Ethics in Advanced Technology
Overview
After successfully creating a component of a self-driving car – a (virtual) sensor system that tracks other surrounding cars based on noisy sensor readings – students are prompted to reflect on ethical issues related to the creation, deployment, and policy governance of advanced technologies like self-driving cars. Students encounter classic concerns in the ethics of technology such as surveillance, ethics dumping, and dual-use technologies, and apply these concepts to the case of self-driving cars.
Contributors
- Ethics materials by Diana Acosta Navas, Kathleen Creel, Lauren Gillespie, Percy Liang, Dorsa Sadigh, and Tatsunori Hashimoto.
- Problem set by Chris Piech, Percy Liang, Dorsa Sadigh, Tatsunori Hashimoto, and Lauren Gillespie.
Assignment goals
- Implement a car tracking autonomous sensing system that estimates the location of other cars based on noisy data.
Ethics goals
- Understanding concepts of surveillance, dual use technologies, ethics dumping, and foreseeable harms.