Law, Ethics & Information Systems

Law, ethics & information systemsMathias Klang

Who are you?

• Users• Future systems developers & users• Digital citizens (sorry)

• Students…

Ethics. A bad introduction.

“Ethics is the knowledge about which response to choose and which action to do in a given situation”

“…ethics involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior”

Ethics:a very very

short version

ethnocentrism

Cultural relativism

Culture

Human Nature

Good Evil

Choice?

Nurture Nature

absolutism

Ethical relativism

Social construct

Social Contract

Rousseau Hobbes

Utilitarianism

Bentham - Happiness

Teleological ethics

Mill - Good

Rule ethics

Kant

Duties – not impulses

Categorical imperative

Rawls

Rule creation

Veil of ignorance

Habermas

Discourse ethics

What is technology?

Technology: techne (art) & logos (discourse)

• T as object– Tools, instruments, machines…

• T as knowledge– How to make and use the objects

• T as activity– Methods, routines & skills

• T as sociotechnical system– Design, development & control

A pattern of tech adoption

Initial optimism

Euphoric optimism

Concern

Social media & social change

optimism

Pessimism

an attempted revolution

balance

Technology changing society, but social rules slow to evolve…

Control?

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced… to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes … and serves as a social mediator of relations between people.

Norms from above

Power to the people: Democracy

Power of the technocracy

Socio-legal regulation

Law

Contextual & programmed social

rules

Architecture

Technology makes society

Only technology(spot the ethical dilemma?)

But first technological change – why it matters

Technological determinism

“the notion is that a kind of invisible hand guides technology ever onward and upward, using individuals and organizations as vessels for its purposes but guided by a sort of divine plan for bringing the greatest good to the greatest number.”

Game changer: storage

Production costs

Music unrecorded prior to 1857

What does this mean?

Technology as controller

Teknologisk determinism

• “the medium... shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action”

• McLuhan, M. (1962) The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man.

Technology does not judge usTechnology is all about efficiency (but for whom?)Technology changes the environment and users by creating opportunity

4

but…

• Understanding development?• Controlling development?• Truth?

We have (theoretical) control over Big Brother

If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold

What about democracy?

Technology = Communication = Society = Democracy

TECHNOLOGY IS DEMOCRACY

TECHNÉ controls what & howwe interact create & THINK

CommunicationCommunication

OrganizationOrganization

ProtestProtest AccessAccess

ReligionReligion

PrivacyPrivacyCultureCulture

EducationEducation

PressPress

No sidewalks online

REGULATION OF TECHNOLOGY IS THE REGULATION OF DEMOCRACY

&

Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order when you’re of things.

?

SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY

EXEMPEL: INFORMATIONS-KONTROLL

DE LEGE FERENDA

Lagen som den bör vara

Flickr

2000

2001

2002

2003 2005

2004 2006

Wikipedia

Linkedin

Blog

ger 1

999

Second Life

My Space

Skype

Digg

Facebook

Ning

YouTube

Twitter

Spotify

Google c:a 1998

2008

2007 2009

Farmville

iphone

WikileaksAngry Birds

Teoretiska rättigheter går mot oundviklig

handling

2006 2007

60

personalization

“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity”

Zuckerberg

“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity”Mark Zuckerberg

It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them. Eric Schmidt, Google

Technology is not inherently democratic

The internet is shows us what it thinks that we want to see – not what we need to see Eli Pariser

Identity & Information junk food.

Law without infrastructure

Problem 1: We are stupid

Problem 2: We don’t know what we don’t know

Problem 3: difference between who I want to be & who I am…

Problem 4: The keepers of algorithms know this

There have always been gatekeepers.

We have (theoretical) control over Big Brother

A Squirrel Dying In Your Front Yard May Be More Relevant To

Your Interests Right Now Than People

Dying In AfricaMark Zuckerberg

DIN ROLL?

THANK YOU!

Information• All images from www.flickr.com (unless specifically stated)

• Image & licensing info in the notes section of slides

• Presentation licensed: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

• The presentation can be downloaded from: www.slideshare.net/klang

• More information about me: www.techrisk.se & www.digital-rights.net

• Mathias Klang. klang@ituniv.se or @klang67