The Ethics of Modern Computer Science

Through its development, computer science has made considerable performance strides, with neural networks becoming more accurate, internet protocols become faster, and search recommendations for eye-catching. Labs, curricula, and the news media has been focused on making our lives easier and more automated through technologies such as YouTube, CheXNet, or Roomba. But what if the Roomba didn’t keep your information private as it does?

Since the inception of computer science, industry professionals at key universities have identified ethical paradigms that must be considered when developing technology, and these will only become more important as computer science. As our computation becomes more advanced and begins to match or surpass human performance, there are certain values engineers should consider adopting.

However, many computer scientists struggle to incorporate these known values into their work, and how to work with others with these values in mind. Which industry professionals should worry about which ethics? In this course, learn the computer ethics concepts of explainability, privacy, fairness, and intellectual property, all integral to the moral development of computer science.

Learn to identify risks associated with immoral computer science, and proposed solutions to those immoralities. This course appeals to anyone looking to gain a basic ethical engineering paradigm.

Credits to Khedaar Kashyap in scriptwriting.

Thank you to Alan Warburton’s “Nature” for the course image.