Ethics for Technology: Fall 2025

Lectures

Notes:

I will provide a PDF version of the paper to be read and/or a link to a web version of the paper.

Do read carefully what is assigned for a given class... you won't be able to act surprised, as if you did not know.

If you come to class having done the reading, feeling ready and eager to talk about it, the class works well.

There will be three possible types of reports that I will ask for:
- Analysis: If I ask you to turn in an analysis, I am asking for your own opinion about the text. You may decide to take one point that you either strongly agree with, or strongly disagree with, and discuss it. You may decide to give an opiniated overview of the whole text. It is your choice. However, I want you to be specific: no generalities, no unsupported opinions. Make sure to credit any ideas that is not yours.An analysis should be up to 1 page long.
- Summary: If I ask you to turn in a summary, I am expected an unbiased account of what the paper says. Do not indicate whether you agree of disagree with what the authors say. Make sure to write in prose: bullet points for example are not OK. A summary should be 0.5 to 1 page long.
- Quotes: If I ask you to turn in quotes from a reading, I'm asking for you to find either one or two short and insightful quote(s) from the text. You may redact for clarity or concision. After each quote, write a small paragraph to discuss what it means, in the context of the reading, to the author. You are allowed to provide an opinion.

Chapter 3: The Illusion of progress. From the book "Why America failed", Berman (2011)

Date	What we talked about	What you needed to do	Class notes	Further reading/Comments
1: W 09/24	Why ethics and why ethics in technology?	Nothing due on the first day of class. Lucky you ;-)	A brief introduction to ethics / ECS088	Read on next entry what you need to do for Friday The significance of ethics and ethics education in daily life Watch an interesting video on (information) technologies Did you know (2025)!
2: F 9/26 (D)	Utilitarianism	Read The ones who walk away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin (1973) The Lottery (Shirley Jackson, 1948)		Additional readings / videos (not required) The moral philosopher and the moral life by William James: where Le Guin got her inspiration from The Lottery: short film (based on the novel by Shirley Jackson, 1948)
3: F 9/26 (L)	Utilitarianism	Read Classical hedonism (Bentham, 1789).	Class notes on utilitarianism
4: M 09/29	Pains and pleasures	Read Utilitarianism (John Mills, 1861)		Possible readings: What money can't buy (exerpts) (Michael Sandel, 2013)
5: W 10/01	Kant: deontology	Read Kant's moral philosophy (Tim Jankowiak, Tuczon University	Class notes on Kant	Groundwork for the metaphysics of morals Immanuel Kant (1785).
6: F 10/03	What money can't buy	Read: What money can't buy (exerpts) (Michael Sandel, 2013)
7: F 10/03 (L)	Kant: Imperatives	Read Kant's categorical imperatives Wikepedia		Kant the Bhuddist Whitney Grimm (2021).
8: M 10/06	Kant: The right to lie?	read An interesting letter to Kant and his answers: Maria von Herbert's challenge to Kant	Class notes on Kant (2)
9: W 10/08	Aristotle and Virtue Ethics	Read Virtue Ethics	Class notes on Aristotle	An interesting additional paper: Virtue Ethics
10: F 10/10	Smart drugs	Nothing to prepare!		Smart drug: what Silicon valley's on
11: F 10/10 (L)	The cost/benefit of human life	Read Pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine: wicked problems, ragged edges and ethical precipices (Fleck, 2012)	Class notes on Fleck's paper	Further readings: The Ethics of Personalized Medicine: A Philosopher's Perspective, (Chadwick, 2014). Utilitarianism and the ethical foundations of cost-effectiveness analysis in resource allocation for global health, Marseille and Han, 2019.
12: M 10/13	Technology	Read Views of technology. Ian Barbour (2021)	Class notes on Technology
13: W 10/15	First report: AI and Aristotle	Read AI ethics with Aristotle Ober and Tasioulas (2024) (you can find it also at AI ethics with Aristotle Ober and Tasioulas (2024)
14: F 10/17 (D)	Technology traps	Read the paper Technology traps: who is responsible?.		Wikepedia article on progress traps. Introduction to the book "A short history of progress". The whole book is worth reading!.
15: F 10/17	Technology	Read Kranzberg's law, Kranzberg (1985)	Class notes on Technology (2)	Further readings: Do Machines Make History?. Martin Heilbroner (1967)
16: M 10/20	Privacy and freedom	Read the Wikipedia article on privacy (up to page 7, i.e. up to "Legal right to privacy": Privacy (or directly from the Wikipedia webpage: Privacy).	Class notes on privacy	Aristotle's concepts of privacy, an article describing the concepts of privacy in Aristotle's philosophy. Privacy and Information Technology, an article from the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, 2014. The ACLU portal to its project on Privacy and Technology
17: W 10/22	Privacy and surveillance	Read An article by the Guardian on Privacy under attack related to the Snowden case. (direct link to the Guardian)	Class notes on Snowden	Watch Ed Snowden (interview by the Guardian) Wikipedia article Edward Snowden
18: F 10/24	Privacy and surveillance (2)	Re-Read the article by the Guardian on Privacy under attack related to the Snowden case. (direct link to the Guardian)		Watch a second video about Snowden Ed Snowden (interview by the Guardian) Read this interesting paper on Surveillance and UC faculty: Cybersecurity mandate alarms University of California faculty (2025)
19: F 10/24 (D)	Deep fakes	We will watch: A toxic influence from Dove, UK, and A toxic influence from Greenpeace, UK.
20: M 10/27	Intellectual property	Read the preface and Chapter 1: Why intellectual property? of "The public domain, James Boyle *If there is a quiz, it will only be on Chapter 1*	Notes on ethics / intellectual property	Here is the link to James Boyle's full book The public domain.
21: W 10/29	Second report: AI can imitate morality	Read AI can imitate morality John Niccum (2025) (you can find it also at AI can imitate morality Jon Niccum (2025) This article is a short analysis / summary of the longer paper: Kantian deontology for AI: alignment without moral agency, by O.D. Sanwoolu (2025). The essay will be based on the short analysis, but I advise you to read the full paper as background
22: F 10/31 (D)	Who owns the internet ?	We will discuss Aaron Swartz, in particular we will watch: a conference keynote.	Notes on Aaron Swartz	Rest in peace, Aaaron Swartz
23: F 10/31	Intellectual property (2)	(re) Read Chapter 1: Why intellectual property? of "The public domain", James Boyle		Here is the link to James Boyle's full book The public domain.
24: M 11/03	Data collection for AI: Consent for human experiments	We will watch: Henrietta Lacks, the Tuskegee experiment, and ethical data collection, 2018.	Class notes on data collection for AI	Interesting readings / links: The Nuremberg code 1947. The Belmont report 1979.
25: W 11/05	AI and education	Read The use of Artificial Intelligence in education, EU report, 2020	class notes on AI and education	Possible reading: Ten facts about AI in teaching and learning
26: F 10/31 (D)	Should we allow patents on the human genome?	None		Possible readings: NIH report on intellectual property and genomics BRCA1 and BRCA2: Cancer Risk and Genetic Testing: some background on BRCA1 and BRCA2. Move to Patent Cancer Gene Is Called Obstacle to Research: an early (1996) article from the NY Times on patenting BRCA1 and BRCA2. U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Human Gene Patents: a report from Science magazine on US Supreme Court decision on the BRCA case. Biological patents in different juridictions. A talk on "Should you be able to patent a human gene?" by Tania Simoncelli, ACLU.
26: F 11/07	AI and education (2)	Re-read The use of Artificial Intelligence in education, EU report, 2020		Possible additional reading: Artifcial intelligence in education: Addressing ethical challenges in K-12 settings
27: M 11/10	AI and education (3)	Re-read The use of Artificial Intelligence in education, EU report, 2020
28: W 11/12	AI and the alignment problem	Reading: Artificial intelligence will do what we ask. That's a Problem Nathalie Wolchover, 2020	Class notes on AI and the alignment problem	Possible readings: The Doomsday invention, The New Yorker, 2015. Hubert Dreyfus's view on AI, 2004. Stanley Fish - Dreyfus I (2011) Stanley Fish - Dreyfus II The wikipedia page on the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence AlphaGo: the movie Read E.M. Forster's short story: The machine stops (1909)
29: F 11/14 (D)	Timnit Gebru	We will watch: How To Stop Artificial Intelligence From Marginalizing Communities? , 2018.	Class notes on Timnit Gebru	Possible readings: The paper that got her fired: On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?Bender et al, 2021. Review article: A Survey on Bias and Fairness in Machine Learning (2019) Gender classification: Gender shades: intersectional accuracy disparities in commercial classification Facial recognition auditing: Saving face: investigating the ethical concerns of facial recognition auditing Washington Post article on Timnit Gebru
30: F 11/14	Stuart Russell	Reading: Risk, Alignment, & Guarding Against Doomsday Scenarios Russell, 2023	Class notes on Stuart Russell
31: M 11/17	Stuart Russell (2)	Reading: Risk, Alignment, & Guarding Against Doomsday Scenarios Russell, 2023
32: W 11/19	Fairness in AI	Read the ACLU article on biases in hiring: Why Amazon's Automated Hiring Tool Discriminated Against Women (or directly from the ACLU webpage: Why Amazon's Automated Hiring Tool Discriminated Against Women)	Class notes on biases in AI	Possible readings: Read article: Ethics and discrimination in artificial intelligence enabled recruitment practices Z. Cheng, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2023. What do we do about the baises in AI Harvard Business Review (2019)
33: F 11/22	The diversity dilemma	Read the paper Google's idealogical echo chamber, James Damore, 2017.	Class notes on gender bias in Computer Science	Interesting readings / links: Increasing girls' interest in computer science and engineering by diversifying stereotypes, Charyan et al, Frontiers in Psychology (2015). Why women don't code Reges, 2016. Does biology explain why men outnumber women in CS? Alice Eagly, 2017. What it is like to be a woman at a Tech conference" Chloe Condon, 2017.
35: M 11/25	Environmental ethics	Read Is it morally wrong to kill a whale? by H. Pichl (1997).	Class notes on environment ethics and animal testing	Further reading: Duties Regarding Nature: A Kantian Approach to Environmental Ethics
36: W 11/27	Ethics and empathy	Read The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle by P. Singer (2017).	Class notes on Empathy and Compassion