Next-Generation Ethics

de Ali E. Abbas

"Some of the significant features of our era include the design of large-scale systems; advances in medicine, manufacturing, and artificial intelligence; the role of social media in influencing behavior and toppling governments, and the surge of online transactions that are replacing human face-to-face interactions. Most of these features have resulted from advances in technology. While spanning a variety of disciplines, these features also have two important aspects in common: the need for sound decision making about the technology that is evolving, and the need to understand the ethical implications of these decisions to all stakeholders. Technology is amoral: it does not know how it will be used. In fact, technological advancements have made it even easier to deceive, partly because of the new capabilities that are enabled by the technology (such as creating fake videos from selfies, known as "Deep Fakesʺ) and partly because of the level of complexity that is added to new advancements making the internal structure of a product less obvious to users and policy makers"--