Social Context of Computing

1
Social Context of Computing

• CSCI102 - Systems
• ITCS905 - Systems
• MCS9102 - Systems

2
Social Issues

• How does cybertechnology effect
• Socio-demographic groups
• Social class
• Race
• Gender
• Social and political institutions
• Education
• Government
• Social sectors
• Workplace

3
The Digital Divide

• Information haves and have-nots
• Perceived gap between those with and without
  access to information tools and the ability to
  use them
• Divide between nations
• Divide within nations

4
The Digital Divide

• Global Digital Divide
• 6 of the world population is online
• 68 of these in Nth.America Europe
• 2 billion people live without electricity
• net access in developing countries is subject to
  low bandwidth, slow access, and prohibitive
  expenses
• Literacy is low in many countries
• Most material on the net is in English
• Former US VP, Al Gore and the GII initiative for
  universal access
• No real result

5
The Digital Divide

• Digital Divide in the USA
• Universal Service vs. Universal Access
• Universal service concept applied to telephony,
  now to internet access
• Public Education and the Analog Divide
• Access is not only divided on income but on
  educational levels
• Monahan Analog divide refers to inequalities
  that predated the digital technological
  revolution but continued through

6
The Digital Divide

• Digital Divide as an Ethical Issue
• People denied access to cyber tech are denied
  access to resources vital for their well-being?
• Access to knowledge is limited
• Ability to participate in politics and receive
  important info is restricted
• Economic prospects severely limited
• Do we have a moral obligation to bridge the
  digital divide?

7
Cybertechnology and the Disabled

• Tim Berners-Lee, director of W3C
• the power of the web is in its universality.
  Access by everyone regardless of disability is an
  essential aspect
• Disability as a social-construct
• Perception of obligation
• Telstra and teletypewriters
• HREOC 1995 discrimination finding

8
Race and Cybertechnology

• In USA
• 51 of homes have ? 1 computer
• 41.5 of homes have net access
• 86.3 of households earning gt US75kpa have
  access
• 12.7 earning lt 15kpa have access
• Internet usage by Racial/Ethnic Group in US

Whites Asian-Americans African-Americans Hispanics
46.1 56.8 23.5 23.1
9
Race and Cybertechnology

• Technology, Race Public Policy
• Studies show web-site developers see little
  benefit in developing content for minorities
• Since (for example) African-Americans make up a
  small user percentage, there is little incentive
  for non-African-Americans to develop material
  targeted for that audience

10
Race and Cybertechnology

• Rhetoric Racism
• Exclusion built-in to public policy
• Thoughtlessnesseffect of highways running
  through low-income and minority areas
• Blatant racismcivic design for social
  engineering

11
Gender and Cybertechnology

• Access Issues
• In most societies, women are certainly not
  actively denied access to cybertechnology but
  still make up a small and shrinking percentage of
  industry professionals
• Early education socialization?
• As with racial minorities, lower number of
  representatives in the owners and creators
  lower representation in content and access
  corridors

12
Gender and Cybertechnology

• Gender Bias and Educational Software
• Studies showed that learning programmes designed
  for cybertechnology matched to a male-stereotype
• Gender Bias and Educational Software
• Most interactive software favours male-physiology
• Females better at colour differentiation
• Males better at depth perception and movement
  detection
• Due to physical differences in eyes

13
Employment and Work

• Job Displacement Automation
• Cybertechnology has created or displaced jobs?
• Lost in some sectors
• Created in others
• JOB DISPLACEMENT
• Linked to automation

14
Employment and Work

• Robotics Expert Systems
• Robots capable of multiple tasks
• Low cost
• High productivity
• Expert systems
• A primitive form of AI
• Replacement for experience?
• Mobile Agents
• Commercial agents online auctions
• Intelligent reactive planners

15
Employment and Work

• Virtual Organisations Remote Work
• Telecommuting
• Office automation
• Anywhere connectivity PAN leads to
• Virtual organisations
• Virtual teams
• Virtual corporations
• virtual work ? )

16
Employment and Work

• Telecommuting may assist the disabled
• Or result in new forms of discrimination
• Restricted to hidden off-site tasks
• Removed from the work society

17
Quality of Work Life

• Health and Safety Issues
• VDU radiation
• RSI
• Typists-neck
• Stress

18
Quality of Work Life

• Employee Stress, Workplace Surveillance and
  Computer Monitoring
• The invisible supervisor
• Keystroke capture
• PC anywhere
• Email monitoring
• Phone logs
• Video surveillance

19
Employee Autonomy and Privacy

• Proposal 1 (Marx Sherizen 1991)An Ethics for
  Employee Monitoring
• Job related data collection only
• Employers provide advanced notice mechanisms
  for appeal
• Verification of machine-collected data prior to
  it being used for employee evaluation
• Employee access to the data on themselves
• Monetary redress for violation of rights or
  negative reporting through machine error
• statute of limitations on data collected

20
Employee Autonomy and Privacy

• Proposal 2 (Introna 2001)An Alternative
  Strategy
• Employees dont fear surveillance as such, but
  the choices their bosses may make based on the
  data collected
• Asymmetry of power, where employer holds all the
  power a concern for workplace justice
• Total privacy -gt employee fraud
• Total transparency -gt loss of worth, trust
  morale
• Need a framework that distributes privacy and
  transparency
• This is a complex ethical issue

21
CSCI102 Week 2(a)

• Thank you to Bob Brown who prepared the material
  for this lecture.
• Main Reference
• Herman T. Tavani. Ethics Technology ethical
  issues in an Age of Information and Communication
  Technology. Hoboken, NJ John Wiley, 2004.