Welcome to the fourth module in the promote the ethical use of data driven technologies course, common ethical theories. In the lessons this week, you'll learn about some of the major philosophical theories and concepts that have survived for generations. Tanya Vigasparus will be your instructor this week, and we are joined by Aaron Hui today to help guide you through what you'll be learning this week. Aaron, why is it important to start thinking about the nature of what is right and wrong? Well, Megan, as you know, everyone makes value judgments whether they think about it overtly or not. By thinking about what's right and wrong while you're in the situation, you're taking a more proactive approach in your ethical duties. This helps establish the values and the virtues that you wish to align, such as honesty, empathy, trustworthiness, things that are very key to making the consumers trust in your ability to help them come up with solutions and make their lives easier. One thing that I addressed way back in the beginning, was that it's very hard for you to come up with solutions or react to ethical dilemmas in the situation at that time. By taking these steps of thinking how you can be an ethical technologist before, you're making sure that when the situation arises, you're ready to tackle the situation and the issues that comes along with it head on while making the right decisions. It's important to take into context the different cultures that comes into seeing what's right and wrong, and to make sure that we are addressing the moral relativisms and explore what the norms are when we address the issues that arise in technologies. After all, this has a lot to do with not being ethnocentric and making sure that everyone's values and opinions are addressed, and all the issues are properly mitigated. I know a lot of those terms are going to be covered. If you haven't gotten them in previous lessons, you'll get them in this lesson. Aaron, why do you think some people are hesitant to learn the theory behind these practices and why do you think that learning the theory is important? Well, first of all, it sounds like all the theories that I'm talking about here are a little bit daunting. There's definitely a lot of philosophy involved. It definitely conjures up probably uncomfortable classes in undergrad where you're going through textbooks from Kant and Aristotle. But at the end of the day, it's still very beneficial to know about some of the major ethical theories. As technologists, they don't have to take the entire PhD in philosophy to really understand how they can make ethical solutions happen. All they need to know is the major problems, the major pros, the major cons of each theory and jerry-rig a solution that they think will best address the issues that are at hand. So I think that is one of the reasons why a lot of people are hesitant, but I think that fear is a little bit unfounded. It's really more about understanding some of the major frameworks, and trying to incorporate it into your own solution. Well, I know our learners are going to be so happy to know that they don't have to get that PhD in philosophy, but if you have one already, it sounds as though it will be beneficial. Definitely. Now, to wrap up this next week, can you think of a scenario in which there was a lack of understanding of ethical theory that led to a real world business impact? Yeah. So I think Renee a has talked about the compass learning algorithm for recidivism. But one popular example is General Motors' ignition switch problem that caused a lot of cars to malfunction, resulting in injuries and even death. The fault switch has caused, I think 124 deaths and 273 injuries, and GM was finally brought to court. The scenario demonstrates the ethical considerations holding attention with traditional business concepts of maximizing profit while trying to protect those consumer. In the end, this business impact led to a settlement of $900 million, and this was something that could have been mitigated had they considered some of the ethical problems and the solutions first. I know we've talked about trust within an organization and within products. So not only the monetary impact that that had, but the trust that companies like GM have had to rebuild after these incidents. Definitely. So thank you, Aaron. We look forward to seeing how these concepts are applied in other real world situations and really diving into understanding some of these theories. Thank you so much. Thank you.
