Miguel Kabigting

October 6, 2020

Sir Zaldy San Pedro

CSIT 17

Ethics Long Quiz

ETHICS IN TECH PRACTICE:

Case Study: Facial Recognition Technology

Facial Recognition Technology: An Ethics Case Study

by Irina Raicu

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and the TSA are testing the implementation of facial recognition

technology at several airports and other border crossings, and CBP hopes to install face scanners at all

US airports within the next 4 years. Some schools are implementing facial recognition on their campuses

in an effort to prevent or mitigate schools shootings. Churches have been pitched facial recognition

technology as a means to assess attendance, but also to increase security.

You work at a company that develops facial recognition software for various applications; a team

member points out that shelters for victims of domestic violence are also organizations greatly

concerned with the security of their guests and staff, and might have use for this technology. It could

ensure that people entering or approaching the shelter are registered guests or staff there and not

unwelcome intruders, and could perhaps aid staff in monitoring and analyzing behavior in the shelter

environment.

Should this project be pursued? If not, why not? If so, how could it be done ethically? What unique

ethical concerns does it raise?

1. Who are the stakeholders involved? Who should be consulted about such a project’s goals and

development?

Answer: The stakeholders who are involved in facial recognition technology are the government,
developers/owner of IT company, private and public sectors such as education, transportation, etc.
The ethics body, government, IT company, private and public sectors should play the major role in
developing the facial recognition technology.

2. What additional facts might be required? What practical steps might you need to take in order

to access the information/perspectives needed to manage the ethical landscape of this project?

Answer:

 Asking for consent – allows your clients to be able to control their own privacy.
 Security – allows to secure data that was collected and stored.

3. What are some other ethical issues that any designers/developers of such an application would

need to address?

Answer:

 Many identities from people were mistaken

4. How might this project be evaluated through the various ethical 'lenses' described in the

“Conceptual Frameworks” document?

Answer:

 By defining the responsible use of facial recognition technology through the drafting of a set
of principles for action.
 By designing a set of methodologies that can even support the product team in developing of
facial recognition technology.
 By validating the principles through the design of a diverse framework from a trusted third
party.
5. In this project, what moral values are potentially conflicting with each other? Is there any way to

reconcile them? Even if conflict is unavoidable, are there ways to respect all relevant

interests/values? How?

Answer: For me, it would be privacy and security where there is a control of secured information.
Today, there are lot of technology that create and storing of data on other programs that we have
right now. But, the issue is there are moral conundrums that will rise when the storage and collection
of information is done by the third parties without any consent.

6. As a project team, how might you go about sorting through these ethical issues and addressing

them? Which of the ethical issues you have identified would you prioritize, and why?

Answer: For me, I would sort and address the ethical issues by knowing the actions that will protect
the people from having greater risk on facial recognition. For me, it would be limiting the data storage
time because individuals would worry more that information will be misused on their personal
freedom. Data sharing is also an ethical issue to prioritize because it would concern people where
they are not aware of the sale of their personal information.

7. Who would be the appropriate persons on a team to take those steps? At what level, and by

what methods, should decisions be made within the company about how to manage the ethical

issues raised by this project?

Answer: For me, it would be the owner and developer of the IT company who should take those steps.
The level of the IT company should be executive level where obligations must be thought in terms of
principles and rights of decision making. Also, another method is to think about the potential actions
of the IT company.
ETHICS IN TECH PRACTICE:

Case Study: Poppins

Poppins: An Ethics Case Study

by Irina Raicu

A tech company plans to introduce a new product—a virtual assistant aimed specifically at children,

tentatively called “Poppins.” Poppins will be located in a child’s bedroom. It will look like a teddy bear or

other stuffed animal (parents will be able to choose the soft shell). It will initially serve as a baby

monitor, with audio and video capabilities; it will also allow parents to sing to the baby from remote

locations, or to play other music. As the child grows and begins to speak, Poppins will use AI to interact

with him/her—becoming a personalized chatbot. It will be programmed to teach the child words and

concepts (colors, animals, numbers, etc.); it will also respond to the child’s questions and read stories.

Over time, it will become a homework helper, dispense advice about human development, and

eventually listen and respond to the needs of a teenager who might be embarrassed to ask his/her

parents certain questions. (As the young person grows, should the stuffed animal “shell” seem

outdated, the child will have the option to select a different decorative exterior for the inner core.)

Parents will be able to pre-teach Poppins the names of extended family members and their positions in

the family tree; they will also be able to pre-load Poppins with family tales and anecdotes. In this sense,

Poppins will also become a repository of family memories. There will be no need for parents or others to

try to record the child’s cute sayings or perceptive questions—those will all be saved, since all of

Poppins’ interactions with the child will be recorded and uploaded to the cloud, where sophisticated

language analysis algorithms will improve as they process more communications.

Having learned from the publicly raised concerns about the internet-connected “Hello Barbie,” the

creators of Poppins have gone to great lengths to encrypt all of the communications between Poppins,

the child, and the servers of the toy company. They have also determined that they will not share those

communications with any third parties (except AmOzone, which is their cloud services provider).

But they are aware that other ethical concerns remain. One of them involves privacy. The developers of

Hello Barbie had built in a functionality that allowed all of a child’s conversations with Barbie to be sent
to a parent’s phone via an app. Many of the designers and engineers involved in the creation of Poppins

believe that such a feature is a violation of the child’s privacy. They are also particularly concerned

because Poppins is designed to “grow” along with the child; they believe that a teenager has greater

privacy rights than younger children do, and want to protect those rights. On the other hand, they are

wondering whether there should be some exceptions: should Poppins, for example, report to a parent

any suicidal ideations that a child might express? Should it report to authorities any statements that a

child might make that would suggest abuse by a family member or caretaker? What ethical duties does

a toy company take on once its products listen in in a child’s home?

Another consideration entails the very nature of child-rearing and caretaking. The creators of Poppins

want to build a rich and responsive environment for children, but they also worry that by taking on

some of the tasks mentioned above, they might undermine the bonds between children and their

human caretakers. What virtues might be lost or depleted if parents didn’t have to sing (perhaps badly)

to soothe their own children, or didn’t have to navigate the awkwardness of certain conversations with

their kids?

What other ethical issues do you see raised by the scenario above, in terms of both benefits and harms?

Since this is a product that involves AI, consider, also, what data it might be trained on; who would

create the initial set of responses and resources that Poppins might offer; what kind of data portability

might be provided; whether Poppins would have a gender (and what kind of voice would it have, given

its audience); what would happen to the data collected if the toy company were to go out of business,

etc.

For opportunities to compare and contrast this with related scenarios, see articles about two related

products: the above-mentioned Hello Barbie, and a product that was initially announced but then

cancelled (pre-distribution) in 2017 called “Aristotle” (an Aristotle with “the female voice of a perky, 25-

year-old kindergarten teacher”)

1. Who are the stakeholders involved? Who should be consulted about the project’s goals and

development?

Answer: The stakeholders who are involved in this project are employees and owner of the tech
companies, customers, children, and toy store. Tech companies should prioritize on the development
and goals of this project.

2. What additional facts might be required? What practical steps might you need to take in order

to access the information/perspectives needed to manage the ethical landscape of this project?

Answer:

 Data storage and collection management

3. What are some other ethical issues that any designers/developers of such a device would need

to address?

Answer:

 Privacy – there is violation of the child’s privacy

4. How might this project be evaluated through the various ethical 'lenses' described in the

“Conceptual Frameworks” document?

Answer:

 Draft a set of principles for the responsible use of using artificial intelligence.
 Design a methodology that would support teams in developing Poppins.
 Validate principles and compliance on privacy and treating artificial intelligence.
5. In this project, what moral values are potentially conflicting with each other? Is there any way to

reconcile them? Even if conflict is unavoidable, are there ways to respect all relevant

interests/values? How?

Answer: For me, it would be making AI transparent and defining ethical behavior. Yes, you can
reconcile them by making sure that AI researchers should provide machines with explicit answers and
decision rules to any potential ethical dilemmas that it may encounter. It would require that children
agree among themselves on the most ethical course of action in any given situation. Also, machines
cannot behave morally so humans must teach them what morality is and how it can be measured.

6. As a project team, how might you go about sorting through these ethical issues and addressing

them? Which of the ethical issues you have identified would you prioritize, and why?

Answer: By making guidelines that would respect to ethics that could make AI transparent. For me, it
would be making AI transparent because humans must know how to treat robots properly where they
need to answer in an explicit way.

7. Who would be the appropriate persons on a team to take those steps? At what level, and by

what methods, should decisions be made within the company about how to manage the ethical

issues raised by this project?

Answer: For me, it would be the developer and owner of the toy company. It should be the executive
level and legal technical team of the toy company who should make decisions on managing the ethical
issues of Poppins. Also, it would be best to come up with potential actions where ethical decision
making is important in managing ethical issues in Poppins.