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Situation : In the United States right now, we are in the process of choosing a new president. For those who do not know, the election process in the US consists of two conflicting opinions of two different parties (Democrats and Republicans.) The Republicans basically believe in lower taxes and less government intervention, while the Democrats believe in raising taxes and more government action. Based on the article, the current state of the US electoral process shows that electronic voting machines guarantee a Republican victory in 2016. Social / Ethical Concerns : Influence on Politiicans - The article claims (this article is VERY pro democratic and VERY pro Hilary Clinton) that the candidate who has the most votes won't in fact win. Rather, the article claims that unless Hilary wins each major swing state by 10% more than the Republican or the corruption of politics with online voting does not end, she will not win. Security issues - The machines may be easy to hack into with the right knowledge and tools, and a hacker could easily sway the country's votes. Influence on People - The best candidate with the most votes from the electoral college should win, so this is a major social and ethical concern because of the idea that America is all about the people deciding the future of the country, and if the right candidate isn't chosen, it could affect our future for generations to come. IT systems flaws: -sometimes the voters don't click on the right candidate and they are mad because the computer won't let them click on the candidate they actually want -machines can malfunction and freeze -some of the voting places are in major favor of one candidate and they may sway the votes after the tallied online -electronic voting machine may not even be present and paper ballots may be used (it's not fair to have some people with paper ballots and some with online voting ballots) -electricity dependency may cause a computer to shut down if there is a loss of power

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.).

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

Scenario: Different US states are taking different approaches to voting. Maryland is enforces paper voting, with some digital use by scanning a copy of each vote to have on record. On the other extreme, Utah Republicans are embracing technology by having everyone vote over the Internet. Social Ethical Issues: Security: James Evans, Utah GOP Chairman, thinks "the risks associated with Internet voting aren't worse than the current system". Learning Curve: Maryland bought new machines for voting and there was some concern about people being confused when using them. IT Systems: Optical scanner for a digital record of votes Electronic Voting Machines Internet Stakeholders: Voters - Do they care about the convenience of online voting or the more reliable security of paper voting? State - Depending on what method of voting, time and money will be used more or saved. Applications to Specified Scenario: The article questions why there is so much concern with voting electronically when we already do so many important things online. We do our banking and buying online, giving out personal information, so why not elections? The article answers, "e-commerce expects and is comfortable with a certain level of fraud. Our electoral process, however, has zero tolerance for fraud". With banking and e-commerce, the costs aren't as high as with elections. Any risks also outweigh the benefits. Elections have also historically never been electronic until now. So there is a certain security and assurance that comes from the traditional paper ballot votes.

Situation: Technology is making businesses more optimised, efficient, and faster. Social and Ethical Significance: The ways that businesses work have changed over the past few years, is all due to the advancements in technology, that allow the companies/businesses/industries to work much quicker, efficient, and cover a much wider horizon, to achieve profits. The use of technology helps in allowing instant communication to any location around the globe, a more optimised mode of production of goods, services or a certain product, a much better, more efficient inventory management, allowing zero loose ends, and not to forget, better management of finances, anywhere at any time. IT systems: Well, IT systems in businesses vary from company to company. However, I'll take the example of a hypermarket chain, and name it X. X would have formal employees,as well as normal employees using personal laptops and smartphones, and that would require IT technicians to create working servers for the company. There would be a website portal for those who would like to order online, as well as customer calling services etc. Then, X would have checkout machines; some self-checkout and some, standard checkout, and these checkout machines would require regular maintenance to make sure it's in proper working condition. Then there would be barcode scanners all around the stores to check prices of a product in store. Application to Specified Scenarios: Supermarket and Hypermarket companies such as Asda, Carrefour, Spinneys, Choithram's, etc run using a similar system as described in the IT systems.

I agree that business and technology are accelerating the news industry a lot.

Scenario: The article I am analyzing focuses upon the disadvantages brought about by electronic voting. The article attempts to convince the reader that there are absolutely no advantages to e-voting when compared to traditional voting, and the chance of fraud is much higher in e-voting than it is in traditional voting. The article does give credit to the fact that traditional voting, especially in the US, can also be prone to acts of fraud and corruption, however, he seems to be inclined towards this being less likely than the possibility presented by e-voting. Social/ethical issues: The social and ethical issues that show up in this article are primarily security and reliability. The writer clearly does not seem to believe that the e-voting system is too secure, as he often states that there are many ways in which the e-voting system can be cheated and violated. He believes that e-voting often generates results that do not match up with the predicted results from the votes cast. He also does not seem to comfortable with the idea of fully trusting a machine to measure and calculate the result of the votes, as he seems to favor the idea of votes being manually counted and recorded by poll workers. IT systems: E-voting often takes place on a particular website or on a private network which specific voting computers are connected to. Here, voters can verify their identification before proceeding to cast a vote. After the vote is cast, the information is sent to a central server where it is stored and constantly recalculated by the system for an updated vote count. Stakeholders: Regionally, everyone is a stakeholder in electronic voting. All individuals in the particular area are effected by the results of a large-scale electronic vote, as these are usually to decide governmental leaders/officials. Local businesses might be the most impacted stakeholders, because they are heavily effected by the policies and laws that could be passed by the new official,

Watson is IBM's latest supercomputer with a twist. Not only can it's artificial intelligence decipher and perfectly understand human literature and language, but it can even give a response which will be equally as startling. This computer is designed to think like a human being, and it's ability to do this is almost unbelievable. Watson even proved itself in a mini jeopardy game against two former jeopardy champions, crushing them with ease and easily claiming the reward of one million US dollars. An artificial intelligence with this power is a figure of great controversy, and many say that we should not be investing in machines such as Watson, which could potentially destroy the careers of millions of individuals across the globe with it's almost human like 'thinking' processes. However, Watson could still prove to be an extremely useful tool for many fields which require human attention, such as medicine, finance, commerce, and business. With it's almost human like attributes, Watson could execute tasks such as calculating and predicting stock exchange values, deciding how to solve medical problems, or even predicting which economies are to fall and which ones are to rise.