Ethical and Social Implications of Computing Systems

Tea-table talk

📌 Note: This section won’t be evaluated in an official AP CS A exam.

Today, we live in a modern world. Achieving more in less time is the ultimate goal. Computing devices have unquestionably made it possible. Seeing the revolution around you, you must have felt that everything still doesn’t go as planned.

While programs are created to achieve a specific purpose, they may have unintended consequences. Whenever a system is designed, the designers make sure that it performs correctly during a particular time duration. During this duration, the system adequately follows the defined specifications. However, it’s pretty tough to ensure that everything will work as intended. System reliability is limited. Programmers should try to maximize system reliability.

Legal issues and intellectual property concerns arise when creating programs. For example, self-driving cars use machine learning to ensure safe driving. They learn algorithms to stay in a lane and avoid collisions. But what if the car needs to make an ethical decision about avoiding a collision with a pedestrian by causing another accident? Who makes these decisions and how do we approach such decisions? It’s tough.