Group items tagged

Situation: Robots are now being invented to aid in farming. This particular farm built a robot to prune and de-sucker grapes. Social and Ethical Significance: People and Machines - People being replaced by technology is a reality that we must face as it is a reality that we are beginning to see. Obviously when machines replace people, jobs are lost which is never a good thing. But that's not all we should be worrying about. When machines start to perform human tasks, we lose the skill and knowledge that comes with completing those tasks. So technology taking over tasks could either lead to depletion of common knowledge that humans have but it could also go be good because it will leave room for humans to focus on more important issues and knowledge, while machines take care of the mundane chores. IT Systems: GPS Gyroscope - Part of security. The robot knows when it has been lifted off the ground Artificial Intelligence - grape recognition Plant recognition Hard drive Synchronization of cameras Built in security - The robot won't start if it is an unknown area and can self-destruct Stakeholders: Farm Owners - The way their business is conducted could change Farm workers - They could lose jobs or have to learn new ones Robotic Engineers - They are interested in the new technology being used Applications to Specified Scenario: Changing how companies function is only one piece of what technology is changing. Technologies like this robot in the article could be applied to many different areas in the world. One example is security and surveillance. The robot in the article watches plants all day. It wouldn't be hard to alter the cameras to recognize people too. These robots also have tools that they are able to use. Wouldn't it then be possible to give the robots weapons and have them enforce the law? Or go to war? What would that mean for us humans? The upbringing of Artificial Intelligence will induce lots of change and raise various ethical considerati

This article discusses artificial intelligence, and the extent to which it is a) realistic and b) can be used as a replacement for humans in the case of chats -- in other words, it analyzes the question of how and when any such bots will be ready for usage in a manner that will be realistic enough for chatting with an actual human being. This development emerged due to the immediate need of firms such as customer service centers to use less work force and yet satisfy customers with solutions to trivial (to them) problems. The advantages for the stakeholders are immediately obvious -- less workforce will be needed because the computers will be in charge of answering most questions, and fewer questions will be eventually directed to an actual individual. However, the immediate ethical disadvantage is the loss of job openings in the area of customer service, along with many other areas, since intelligent machines will soon be the preferred alternative to complete such tasks; this provides the impacts concerning the economic and psychological aspects. Furthermore, through the loss of jobs, it is likely and very possible that legal issues may arise. The solutions to these problems is that the human workers work in tandem with each other; that way, both the machines are put to good use and the aspects involving the loss of jobs and the ethical/moral issues that arise with these points will be solved. Through the analysis of this article, it is immediately and readily obvious that the IT systems involved in this wide range of scenarios includes but is not limited to computers/computer servers, robotic mechanisms (e.g. robotic arms, etc.).

Scenario : At least 22.1 million people that are current or former US government workers since 2001's information was hacked and possibly breached into by hackers who stole the Office of Personal Management (OPM) data. It is believed that China stole this information to increase their collection of data of intelligence on US government employees, according to the article. Social / Ethical Issues : China and hackers now have personal information about millions of Americans which is a big ethical issue because no one knows how they are going to use that information and no one knows how much information they actually got. Also, China could use their newly-gained information against government workers unless the workers release personal government information about the US. This could possibly be a huge problem for the US if China basically uses espionage against US government employees and for their own personal gain. IT systems and things the hackers were able to breach: fingerprints databases social security numbers job assignments performance evaluations records on family members and close friends who were listed on job applications for security purposes financial and health records computer user names and passwords Stakeholders: China - Given that they stole information from the United States government intelligence, their relationship between the US and China will weaken. United States government and citizens- US gov't will now have less trust in China and also have a weakened relationship with China. The United States will most likely also take new security measures to make sure their information is more secure, and United States government workers will now be very hesitant to give out their information.

The robots aren't doing so hot when it comes to policing copyright infringement. Computers are answering to copyright take down requests and some people are misusing it. 2 stakeholders: The people posting things online and the original creators of content that are being pirated online. 2 social/ethical considerations: If a new movie was to be leaked online then it would cause the movie creators to lose a lot of money as more people would just watch the movie for free online. With the computers deciding on the copyright requests, they can target blogs and personal websites which use other contents to post reviews or summaries or fan pages. This can potentially infringe on freedom of expression. A possible solution: A solution to prevent blogs and personal websites from being targeted is to have actual people doing the job instead of robots as us people would be able to decide whether the website is required to taken down or is safe under the creative commons law. "This infringement of copyright is called "fair use" and is allowed for purposes of criticism, news, reporting, teaching, and parody." A robot would not be able to tell between these and would take down innocent blogs while possibly leaving some that are really pirating content up on the internet. List of IT systems: automated bot-based systems

Situation: Ad blockers are becoming increasingly common, and as a result, businesses are rapidly losing revenue each year. Social and ethical significance: As is ubiquitous in the corporate world, businesses and consumers have differing needs and interests regarding their usage of the internet. Consumers want to avoid paying subscription fees and other charges for every single task they partake in on the web, while businesses still need to profit somehow. The response to this over the decades has largely been the rise of web advertisements, which come in many different forms. For a large portion of the internet's history, the vast majority of its users have grudgingly accepted the need for advertisements, seeing how they generally benefit consumers as well as businesses when it allows consumers to avoid paying extra. However, in recent years, ad blockers have become increasingly popular, which provide web users with the ability to hide every ad they see, which of course deprives the owners of the websites they browse from attaining the revenues they would otherwise receive. Naturally, this is a conundrum. Web activities need to be affordable for the average consumer, and businesses need to profit, which is the entire purpose of corporations in mixed economies. Solving this problem will force businesses to devise ways of making advertisements more palatable and less intrusive, and it may eventually result in an outright of ban of ad blockers. The latter possibility would nevertheless cause a huge uproar due to a perceived assault on freedom and individual liberties. It is therefore a solution which would be preferably avoided--ideally, the solution will simply make consumers less apt to even use an ad blocker in the first place without eliminating the presence of advertisements altogether. IT Systems: Advertisements in the forms of videos, pictures, animations, etc. as well as ad blockers in the form of browser extensions and software applications--including mobil