As advances are made in artificial intelligence and machine learning, the distance between the activity of the designers/programmers of the system and the behavior of the system grows. This gap, between human action and the effects and consequences of that action, is not new, but emerging computing paradigms are presenting this challenge with a new urgency, and revealing the poverty of our tools for reasoning about what human responsibility means in a world with ubiquitous artificial agents. This paper proposes a (...) new addition to our existing collection of frameworks for considering this issue. (shrink)

We describe the process of changing and the changes being suggested for the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. In addition to addressing the technical and ethical basis for the proposed changes, we identify suggestions that commenters made in response to the first draft. We invite feedback on the proposed changes and on the suggestions that commenters made.

Hello! I'm Karla Carter, formerly Vice Chair of SIGCAS, and now, as of July 1, 2017, Chair! Thank you for entrusting three more years of executive committee duties to me. We are lucky to have Mikey Goldweber, from Xavier, remaining on the executive committee as Past Chair, Dee Weikle, from James Madison, continuing as our Editor-in-Chief for the newsletter, and we're welcoming two new executive committee members, Sam Rebelsky, from Grinnell, as the new Vice Chair, and Bob Beck, from Villanova, (...) as Member-at-large. Dee has asked us all to tell a bit about ourselves. Here is my tale. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, a wide variety of researchers have documented the dramatic decline in traditional political participation activities among young people and a corresponding increase in a more expressive form of citizenship focused around social media. This paper will briefly outline the sociological and political debate about the changing nature of citizenship and then reflect on this debate in light of our own multi-year qualitative citizenship research project. Our findings indicate that many of the transformative claims made about (...) young people's Digital Citizenship orientations are overstated. (shrink)

Decision-making assisted by algorithms developed by machine learning is increasingly determining our lives. Unfortunately, full opacity about the process is the norm. Can transparency contribute to restoring accountability for such systems? Several objections are examined: the loss of privacy when data sets become public, the perverse effects of disclosure of the very algorithms themselves, the potential loss of competitive edge, and the limited gains in answerability to be expected since sophisticated algorithms are inherently opaque. It is concluded that transparency is (...) certainly useful, but only up to a point: extending it to the public at large is normally not to be advised. Moreover, in order to make algorithmic decisions understandable, models of machine learning to be used should either be interpreted ex post or be interpretable by design ex ante. (shrink)

In the information society of today, privacy is a premium service and user-related information a commodity. This development has gone unnoticed for many, but for some it contradicts with their common sense and perception of right and wrong. If we look into user agreements, and the effect Fair Information Practice Principles seem to have, this development is particularly evident. One-on-one agreements such as End User License Agreements between the providers and users have become ubiquitous to most users who simply scroll (...) through the agreement and click 'I agree' without actually understanding or caring what they have accepted. There are various reasons for this kind of behavior ranging from complete indifference, to inadequate internet and technology literacy, and even to peer pressure as certain applications have become a 'must have' amongst a group of users. This problem is particularly current as personal mobile devices have become important, for some even inseparable, part of our daily lives. These devices, such as smart phones and tablets, have also become user-centered aggregation points of information that contain personal, even sensitive information about us, and those around us. At the same time, the number of different applications that have practically unrestrained access to the Internet, is on the rise. When combined with ignorance and negligence, the risk of placing personal information into wrong hands is a very real one. In the following, we focus on this well-explored challenge from a novel perspective---informed consent---and argue that one way to address this problem is to develop solutions that not only promote personal choice and awareness, but are also context-dependent. In order to provide a practical insight into our primarily conceptual work, we use one of the most popular applications, the Pokémon GO by Niantic Inc., in highlighting some of the encountered privacy-related issues. (shrink)

Continuous interaction between gadgets, sensors and people points to the rising number of data being produced, stored and processed. On one hand, it may bring benefits to consumers, on the other, growing connectivity, accompanied by data overflow, can also challenge privacy and fundamental rights. This paper approaches some of the challenges faced by the rule of law posed by the advancement of the Internet of Things, which includes a wide variety of actors, most importantly private companies that seek to promote (...) techno-regulation through design, algorithms and market-based contracts. (shrink)

This study deals with young people's attitudes towards and social acceptance of "cyborg technology" including wearables and insideables to enhance human ability in Japan as part of the international research project on cyborg ethics, taking Japanese socio-cultural characteristics surrounding cyborg technology into consideration. Those subjects were investigated through questionnaire surveys of Japanese university students, which were conducted in November and December 2016. The survey results demonstrated respondents' relatively low resistance to using wearables and insideables to improve human physical ability and (...) intellectual power. On the other hand, the morality of insideables was questioned by respondents. In various aspects, statistically significant differences in attitudes towards the technologies between genders were detected. (shrink)

As video games flourish, designers have a responsibility to treat players and potential players justly. In deontological terms, designers are obliged to treat all of them as having intrinsic worth. Since players are a diverse group, designers must not simply focus on an idealized gamer, who is typically a straight white male. This creates a duty to consider whether design choices place unnecessary barriers to the ability of certain groups of players to achieve their ends in playing a game. I (...) examine the design implication of this for the gameworld, avatar design, and accessibility to players with disabilities. I also consider the limits of designers' control by examining responses to abusive player chat in multiplayer games. Ultimately, a careful balance must be found between what is necessary to create the game a designer envisions and what is necessary for treating all players as having intrinsic worth. (shrink)

With the world in economic crisis the headlong drive for efficiency and effectiveness together with resulting profit is the watchword. Such pressure might have resulted in real gains but has also led to unscrupulous or reckless actions. The tempering of such drive with ethical consideration is often neglected until there is a detrimental event causing public outcry which in turn places pressure on the actors to account for the reasons the event had occurred. This cause and effect map is commonplace. (...) The Volkswagen emissions scandal and Tesla Motors public beta testing of the Autopilot software in their cars illustrate the drive for efficiency and effectiveness without proper ethical consideration. This paper focuses on the role of software engineers in such situations. An ethical analysis of the two cases is presented using the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice. The findings, together with previously published analyses, are used to draw general conclusions and recommendations about the efficacy of the software engineering profession. (shrink)

The first article in this issue is an introduction to Karla Carter, the new Chair of SIGCAS in her own words. Welcome Karla! She welcomes two new members to the executive committee, Sam Rebelsky and Bob Beck, as well as expressing her appreciation for the work of the past chair, Michael Goldweber. I would also like to welcome Randy Connolly as Deputy Editor. It will be great to have his experience and help with the newsletter going forward.

In this paper we examine the case of Tay, the Microsoft AI chatbot that was launched in March, 2016. After less than 24 hours, Microsoft shut down the experiment because the chatbot was generating tweets that were judged to be inappropriate since they included racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic language. We contend that the case of Tay illustrates a problem with the very nature of learning software that interacts directly with the public, and the developer's role and responsibility associated with it. (...) We make the case that when LS interacts directly with people or indirectly via social media, the developer has additional ethical responsibilities beyond those of standard software. There is an additional burden of care. (shrink)

2017 will most likely be SIGCAS's busiest year to date. Yes, I know that sounds SIGCAS Chair propaganda, but allow me to explain. Hopefully, the the conclusion of this column you'll be in agreement.

Commerce of today is characterized by an increase in corporation size and complexity. The computer has clearly become the backbone of today's business, simplifying much of that complexity as it performs all types of routine as well as special duties. Because of its potential for functional variety, the computer has been entrusted with data ranging from low level tasks such as company payroll to highly privileged strategic information. Although the computer has become a reliable servant for corporate use, it has (...) also become the agent for a corporate identification problem, particularly with IT personnel which can jeopardize a system's security. Corporate identification problems exist when employees identify more with their own skill set than with the company they work for. (shrink)

Social exchange theory deals with social behavior in the exchange of activities between organizations. The theory holds that the relationships experienced should be close but flexible. 1 This study captures the social relationship factors from social exchange theory that underlay the client-vendor relationship and presents empirical evidence for the effectiveness of a relational approach to offshoring. This is not an intuitive approach, especially when offshoring. It is an especially difficult approach to take in a time when wide spread offshoring failures (...) are encouraging client companies engaged in offshoring to try and keep control with strict contracts that stifle flexibility and to limit their vulnerability by maintaining other boundaries that restrict relationships. 2. (shrink)

This hypothetical story is about personal data which resides on the internet. It has its foundation in things which have happened. It raises serious questions about whether we should be more wary of, and whether there are things organisations and individuals could do to reduce the risks associated with data shadows.

Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Spoken by the Red Queen in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll.

The year of 2017 has certainly had an interesting beginning and the relevance of computing in society has only been amplified in a world where Donald Trump is the President of the United States of America. Whether you are supportive of his perspective and actions or not, no one can deny that social media such as Twitter and Facebook, along with the ever-present Google search seems to be an integral part of nearly every aspect of our lives.

When teaching about privacy, the worst thing that could happen is for an entire audience to have never read a privacy policy. Forcing people to read a privacy policy is a passive activity that provides no retention of the material. This paper presents a means to actively engage users in the dissection of a privacy policy via content analysis.

This article discusses the intersection of information and communication technologies in the context of vast government enterprises. While e-government in practice is only recently a multi-sector discipline, current research demonstrates it is a two-headed monster: on the one hand requiring critical social and political expertise, and, on the other, requiring an excellent engineering infrastructure. As a result, e-government is becoming a paradigmatic crossroad with the citizen at the center, and technology as the tool enabling those citizens to contribute to the (...) social and political component. Here we highlight the evolution from simple electronic support of normal government processes to the emerging digital revolution, where citizens collaborate with government to form a true e-government along with challenges in implementing this vision. (shrink)

The ideals and practical value of Unicode have been clouded at times by local perceptions within individual countries of the Unicode Consortium mission, making Unicode adoption slow and incomplete in these countries. This paper presents a case study of the scenario in Myanmar, where the early success of the incumbent popular encoding/font standard called Zawgyi may impede the digital potential of the country. It first examines the successes and issues of Zawgyi. It then explains why it should be phased out (...) as soon as possible as the legacy standard so as to save the future cost of not using Unicode and to achieve the full digital potential in several aspects of Myanmar society, including but not limited to accurate transcripts for law enforcement agency statements, fundamental data exchange at both regional and global levels for ecommerce, and for inclusive digital archive curation. (shrink)

The final issue of 2016 is short and sweet. It contains three papers. "Active Dissection of Privacy Policies" by Karen and Michael Bigrigg describes a useful classroom activity to encourage students to read and understand multiple privacy policies. "Investigating a Two-Headed Monster" by Carrillo et al., gives an interesting description of the movement of government in the electronic age to a vision of e-government where citizens collaborate with government to create a better functioning public body. The last article, "Encoding for (...) Access" by Han-Teng Liao, explains the role that the delayed adoption of Unicode is playing in access to content and the ability of the government to fully represent minority languages. (shrink)