Week 3: Ethical Foundations & Practical Tools

Now that we’ve seen a number of concrete, real world examples of ethical issues that arise with data, we will step back and learn about some ethical philosophies and lenses to evaluate ethics through, as well as considering how ethical questions are chosen. We will also cover the Markkula Center’s Tech Ethics Toolkit, a set of concrete practices to be implemented in the workplace.

Required Reading

Shannon Vallor et al, Conceptual Frameworks in Technology and Engineering Practice: Ethical Lenses to Look Through

Ian Bogost, Enough With the Trolley Problem

Zeynep Tufekci, Sociological Storytelling vs. Psychological Storytelling

Langdon Winner, Do Artifacts Have Politics?

Shannon Vallor, An Ethical Toolkit for Engineering/Design Practice

Optional Reading

Meg Young et al, Toward inclusive tech policy design: a method for underrepresented voices to strengthen tech policy documents

Margaret Mitchell et al, Model Cards for Model Reporting

Eric P. S. Baumer and M. Six Silberman, When the Implication Is Not to Design (Technology)

Mark White, Superhuman Ethics Class With The Avengers Prime

1 Like

Here’s a cute snipit of the Trolley Problem from The Good Place.

2 Likes

Hi all, my recording failed 40 mins into class on Monday, so I re-recorded a condensed version of the 2nd part of class. Here are the two videos:

Ethical Foundations Discussion

Toolkit for Ethics in Tech Industry

Recording for the MSDS course: Ethical Foundations & Tools You Can Use in the Workplace (Data Ethics Lesson 3.1)