We lead global morality
By 'we' I mean this community.
People who make things, especially people who utilize technology to make things, pioneer the world into a new direction. With every new product comes a new product, or service, or a new way of doing things.
We need to realize and understand the impact this has on ethics. If we lead the way in a technological sense, we will also lead the way in an ethical sense too. With every new technology comes a new moral dilemma, like these:
- When does AI become human enough to be allowed to live the same way we are?
- How much data can we take without breaching on the privacy of our users?
- What experiments can we run on our product without unconscious messaging or mood manipulation?
- How much can we automate without negatively affecting people's livelihood?
The problem is - these ethical dilemmas are answered by us. The government doesn't interfere with these questions until afterwards. Legislation isn't created until the product is created. It's how internet monopolies are allowed to exist, like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple. Or how automation can take so many jobs without the government offering a good solution.
Please take this into consideration when you're creating your product. Ask yourself the ethical conundrums that your product proposes. Think about the services you're using alongside your product - are you contributing to a monopoly by using their service or sending them your user's data?
If we don't take morality into consideration, eventually someone will have to. And I don't want to know what the world will be like when 'eventually' comes.
