course, sends a message to computing students that ethical consideration is not an inherent component of technical practice.
- Students make up their minds with regard to what is right and what is wrong professionally speaking in their first year. Learning about ethics in a standalone course in their final year may be too late to make difference in their professional lives.
The challenges associated with teaching computing ethics as a stand-alone course have inspired educators to integrate ethics within the existing computing courses. Castro et al. [4] deployed an online platform that enabled computer science students to immerse themselves in simulated realistic work scenarios. The authors found that their simulated environment encouraged students to effectively consider the impact of their projects on project stakeholders. Grosz et al. [9] introduced a Harvard-based pilot program, called Embedded EthiCS, that integrates ethics education within the existing technical education in computer science. The authors note that the program gave computer science students insight into how the technical education with which they are already engaged has direct ethical implications. For other examples of how ethics education was integrated into existing computer science education see also Cohen et al. [5] and Fiesler et al. [7].
New technologies often intended to be used for good, are either immediately harnessed by bad actors for bad purposes or are used by end users in ways for which they were not intended, resulting in unintended harmful consequences.
Computing Ethics Issues are Domain Specific
Computing ethics issues are specific to the computing discipline because computing technology often generates new and unique ethical issues [19]. See Rogerson et al. [17] for an overview of some of the emerging ethical problems in computing. While computing ethics courses often include a philosophical component in which students are exposed to a variety of ethical theories and are taught how to think critically about those new and unique ethical issues, this often comprises only 40% of the content of these courses with the remaining 60% focusing on those new and unique ethical issues and on how computing professionals should address these ethical issues [2]. So, in addition to the philosophical and computing knowledge and skills that academics, who teach ethics in computing courses, need (mentioned above), they also need to be intimately familiar with the problems that computing professionals face in their workplaces [3].
Computing Ethics Would Benefit from More Research
Computing ethics is not a neglected area of research [15] but would certainly benefit from more research. Computing academics do not often engage in research on computing ethics [2,6]. One of the reasons why computing academics do not often engage in research on computing ethics is because of lack of funding. Computing ethics is also niche area, often it is not in the list of computing schools' and departments' priority research areas, and because a relatively small group of self-motivated academics are active in this space, the number of citations that the articles published in this area attract tend to be low, and that further discourages research here. Yet, computing ethics education will also benefit from more research. When the phrase "Computing Ethics Education" was searched in Google Scholar in the title of documents, i.e., using 'allintitle' feature, only a handful of results were returned. This was also the case with the phrases Professionalism Education, Professionalism in Computing, and Cyberethics Education. The limited availability of research in computing ethics education makes it difficult to know if computing ethics education is making a difference in students' lives. Judging by the insufficiency of scholarship in this area [17], it can be argued that computing ethics is not perceived as important as in other disciplines such as business ethics, medical ethics or media ethics. To what extent do technology giants play a role in this? This is a matter for readers to investigate and critically interrogate.
The evidence, from the limited computing ethics education literature, suggests that ethics education does have an impact on learners' behavior at work. We found that ethics education is critical for assisting computing professionals with recognising ethical problems in the workplace and resolving them.
Computing Ethics Is Not Technical
Some computing students, especially those doing postgraduate information technology courses, perceive computing ethics as non-technical. They prefer to study computing courses that are 100% technical, to get value for their money and to stay in their comfort zone—a binary world where things are black or white, with no 'grey' areas in the middle. But the evidence, from the limited computing ethics education literature, suggests that ethics education does have an impact on learners' behavior at work. In a study that I and others undertook [2], we found that ethics education is critical for assisting computing professionals with recognising ethical problems in the workplace and resolving them. This supports Johnson's [11] conclusion that ethics education is effective in enhancing the ability to recognize ethical issues in the workplace and improving the understanding of the nature of the moral problems. With computing professionals responsible for computing products and services that in some cases cost millions of dollars or affect hundreds of thousands of people [14], the question is not, and should not be, whether ethics education is needed [14]. Ethics education is no doubt needed [8]. The magnitude and the scale of the never-ending cybersecurity attacks, the 2022 Optus 9.8 million customers data breach, as an example, makes computing ethics education needed more than ever. The question then should be what should be taught in computing ethics courses? And how should computing ethics be taught?
Computing Ethics Is Multiperspective
Computing professionals worldwide adhere to a range of codes of ethics [8]. This is because each computing professional society has its own code of ethics. While codes of ethics, for example, in western countries share common values, they differ in others [20]. For example, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) code of ethics includes a section on whistleblowing, but the British Computer Society (BCS) and the Australian Computer Society (ACS) codes don't. The Malaysian National Computer Confederation (MNCC) Code of Ethics requests its IT professional members to adhere to the principles of integrity, confidentiality, impartiality, responsibility, competence, and professionalism but still uses the pronoun 'He', which the members' knowledge, to address both men and women. So, which code of ethics should computer professionals follow? In acknowledging that no single code of ethics can reconcile the diversity of ethical principles, Hughes et al. [10] call for computing ethics education to integrate multiple perspectives, i.e., international perspectives, to avoid the reliance on the currently dominating western perspective. The authors argue that computing ethics education should benefit from multiple dimensions, i.e., humanities, social science and anthropology, and, considering the diversity of modern workplaces, computing ethics education should also cater to people with multiple orientations, i.e., gender, race, ethnicity, and religion [10]. But this multiplicity of perspectives can make teaching ethical principles in computing ethics courses a difficult task.
Conclusion
To summarize, this article outlined four challenges facing computing ethics education.
- Computing ethics is a multidisciplinary field that requires expertise in computing technology, moral philosophy, and an understanding of the ethical issues specific to computing.
- Computing ethics education can benefit from more research and equitable prioritization in academic computing programs.
- Computing students prefer to learn technical areas, to make the most of their academic programs, and stay in their 'comfort zone' (ethics is a 'grey' area). But despite this preference, ethics education has been shown to have a positive impact on computing professionals' behavior in the workplace.
- Computing ethics is also multi-perspective, with different countries and professional societies having their own codes of ethics, making it hard for computing professional to integrate multiple perspectives.
This multiplicity of perspectives can make teaching computing ethics challenging. With computing professionals continuing to create technologies that can be harnessed for both good and bad, the need for effective computing ethics education has never been more critical. It should be noted that computing ethics education faces challenges beyond those stated. Smith et al.'s study [18], for example, has revealed other challenges that exist. Readers are also encouraged to consider additional challenges that may exist. And a discussion about solutions that can address the challenges facing computing ethics education is also needed. A shortcoming in this article needs to be outlined. The challenges facing computing ethics educations were not analyzed from within the critical lenses of sociotechnical and socio-political systems. There is no doubt this grounding would have been beneficial. However, sociotechnical and socio-political systems are arguably complex and to analyze the challenges highlighted here from within these lenses in this short space will not do justice to these challenges. This grounding should be the subject of future study and future article.
• Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to the reviewers of this paper for their feedback. Their comments significantly improved the quality of this paper.
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Author
Yeslam Al-Saggaf
School of Computing, Mathematics and Engineering
Charles Sturt University, Boorooma Street
Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia
[email protected]
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