Computers and Ethics, Part 1

Quickly, a welcome to our new site.  We’re still making changes, adding widgets, doing up colour schemes, but it is really going to be quite snazzy.  But, on with the show.

This is part one of a series of posts I’ll be writing about this topic, adding and changing my views as I go.  It is one that I’ve become progressively more interested in over the last few weeks, and I think there is much to be said in this area.

The Gov2.0 lobby is starting to pick up speed in the west, as more and more countries start to integrate social media, structured information, open source information, collaborative projects to integrate public participation into policy, and more, the word that often gets thrown out there is innovation. Innovation is the key, it seems, to this program—allow individuals the freedom to do, make, and be what and who they want in the context of personal communications and public interaction, and the world will become a better place.  Not only that, but the world will become a better place as people are empowered to make their world and the world of other people a better place.  It sounds great.

The main setback it seems is government itself.  Governments for the most part are conservative organisations that, through prudence involved with antiquated means of dealing with public life with slow response times; the problems of passing policy; and the traditional gambit of traits the make up human self-interest are all hugely problematic for progressive policy planning.  Especially when the call is for opening up the halls of government through unprecedented transparency and community involvement.  And then, the phrase that is born is “there is no innovation without risk.”

So far, this all seems to run together with common sense modern liberal ideas.  But my question is: risk for whom?  The traditional bearers of this risk, it seems the Gov2.0 people are hinting at, is the risk bureaucrats and politicians see for themselves.  In part, this is understandable—few people want their dirty laundry aired against their will.  But that’s more or less the price one pays for politics, at least in an ideal world.

What I plan to do over the next few weeks is discuss some other risks that might come about with this hyperconnected, always-on world.  I don’t plan on being purely critical—after all, cynicism never gets anyone anywhere.  But it would help to talk about the risks involved in this project.  There are solutions, and I plan to talk about these too.  But if we only focus on solutions, we might neglect some solid searching for some very real and important problems.   I might add that gov2.0 is not the only part of this project, and that much of what I will talk about is generally applicable to our rapidly technologised society.

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