William Holmes © 2021

Unit 11: Ethics and Technology

11.0 Introduction

11.1 Opposing viewpoints

11.1.1 Unintended consequences

11.1.2 Boundless opportunity

11.1.3 Look out for the bad guys!

11.2 Data, big data, and data ownership

11.2.1 Hactivism

11.3 Artificial intelligence

1.3.1 Bias and artificial intelligence

11.4 Technology and nature

11.5 The bad guys revisited

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11.0 Introduction

Individuals have invented things to solve problems since time immemorial. Early man fashioned tools
from stone to hunt and forage for food. Innovations such as pottery, the use of fire for cooking and
warmth, and the invention of the wheel followed. The Stone Age was followed by the Bronze Age and
then the Industrial Age, the Information Age and the Innovation Age. Companies and individuals
continue to innovate with the intention of filling needs or solving problems for consumers. The benefits
to consumers are the same features used by companies to market and sell these innovations. The most
striking characteristic of these technological innovations is that they continue to be introduced at an
ever-accelerating pace. As we shall see in this chapter, there are differing viewpoints with respect to the
value and sustainability of this continually accelerating march of technology. While technological
advancements have created significant benefits to humankind, they have not done so without
significant costs and ethical challenges.

11.1 Opposing Viewpoints

Technological advances are meant to meet needs, fulfill desires, and solve problems. Inventors and
innovators work to achieve these ends, hoping to profit from their contributions. This promise of
technology is often tempered by suspicion and discomfort arising from the tendency of new innovations
to come with unintended side effects. There is a tension that exists between the purveyors of
technological advancement and those that believe that the march of technology will be ultimately
detrimental to society and to humankind. The purveyors of technological advancement, we will call
them the technological utopians, see technology and technological advances as improving the human
condition and “saving” humanity. Technological dystopians, on the other hand, see technology as
robbing society of its humanity and as a threat to human existence.

For technological utopians, advances in technology will lead to reduced hardship, greater affluence and
increased dignity, leisure, and quality of life. Technology will lead towards the elimination of scarcity
through greater efficiency and the development of alternative processes and resources. Technology will
reduce the need for manual and/or dangerous labour and increase overall levels of work satisfaction,
leisure time, and improve family/social life. Technological utopians see advances in technology as
vehicles for discovery, opening new frontiers of knowledge, new possibilities, new adventures, and new
cures. Widespread access to technology will lead to greater levels of egalitarianism, nullifying class
systems and discrimination by reducing the gap between rich and poor, the haves and have-nots. The
utopian view contends that the convergence and standardization of widespread advances in technology
will ultimately lead to a globalized world which is more connected, more peaceful, and more
understanding.

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The utopian view expressed above is not held by everyone; there are many who view technology with
significant levels of cynicism and disenchantment. Because advances in technology will allow everything
to be managed and explained by science, technological dystopians fear a loss of mystery and
spiritualism. Excessive reliance on technology for our everyday existence will create an unacceptable
level of dependence, rendering humankind helpless if technology fails. The reduced requirement for
manual labour will result in a deskilling of society and the loss of artisanship. Rather than driving a
greater degree of egalitarianism, technological dystopians believe that technological advances pave the
way for increased levels of elitism with greater power accruing to those with privileged access to
technology. The widespread adoption of technologies will lead to greater cultural homogeneity, the
emergence of a global monoculture, and a loss of cultural diversity and cultural identity. The dystopian
view of technology heralds a loss of personal privacy through increased surveillance technology and
technology enabled market data gathering activities. The dystopians fear greater levels of wastefulness
because of planned obsolescence driven by the consumer’s demand for the most technologically
advanced version of a product.

In reality, technological advances represent a combination of opportunities and challenges; presenting

solutions to problems while generating new ones, making our lives more productive and rewarding and
at the same time more complex and challenging. Evaluating and balancing the positives and negatives
and the benefits and challenges of ever advancing technologies presents unique challenges for ethicists
and lawmakers. The ethical challenges presented by an emergent technology often fail to become
apparent until that technology is already in use. The development of approaches and solutions to those
ethical challenges often lags behind the technology that created them. Legislation and policy designed
to address these ethical challenges lags even further behind.

11.1.1 Unintended Side Effects

Whether one takes a utopian or dystopian view of technological progress, or more likely a position
somewhere closer to the center of the continuum, it is an indisputable truth that new technologies in
the form of inventions, applications, and processes will continue to be developed. Humankind has
throughout history sought out new ways of doing things more effectively and efficiently. Each new
innovation occurs within its own particular context or set of circumstances which create a related set of
benefits or challenges. These benefits or challenges may, or may not, be foreseen by the inventor or
innovator. History exhibits numerous examples of ethical dilemmas created by unintended
consequences or side effects of new technologies. Dynamite, for instance, was originally conceived and
developed by Alfred Nobel as a tool for use in the mining industry in breaking up rocks and rock
formations in order to facilitate the efficient extraction of mineral resources. Military applications in the
form of bombs and other explosive weaponry came later after the power of dynamite was established.
For some technological developments and innovations, the unintended side effects are not fully realised
until long after their adoption and implementation.

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The automobile, as another example, was invented with the intention of moving people and goods more
quickly and conveniently from place to place without having to rely on horses. One of the unforeseen
benefits of the adoption of the automobile was the subsequent reduction of the pollution caused by an
excessive accumulation of horse manure in the streets of major cities. Another unforeseen challenge
that resulted from the increasing adoption of automotive transportation arose due to the increasing
number of pedestrian injuries and deaths that occurred prior to the establishment of more formalized
and societally accepted “rules of the road” required to accommodate the safe coexistence of pedestrian
and automotive traffic. Some of the benefits or challenges associated with an innovation do not
become apparent for years, or even decades, after an innovation is adopted. The invention of the
automobile and its subsequent evolution into a widely accepted and broadly adopted mode of
transportation by a significant proportion of the world’s population has made automotive generated
pollution a major contributor to climate change and the increase in atmospheric carbon. This
environmental challenge is being grappled with now, over a century after Henry Ford fulfilled his dream
of making the automobile available and accessible to the masses. More broadly, the innovations
associated with the implementation of modes of high-speed transportation such as trains, airplanes and
automobiles have provided the benefits of increased ease, speed and freedom of movement of people
and goods over greater distances facilitating an increased level of economic activity and associated
prosperity. The fervour with which society has embraced high speed transportation over the last
century has not come without costs. The dependence on the internal combustion engine and the
burning of fossil fuels as the method of propulsion behind most of the modern modes of high-speed
transportation has also led to a dramatic increase in the amount of carbon in the atmosphere which is a
significant contributor to climate change. The increase in the use of airplanes, trains, trucks, and
automobiles has also given rise to the congestion of cities, the depletion of stores of fossil fuels, as well
as the loss of life through accidents.

While historical innovations such as the automobile and dynamite serve to illustrate the point that
unforeseen benefits or challenges often develop alongside the intended benefits of an innovation, there
are many more examples of more current innovations that may, or may not, have significant
consequences or ramifications that do not become apparent until well into the future. The discovery of
antibiotics and other drugs have been of huge benefit to society in the treatment of infections and
disease. Overuse of antibiotics has had a number of unintended side effects including the emergence of
new strains of drug resistant diseases, contributions to overpopulation and ethical dilemmas created by
protracted senility. Likewise, the development of chemical pesticides and fertilizers was seen as a boon
to farmers and consumers, lowering the cost and increasing levels and consistency of crop production.
Unfortunately, it was discovered later that use of these chemical pesticides and fertilizers resulted in soil
degradation, genetic mutations of pests, crops and in some cases consumers of those crops, as well as
the release of carcinogens into the food chain.

Genetically modified crops improve yield, reduce disease, increase resiliency against pests, and lower
the costs of food production. Pundits see genetically modified crops as a way to increase food security,
reduce starvation and improve living standards for much of the world’s population. Genetically
modified crops are, however, a relatively recent phenomenon. There has not been sufficient time to

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gather data and to conduct research into the long term effects of genetically modified crops on human
health or the effects on the natural environment. Opponents of genetically modified crops argue that
the unforeseen risks that may be associated with the broad adoption of these crops do not justify the
immediately realizable benefits.

Modern Technology and Unintended Consequences

The digital age has presented us with rapid technological innovations which have presented our society
with a continuous barrage of evolving ethical challenges. The ability to access vast amounts of data for
use in a myriad of ways has produced some spectacular innovations which improve quality, increase
efficiencies and have positive effects on the quality of life for many. Many of these innovations have,
however, produced some insidious unintended consequences.

The rise and spread of disinformation

The ability of individuals or groups to produce false or misleading material and distribute it broadly
through social media and other electronic media under the guise of “fact” or “truth” can influence
populations’ perceptions of reality.

Addiction and the dopamine economy

Economic and Asset inequalities

Machine ethics and algorithmic bias

The surveillance state/economy

Data control and monetization

Implicit trust and user understanding

Hateful and criminal actors – the bad guys!

11.1.2 Boundless Opportunity

There is no doubt that technological innovation has the power to radically change society and even the
world. If we look at innovations throughout history, we can try to imagine what the world would be like
without these transformational innovations. How would communications have developed without the
invention of the telephone? The invention of the transistor and later the microchip facilitated a
revolution in consumer and industrial electronics. Advances in software have changed the way we work
and live and will continue to do so long into the future. Historians track these technological
progressions, grouping them into stages that have been dubbed the industrial age, the information age,
the knowledge economy and the innovation age.

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One of the realities of the advance of technology is the opportunity for the generation of enormous
quantities of wealth. Increasingly, these opportunities arise without the requirement for significant
quantities of initial capital investment, particularly in the case of new software products or on-line
platforms. In some cases the desire to participate in these opportunities for wealth creation has led to
unfortunate economic consequences. In their eagerness to believe in the promise of new technologies
investors will clamour to obtain a piece of the action, driving up stock prices and valuations of
technology companies, creating economic bubbles, and leading ultimately to painful market corrections.
During the so-called “DotCom” bubble and subsequent stock market crash of 2000, the share prices of
numerous technology companies skyrocketed. While many of these companies were legitimate
operations producing promising products and services, others were fledgling operations with
undeveloped or unproven offerings.

In Michael Lewis’ account of the frenzy around the technology sector in the Silicon Valley area of
California in his book “The New New Thing” he documents the creation of a number of ventures that
were able to raise extraordinary amounts of funding from investors and equity markets based on what
amounted to little more than an ideai. These ideas often had no proof of concept or underlying
technology to support their development.

A much more recent example of the disappointment resulting from an over-hyped technology is the
case of Theranos, a medical technology company that promised to revolutionize diagnostic blood
analysis (See Case 11.1)

Case 11.1 - Theranos

Theranos was founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Holmes, a Stanford University student. A privately held
medical technology company, Theranos claimed to have devised a method of blood testing that
required very small quantities of blood. In its early years, Theranos was able to raise in excess of $700
million from venture capitalists and private investors. Its valuation in 2013 and 2014 reached as high
as $10 billion.ii

The blood-testing services market in the United States is significant, with diagnostic labs posting
aggregate annual sales figures in excess of $70 billion. The ability of Theranos’ revolutionary blood
analysis technology to reduce the amount of blood required for analysis and to expand the number of
conditions tested for would allow bloodwork to be completed at a fraction of the cost of currently
existing tests. Theranos became the darling of investors and analysts. Elizabeth Holmes was named
the youngest and wealthiest self-made billionaires in 2015 by Forbes Magazineiii.

While the hype propagated by investors, analysts and the media had driven Theranos’ valuations to
dizzying heights, its technology had yet to be peer assessed or otherwise validated. In 2015, the Wall
Street Journal challenged the validity of Theranos’ technology. Soon after, Theranos faced a number
of legal and commercial challenges from numerous stakeholders and interested parties. Medical
authorities and the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services were questioning the claims made by
Theranos regarding the abilities of its technology. Former business partners, investors and patients

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were demanding to see the results, and the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating
the financial claimsiv. In 2016, Forbes revised her net worth down to zero and Fortune Magazine
named her on of the ‘World’s Most Disappointing Leaders.v”

By June 2016, Theranos was nearly bankrupt. The company received an injection of $100 million from
Fortress Investment Group in 2017, but was again facing bankruptcy in 2018. The number of
employees had shrunk from a high of 800 down to 25 people. In March 2018, charges of fraud were
laid against Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and former Theranos President Ramesh Balwani. Holmes
was eventually banned from holding office or board membership in a public company for ten years,
required to pay a fine of $500 million, return her remaining 18.9 million shares, and relinquish control
of the company.

Theranos halted operations in August 2018.

Case Questions:

1. What compelled investors and venture capitalists to invest so much in an unproven

new technology company?

2. What drove Theranos to continue to hype the company while its technology remained
unproven?

3. What role do investors, analysts and the media play in driving company valuations? Is
this justified? How and why did they get it so wrong?

11.1.3 Look out for the Bad Guys!

Technological innovations are generally developed with good intentions. These innovations are
designed to make us more productive, to provide us with entertainment, to improve the quality of our
lives. The inventors and innovators design their technologies without thought to securing the ultimate
adopter against those who may seek to exploit flaws in the product or to apply the product to some
unforeseen nefarious activity. Software products are designed as tools to aid individuals and companies
in becoming more productive, efficient and effective, but flaws in security may lead to theft of
information, or even financial assets. These security flaws may also open a company up to the
exploitation enabled by ransomware. Ransomware is software that can be implanted into an
organizations information systems that, when activated, have the power to destroy the data held within
that system. Criminals may demand a ransom in return for not activating the ransomware that they
have implanted within a vulnerable system. The University of Calgary was recently the target of such an
attack and made the controversial decision to provide a payment of $25,000 dollars to an unknown
party in order to safeguard its data from being corrupted or eliminated. The university was heavily

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criticised for bowing to the criminal demands of the party demanding the ransom by the public and law
enforcement officials. (See Case 11.2)

Case 11.2 - University of Calgary

In June 2016, the University of Calgary was victim of a "ransomware" cyberattack on its computer
systems. The ransomware breach involved the locking or encrypting of some or all of an institution’s
computer networks or their data. The cyber criminals will only provide the keys to the encryption or
other method of decryption once the ransom demanded is paid.

One week after the attack, the university announced that they had made a ransom payment of
approximately $20,000 to the cyber criminals

The university and the authorities have been unable to determine the identity of the cybercriminals.
There has been no evidence that any of the data was published or otherwise released to the public.

The decision was made to pay the ransom "because we do world-class research here … and we did
not want to be in a position that we had exhausted the option to get people's potential life work back
in the future if they came today and said, 'I'm encrypted, I can't get my files,'" said Dalgetty. "We did
that solely so we could protect the quality and the nature of the information we generate at the
university."

Case Questions:

1. Police usually advise against paying ransom demands. Paying ransom rewards illegal
behavior and may provide an incentive for the perpetrators to commit similar crimes in
the future. Was the University of Calgary justified in paying the ransom demanded in
this case?

2. What other options could the university have taken?

Sometimes the most incongruous of devices can be co-opted for criminal applications. As an example,
the developer of wearable fitness tracking devices intended to provide consumers with a tool that
would enable them to measure and track their fitness activity, monitor their performance, and motivate
them to achieve their health and fitness goals. By syncing the wearable fitness tracking device to a
smartphone, a consumer can keep track of their activity and performance over time. It is unlikely that it
ever occurred to the developers and producers of these wearable fitness devices that they could be
hacked or compromised and used to access smart phones and the data held within. The American
military in Afghanistan found that their opposing combatants had found a way to determine American

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patrol routes and frequencies by monitoring the signals emitted by the wearable fitness tracking devices
worn by their soldiers on patrol.

One of the most terrifying and insidious examples of emerging technology usurped and adapted for
criminal for criminal purposes is the advent of what has become known as the “dark web.” The dark
web, in its most basic terms, is an on-line marketplace for illicit and illegal products, services, and
activities. The dark web facilitates the trading in illegal drugs, weapons, pornography, prostitution,
killers for hire, and so on while maintaining the anonymity of the parties to these illicit transactions. The
dark web is not accessible by traditional search engines and requires specific software to access it. The
dark web was pioneered by Ross Ulbricht who founded and developed the first illicit on-line market
place known as Silk Road. (See Case 11.3)

Case 11.3 - Silk Road

Early in 2011 the web site that came to be known as Silk Road was founded as a market that could
facilitate anonymous transactions between buyers and sellers of illicit and illegal products and
services. This service operated in what came to be known as the Dark Web, a part of the internet
outside of the reach of the normal internet using public and only available to those with the
knowledge to gain access. Transactions were conducted using the Bitcoin cryptocurrency and
executed using an escrow mechanism that ensured the satisfactory completion of the transaction
while maintaining the anonymity of the parties involved. The Silk Road administrators took a
commission on each sale as compensation for offering this service. While approximately 70 per cent
of the transaction volume related to the buying and selling of illicit drugs, the Silk Road site facilitated
a variety of other transactions involving weapons, child pornography, assassinations, forgery,
prostitution, human trafficking, and other illegal activities.

As word of this marketplace spread and articles began appearing in the technology press, traffic to
the site increased and the site became the focus of investigations by a number of law enforcement
agencies. Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road was ultimately sentenced to five life sentences with
no chance of parole and forced to forfeit $183 million in ill-gotten gains. Hundreds of arrests have
been made of individuals involved in illegal transactions facilitated through the Silk Road market but
convictions have been difficult.

Case questions:

1. As new technology is developed to facilitate new forms of legitimate commerce, is it

unreasonable for us to assume that commerce in illegal goods and services will not also
benefit from these new technologies?

2. What consequences does the use of new technology have for policy-makers and law
enforcement organizations who are trying to curtail illegal commerce?

3. Is the existence of the Dark Web in its various incarnations likely to be deterred by
advances in law enforcement in the foreseeable future?

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While law enforcement agencies were successful in prosecuting the founders of Silk Road, the Dark Web
has become an ongoing phenomenon, continuing to facilitate illegal commerce over the internet. The
pursuit of criminals using the Dark Web for illegal activity and the administrators of the technology that
facilitates these illegal marketplaces has become a kind of cat and mouse game, with the purveyors of
the dark web constantly striving to create and implement technology that enables them to stay one step
ahead of law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement agencies are likewise forced to acquire new
technology and expertise in order to enable them to successfully pursue, charge, and convict those
developing these market places and the criminals benefitting from using them to facilitate their illegal
transactions.

Ross Ulbricht claimed that his motivation for founding of Silk Road was based on a libertarian ideal of
freeing people to engage in transactions of any kind anonymously and without stigma away from the
oppressive oversight of government. While this may have held a grain of truth early in his development
of the on-line marketplace, the fact that he found a way to generate millions of dollars in commissions
by facilitating illegal transactions no doubt contributed to his continued involvement.

11.2 Data, Big Data, and Data Ownership

For anyone wanting to produce and sell a good or service, knowing as much as possible about the
ultimate consumer is extremely valuable. Marketers have long since realized that having information
about their customers allows them to segment markets for their products and to target the specific
consumer segments most likely to consume their products. Traditional market segmentation has been
based on consumer characteristics such as age, gender, occupation, levels of education, and so on.

With the advent of ecommerce and on-line shopping, companies like Amazon.com developed the
capacity to target specific products to specific customers based on the consumer’s previous searches
and purchases. The mining of consumer data to determine the preferences and behaviors of individuals
and groups of consumers has become big business. As the value of this consumer data became
increasingly apparent and increasingly easy to collect and analyse, more and more of it was collected. In
addition to retailers, consumer data is collected by financial institutions, credit card companies, social
media platforms, governments, consumer research companies, etc. This data has enormous value and
can be sold or aggregated, enabling the development of comprehensive consumer profiles of individual
characteristics and behaviours.

Technology has facilitated the generation, storage, analysis, and manipulation of massive amounts of
data. “Big data”, a term coined by IBM, has become a powerful tool that can be used by business and
government to determine or predict the aggregate behavior exhibited by any number of groups or

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segments of society. This explosion of available data begs some serious ethical questions for the
individual. Who owns your data? Do you have the right to know who is in possession of your personal
information? Do you have the right to withhold your personal information or to prevent the collection
of data generated as a result of your purchases or transactional behaviours? How confident can you be
that your personal data is secure?

In 2017, a company called Equifax Inc. experienced a data breach, allowing unknown parties access to
personal financial data on nearly two million consumers (see Case X.X). This data contained
demographic information, credit histories and, in some cases highly sensitive information such as drivers
licence and credit card numbers. Very few of the consumers whose data was hacked in the Equifax
breach had ever heard of Equifax or had no idea that Equifax was in possession of any of their personal
and financial information. While this point was certainly newsworthy, there was a remarkably muted
public reaction with respect to Equifax’s failure to protect the confidential consumer data in its
possession. It is uncertain whether this lack of public outrage is indicative of a certain level of apathy
around the security of personal data, or a general lack of understanding with respect to the increased
risks of fraud and identity theft that accompany the access of personal data by persons or parties with
criminal motives.

Case 11.3 - Equifax Inc.

Equifax Inc. is one of the largest consumer credit reporting agencies in North America. Equifax
collects and aggregates consumer credit data on an estimated 800 million individuals and 90 million
business enterprises globally.

On September 17, 2017, Equifax issued a press release announcing that their information systems
security had been breached sometime during the May to July period that year. They estimated that
150 million consumers were affected in the course of this breach, with personal information such as
names, birth dates, social security numbers and, in a significant number of instances, drivers licence
numbers. The breach also provided the cyber criminals with access to credit card information for
over 200,000 people.

Equifax confirmed that it had discovered evidence of the security breach as early as July 29, 2017. As
early as December 2016, a security researcher identified weaknesses in Equifax Inc.’s employee portal
which allowed access to the open internet. This was publicized in a report released by Motherboard
in October 2017.

Case Questions;

1. Who owns your data?

2. What responsibilities do financial institutions and other corporate entities have with
respect to the safeguarding of individual consumers’ personal data?

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3. Many individuals affected by the Equifax Inc. systems security breach had never heard
of Equifax Inc. and were unaware and surprised to learn that the company was
collecting and storing their credit information and personal data. Do companies who
hold your data have a duty of transparency to disclose whether and what information
relating to your personal finances that they hold?

4. When a security breach is discovered what is the duty of the organization breached
with respect to informing the public and any affected individuals?

5. Did Equifax Inc. inform the public and any affected individuals in a timely enough
manner?

Perhaps there is a lack of understanding of what items constitute sensitive personal information versus
more benign demographic data. Clearly a person’s name is their primary form of identification. Age,
gender, and address are also fairly benign data points. Each additional data point, however, adds to the
overall picture of the individual. If a significant quantity of individual data can be compiled and data
such as social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, credit card information and other financial
information can be accessed, individuals face a very real threat of fraud and/or identity theft.

At what point, then, does the availability of our data present an unacceptable level of risk? It is ironic
that many of us provide a significant amount of personal data freely through our social media platforms.
Information such as work history, family status, birthdates, and education are, for most people in the
developed world, freely available to anyone who cares to look. Clearly, there exists personal
information that people are not willing to share openly such as their financial information, social
security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and so on. It is a fact, however that this information is often
held by a number of different parties, sometimes without the knowledge of the individual in question.
These parties may include, but are not limited to, vendors of products or services, credit agencies,
government bodies, and financial institutions.

But who really owns this data and how much control should an individual have over what his or her data
is used for? Should individual be able to choose whether or not their data is collected at all? Our
interconnected, technology enabled society has facilitated an explosion in the collection, storage, and
analysis of consumer data. While Marketers have long since used consumer information to influence
the sales and consumption of goods and services, recent cases have illustrated the abilities of powers
with access to consumer data to use it for much more nefarious purposes. By analysing social media
data such as posts liked, groups joined, web sites accessed, videos watched, friends, etc., political groups
can determine who will be most susceptible to influence in the form of unfavourable, damaging or
slanderous material ( either true, false, or grossly exaggerated) about opposing groups or parties.
Companies such as Cambridge Analytica (see case X.X) use social media data obtained from Facebook to

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help its clients influence the outcomes of democratic elections in Canada, the United States, the United
Kingdom and France.

Case 11.4 - Cambridge Analytica Ltd.

Cambridge Analytica is a UK based consulting firm with expertise in data mining, data brokerage, data
analysis and strategic communications. The company was started in 2013 as a spin-off of the SCL
Group and expanded from its London location, opening offices in New York and Washington DC.
Cambridge Analytica used a number of methods to gather data on large groups of people, using
monthly surveys, and a number of public and private sources. In 2016, Alexander Nix, then CEO of
Cambridge Analytics, famously stated that “Today in the United States we have somewhere close to
four or five thousand data points on every individual ... So we model the personality of every adult
across the United States, some 230 million people”.

Many of the company’s clients were political groups seeking tools to assist in getting themselves or
their candidates elected to public office. According to CEO Nix, Cambridge Analytica was engaged in
44 political contests in the United States in 2014 alone. The company was engaged by Leave.EU, a
pro-Brexit campaign organisation, the Donald Trump presidential campaign and worked on Ted Cruz’s
campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Cambridge Analytica has also been involved in
electoral races in India, Kenya, Malta, and Mexico.

Cambridge Analytica uses its data to gain in depth behavioral insights into its target audiences. The
company claimed it could determine those voters most susceptible to certain types of messaging,
including positive messaging for the client candidate or, more controversially, negative, slanderous or
even blatantly false messages about the opposition. An investigation by a British public broadcaster
brought some of Cambridge Analytica’s business practices into question when it published video
footage of CEO Alexander Nix describing the use of prostitutes, bribery schemes and honey traps to
discredit politicians in opposition to the company’s clients.

The downfall of Cambridge Analytica continued when Canadian whistleblower, Chris Wylie, the
former Director of Research at Cambridge Analytica, revealed that the company had accessed the
Facebook data of 87 million users through the application “This Is Your Digital Life”. Cambridge
Analytica also received and used Facebook data from an external researcher who had told Facebook
that the data was being used for academic research purposes only. The use and monetization of
personal data without the knowledge of the individual raises significant ethical questions related to
data privacy. Cambridge Analytica claimed that users agreed to the use of their data when they
signed up to Facebook, but Facebook contends that this activity is misleading its users and in
contravention of its policies.

In May, 2018, Cambridge Analytica filed for insolvency and ceased operations.

Case Questions

1. The public outcry around the Cambridge Analytica case centred around the
unsanctioned and inappropriate use of personal data. How was Cambridge Analytica
able to obtain social media data from Facebook?

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2. Is Facebook betraying the trust of its users by releasing their data?

3. What are the ethical implications of using social media data to influence the outcome
of democratic elections through the spreading of false or misleading information?

11.2.1 Hactivism

The cases involving the stealing, destruction or ransoming of data discussed thus far involve a self-
interested criminal motive. These activities have been engaged in with the purpose generating gains for
the perpetrator. There are, in fact, a number of reasons that hackers or cyber criminals will work to gain
access to confidential data. Activists will often attempt to gain access to information in order to expose
behaviour that is illegal, immoral, or otherwise controversial. Historically, disclosing internal
information to external parties and the general public involved very public whistleblowing, with a clearly
identified whistleblower. Technology has enabled whistleblowing on a large-scale but anonymous basis.
Activist or whistleblowers with the capabilities to breach internal security measures can now access
large amounts of data which they can then publish on publicly available web sites, thus exposing
perceived wrongs without exposing their own identities. In 2015, an anonymous insider breached
security at Mossack Fonseca, a law firm based in Panama, accessing and publishing millions of
confidential files. These files were made public with the intention of exposing the activities engaged in
by wealthy citizens, politicians, business people, and celebrities in order to shield their wealth from
taxes (See Case X.X). It has become increasingly common for external activists to breach systems
security of target companies in order to expose wrong doings, create embarrassment or to convince
them that they should change practices. In 2015, for instance, cyber criminals accessed the customer
data of the Ashley Madison Company, a social media and dating platform promoting illicit and
extramarital affairs, threatening to release this information to the public if the company did not cease
operations and close down its business (See Case 11.5). The hacking of security systems by activists in
order to gain access to information that would expose activities engaged in by companies, governments
or other organizations has come to be known as hacktivism.

Case 11.5 - The Ashley Madison Company

On July 15, 2015, The Ashley Madison Company, suffered a massive data breach with cyber criminals
stealing all of its customer data. Ashley Madison is a Canadian internet dating service which markets
itself as a social media and dating platform for people married or in relationships who want to have
extra marital affairs. The customer data stolen included names, email addresses, home addresses,
credit card data, and customer specific sexual fantasies. Ashley Madison had an estimated 39 million
members in 53 different countries.vi

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The unusual feature of this particular case lies in the fact that the hackers were not holding the data
for ransom money. They threatened to publicly release the information if Ashley Madison and its
parent company Avid Life Media did not cease operations and shut down their sites. The hackers did
not state their reasons for wanting the sites shut down and operations discontinued but Ashley
Madison had faced criticism from many who found its facilitation and promotion of infidelity morally
objectionable. Some customers did report receiving emails extorting them to pay the equivalent of
$300 Canadian in BitCoin to prevent the release of their data.

Clearly, Ashley Madison’s customers would not want their information released, as it would cause
public embarrassment and would undoubtedly lead to strife or breakdown in their marriages or
relationships. Ashley Madison did not shut down their site and by July 22 customer data was began
to be released. All of Ashley Madison’s customer data was made public on August 18, 2015.
Interestingly, the data released included information on fees collected from customers who had paid
to have their personal information deleted.

The CEO, Noel Biderman stepped down that same month. A year later Avid Life Media rebranded
itself and appointed a new CEO. It is unclear whether or not the business will recover. Any trust that
customers had in the company to keep their data secure has been destroyed.

Case Questions;

1. Did the Ashley Madison Company take appropriate action to protect the private
personal information of its customers?

2. What role does trust play in a consumer’s decision to provide information to an on-line
or ecommerce?

3. There are those that view Ashley Madison’s line of business morally objectionable.
Does this in any way justify the type of cyberattack which the company endured?

Whether or not you approve of Ashley Madison’s business model or marketing tactics, it is a distinct
probability that the cyberattack on the company was not driven by a desire to extort money. Based on
the absence of any real evidence supporting a ransom request, one could surmise that the cyberattack
was motivated by the hackers’ objection, moral or otherwise, to the activities facilitated by the Ashley
Madison social media and dating platform. The question needs to be asked whether this particular
cyberattack was motivated by the desire to right a perceived social wrong.

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Over the past decade, there has been a rise in social hacktivism. The most well-known practitioner of
social hacktivism is a group known as Anonymous. Anonymous is made up of an unidentified
international group of social activist hackers who obtain and release sensitive or compromising data or
disrupt systems in an effort to drive positive social change. The organization appears to be very loosely
knit in nature, with some arguing that it is not an organization at all but rather a collection of like-
minded social activist hackers that brand themselves and their activities as being part of Anonymous in
order to create public awareness and impact. Anonymous has become known for its cyberattacks on
governments, government institutions and agencies, and corporations, as well as on the Church of
Scientology. (See Text Box X.X)

The activities of social hacktivists can be viewed as a kind of cyber vigilantism. The hacktivists choose
who to attack based on their own perceptions of right and wrong without any due process or public
transparency. This lack of due process takes hacktivism into grey areas where moral judgements
become confused with ideological stances. In the case of the 2014 Sony hack, the perpetrators of the
cyberattack may have believed that they held the moral high ground, while much of the world saw the
attack as ideologically or even politically motivated.

Case 11.6 – the Sony Hack

On November 21, 2014, several senior Sony executives received a ransom demand stating that Sony
would face a massive cyber bombardment if requests for monetary payment were not met. These
emails were either deleted, ignored, or labelled spam by the recipients and no further action was
taken. Three days later, a group calling themselves “Guardians of Peace” released significant
quantities of data that had been stolen from Sony. These data included confidential internal emails,
personal employee information, as yet unreleased films, and other information. In addition to the
release of this data, sophisticated malware was released within Sony’s computer systems with the
intention of erasing or severely crippling Sony’s systems information infrastructurevii.

Interestingly, one of the demands made by the cybercriminals was that the release of the upcoming
feature film The Interview, a US made comedy about a fictitious assassination attempt on the North
Korean leader. The group also threatened terror attacks on any theatre that showed he film. Based
on these threats, Sony cancelled the release of the film in theatres and released it directly to video.
Cybersecurity experts later claimed that, based on the methods and software used to breach Sony’s
systems security, there was a significant likelihood that the breach was state-sponsored and
originated in North Korea. North Korean officials have categorically denied any involvement by their
country in the breach or with the group “Guardians of Peace”.

Case questions:

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1. Is it reasonable to expect companies to have cybersecurity systems in place robust enough

to withstand an attack by a foreign government with all its available resources and
technology?

2. What are the political ramifications of a state attacking a corporation domiciled in another
country?

3. What are the differences between the hacktivism engaged in by groups like Anonymous
and the cyberattack launched by the Guardians of Peace against Sony?

11.3 Artificial Intelligence

As new technologies are developed and adopted by society the way in which we live and work changes.
As this book is being written, there is a great deal of speculation with respect to the effects that the
growing use of artificial intelligence will have on our lives. Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer
science intent on developing intelligent machines capable of reasoning, planning, problem-solving, and
learning. In order to achieve these qualities and characteristics, machines will be required to possess
and assimilate an enormous quantity of information. These machines will need to be able to “perceive”
and store multiple sensory inputs, recognize patterns and adapt and adjust their decision-making and
problem solving capabilities as these new data are absorbed.

The above noted capabilities will allow machines possessing artificial intelligence to complete a vast
array of tasks and make decisions which previously required human input. There are numerous
estimates being floated by experts in the media with respect to the proportion of jobs currently
occupied by humans that will be supplanted by machines with artificial intelligence. Some experts
estimate that 40% of the jobs currently occupied by humans will be supplanted by artificial intelligence.
At first glance, this may sound extremely alarming. The loss of employment resulting from technological
advancement is not something new. Walk into a modern manufacturing plant and you will see that a
significant proportion of the tasks are being completed by robots. So-called advanced manufacturing
has, to a large extent, removed the need for humans to engage in the manual tasks involved in the
manufacturing process. This evolution of manufacturing has led to an increase in the number of skilled
technical jobs required to keep an advanced manufacturing facility running. Programmers, technicians,
analysts and engineers maintain, monitor and oversee advanced manufacturing processes.

The increasing development, adoption and integration of artificial intelligence into manufacturing
processes have led to a new manufacturing paradigm that has been termed “Manufacturing 4.0”. By
installing sensors in automated manufacturing processes to generate data and by networking the
industrial robots throughout the production process, decisions can be made based on availability of raw
materials and inputs, adjustments required because of changes in inputs to the production process, as

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well as assessments and control of quality throughout the production process. Automotive assembly
plants will be able to scan parts and recognize anomalies, deficiencies or other characteristics that
require the removal and replacement of particular part during the assembly the assembly process that
may compromise the quality of the final product. Early detection and replacement of parts that may
create the need for repair under warranty later, saves the consumer a headache and reduces the
warranty costs for the manufacturer. Beer producers will be able to automatically adjust their
production processes to accommodate seasonal changes in the characteristics of their raw materials.
This will facilitate a consistent final product. Meat producers can monitor their product throughout the
production process to eliminate contamination. In process testing removes the need for human
exposure and increases speed to consumer. The integration of artificial intelligence into manufacturing
processes facilitates the simultaneous benefits of reduced costs, higher quality, and faster production.

Just as the job market in the manufacturing process has changed due to the advancement of robotics
and automation, it will continue to evolve further due to the current and forthcoming advances in
artificial intelligence. Traditional jobs requiring the analysis of data in order to facilitate certain types of
decision-making will be no longer need to be filled by humans. This will, however, free up humans to
engage in other tasks or activities that will continue to require human ingenuity and intervention. Just
as new types of employment emerged in the manufacturing sector subsequent to the adoption of
automation, so too will employment evolve with new types of employment emerging to fill in the gap
created by the loss of certain tasks to artificial intelligence.

Possibly the most profound impact that the adoption of artificial intelligence will have on the
employment of workers will be its encroachment into middle management careers. Traditional jobs
requiring the analysis of data in order to facilitate certain types of decision-making will be no longer
need to be filled by humans. As machines develop the ability to store and access data, decisions and
outcomes they will be able to recognize patterns and make judgements previously made by humans
informed by years of experience making like but unique decisions based on data that may deviate in
certain ways. Certain careers that have already been impacted by the growing use of artificial
intelligence have been medical diagnostics, accounting, actuarial work, purchasing and inventory
management, sales, and so on.

This evolution in employment will not happen without a certain amount of pain. Just as with
automation, some workers will be unwilling or unable to adapt or retrain in order to maintain their
employability. It behooves corporations to work to ensure that their workforce is both resilient and
adaptable to the changing world of work. Offering retraining programs and ensuring that pathways are
available out of disappearing occupations into emerging roles will help companies and workers alike
make the transition. While these measures may initially appear to be an unnecessary expense for a
company, creating an environment that allows and encourages workers to progress into new emerging
roles is ultimately in the organization’s best interests. By facilitating increased levels of flexibility
adaptability and resilient in its workforce, a company can spare itself much of the expense and
messiness involved in laying off large numbers of workers, while facilitating a culture of job-security,

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personal growth and professional development among its employees who may otherwise face
displacement by artificial intelligence.

So far, much of the discussion in this chapter has centred around the use of artificial intelligence in
improving efficiency and quality in manufacturing and production processes. The resultant goods will be
used by consumers who will see the benefits in terms of lower costs and higher levels of quality and
dependability. There are, however, applications for artificial intelligence which can have a more direct
impact on the human experience.

One of the most publicly visible manifestations of artificial intelligence in practice is the rapid
development of autonomous vehicles. Most of the world’s major car manufacturers are clamouring to
develop the world’s first self- driving car. Simply put, autonomous vehicles process sensory data based
on their surroundings and environment and decide how best to proceed to a desired destination. By
networking these vehicles, they will have access to comprehensive data regarding traffic flows and
issues wherever they happen to be headed. Autonomous vehicles will be able to react to surrounding
traffic, weather conditions, pedestrians, road construction and other obstacles in the course of
delivering their passengers safely and efficiently to their respective destinations.

Autonomous vehicles are not an entirely new phenomenon. Several major metropolitan centres have
been operating driverless subways and light rail systems for years. Likewise, driverless forklifts and
tablets have been used in warehouses and on factory floors as well. The difference between these
examples and the broader use of autonomous vehicles is that transit systems, warehouses and factory
floors are closed systems. Driverless transit systems do not compete with other vehicles on their tracks
and autonomous forklifts and tablets operate in predictable environments within buildings and
warehouses without sharing their pathways with other vehicles. Autonomous vehicles used on public
roadways will be interacting with vehicles operated by humans, bicycles, pedestrians and a great many
other obstacles and hazards.

This mingling of machine and human piloted vehicles within a public roadway system raises a significant
number of questions. Autonomous vehicles must process data and make decisions in a manner that
keeps its passengers, drivers and passengers of other vehicles, pedestrians and other members of
society safe. What if something goes wrong with the autonomous vehicle? History is replete with
countless examples of accidents caused by malfunctioning technology. To date there have been
relatively few examples of accidents caused by autonomous vehicles, which can probably be attributed
to the fact that the technology is still in development and has not been widely adopted yet. Human
drivers are also decidedly fallible and traffic accidents attributable to human error are many. How will
an autonomous vehicle react to an unpredictable human driver? How will a human driver react when
faced with a malfunctioning autonomous vehicle?

Artificial Intelligence is ultimately an attempt to provide machines with decision-making capabilities

similar to those of humans. And yet, there remains so much that is unknown about the human thinking
process. It is true that machines are capable of assimilating and analysing a vast amount of data at very
high speeds, but can a machine simulate the combination of intuition, reason, emotion, faith, and so on

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that makes human beings human? When in unpredictable or dangerous traffic situations people are
often required to make split second judgements and decisions. Most of us do not know, or are not
conscious of, the thought processes that lead us to react in the way that we do in attempting to
maneuver ourselves out of a dangerous situation. The pending introduction of autonomous vehicles to
public roadways has given rise to a number of thought experiments. For instance, imagine you are
driving a car at speed and something terrible happens which limits you to two choices; run into a bus
shelter holding ten or so people, or; run over a lone pedestrian. What do you do? Logic would tell us
that in the interest of limiting the loss of human life, the proper choice would be to hit the pedestrian
and save the people in the bus shelter. Now consider the same situation but add the fact that the lone
pedestrian is a child. Would this change your decision? What if the lone pedestrian is your child?
Individual decisions in cases like the one described in this thought experiment are complex and
multifaceted. It is debatable whether a machine could ever be programmed to simulate human
responses to these types of situations.

Does this mean that the goal of fully autonomous vehicles should no longer be pursued? Of course not.
It does, however, stress the need for vigilance in developing systems that are safe and for building in
safety systems that prevent failure or limit damage or loss of life in case of failure.

11.3.1 Bias and Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is a human construct. Scientists, programmers, and psychologists are building
machines capable of mimicking what they believe to be the human decision making process. But we
must not forget that the humans developing these intelligent machines are themselves flawed, with
their own biases and misconceptions. Similarly, if the decisions made by intelligent machines are data
driven, then these decisions will only be as good as the data on which they are based. If the data on
which machine decisions are based is the result of previous human decision-making, then the data will
already contain any number of historical biases.

Examples of Biased decision-making

11.4 Technology and Nature

As scientists learn ever more about the natural sciences, the opportunities for humankind to manipulate
nature to meet its own objectives become increasingly commonplace. Many are concerned that acting
on these opportunities will lead humans on a dangerous journey from which they will be unable to
return. Some manipulations of nature are already commonplace. Genetically modified foods are
widely used and seen by some as a boon to humanity, allowing for faster and more efficient production
of safer, more nutritious crops with a higher resistance to pests. In 1996, the first live mammal was
successfully cloned. The arrival of Dolly, the cloned sheep, brought to light a whole world of possibilities

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including the cloning of animals for food, the cloning of extinct species, the cloning of human organs for
transplant, and so on. Some of these possibilities have since been realized, while others have been
ruled out. Europe has banned the cloning of animals for food, while the US and other jurisdictions will
allow for all but the cloning of a full birth human being. There is ongoing interest in the cloning of
animals for food in some countries. There is a lab in Korea that will clone a pet for a fairly significant fee
in excess of $100,000viii. While cloning of humans has been ruled out as excessively risky and of no real
benefit, the advent of cloning has been a boon to stem cell research.

The mapping of the human genome has facilitated the identification of genes and genetic sequences
which accompany certain traits or characteristics in humans ranging from genetic medical conditions to
eye colour. The opportunity to manipulate the genetic make-up of an unborn child could eliminate
numerous debilitating medical conditions caused by genetic abnormalities. It could also lead to the
advent of “designer babies”, with parents choosing the genetic characteristics of their offspring.

An advanced manufacturing technique known as additive manufacturing or “3-D printing” has been
used extensively for prototyping and small batch manufacturing. The media used for this additive
manufacturing was originally various types of polymer, but the process has developed to the point
where multiple media can be used combining plastics, metals, and other materials in printing a single
product. More recently 3-D printing has developed the capability to print using organic matter. It is
estimated that within the next decade, 3-D printing will have developed to the point where medical
practitioners will be able to print a fully functional human organ. This has enormous ramifications for
patients in need of transplants or new organs. It will eliminate the wait time for organ donors and by
using the receiving patient’s own genetic material, greatly reduce the possibility of rejection by the
receiving host.

While these scientific developments were undertaken with the intent of advancing knowledge for the
benefit of humankind, there is great unease in many quarters that the use of this science is somehow
undermining the primacy of nature. By meddling with nature, we may be letting the proverbial genie
out of the bottle, creating scenarios from which we will not be able to extricate ourselves. The newness
of these scientific discoveries provides us with a paucity of data over the long-term consequences of any
of their associated applications. There is little evidence either way with respect to the long term health
or environmental effects of genetically modified crops and foods. Likewise, there has been too little
time to observe any long term consequences of cloning of animals, or the manipulation of genes in
humans or animals. We have already discussed the fact that many new innovations come with side-
affects that do not become apparent for a significant length of time after the adoption of the
innovation. Why should these scientific “improvements” on nature be any different?

11.5 The Bad Guys – Revisited

As noted previously, innovations in products and processes are generally undertaken with the best of
intentions; creating that which will benefit the consumer and society. Innovations can be adapted and

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applied in different ways to solve different problems and to create new business opportunities.
Innovations in the natural sciences are no different. As these innovations become increasingly
accessible, it is important to remember that these innovations may be applied in ways not foreseen by
the innovators and not as originally intended.

i
Lewis, M, 2000, The New New Thing, W.W. Norton and Company, New York, NY
ii
Carreyrou, J, 2018, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY.
iii
"Forbes Announces Inaugural List Of America's 50 Richest Self-Made Women". Forbes. 27 May 2015. Retrieved 8
September 2018
iv
Bilton, N. "Exclusive: How Elizabeth Holmes's House of Cards Came Tumbling Down". Vanity Fair, October 2016,
retrieved December 5, 2016.
v
"The World's 19 Most Disappointing Leaders". Fortune. 2016-03-30. Retrieved 2016-12-02
vi
Syed, F and Cribb, R, 2015, “Another Date for Ashley Madison”, The Toronto Star, Toronto, March 29, 2018.
vii
Peterson, A, 2014, “The Sony Pictures Hack: Explained”, The Washington Post, December 18,2018, Retrieved
September 8, 2018 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/12/18/the-sony-pictures-
hack-explained/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6efd1d5f8c77.
viii
Weintraub, K, 2016, “20 Years after Dolly the Sheep Led the Way, Where is Cloning Now?“ , Scientific American,
July 5, 2016, Retrieved March 11, 2021 at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/20-years-after-dolly-the-
sheep-led-the-way-where-is-cloning-now/

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