

Ask HN: What ethical issues do you/we face? - hella

As programmers (or more broadly, in the field of computer science) what ethical dilemmas must we (or will we soon need) to grapple with?
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chad_oliver
I think an under-discussed ethical issue is whether or not some
technology/knowledge should be off-limit, or only be available to qualified
people. Synthetic Life has a massive potential to benefit or destroy the human
race, and we're gonna let just anybody learn about it? Sounds like a recipe
for disaster.

Another issue is that of whether machines can ever be sentient. The
unconscious view of most atheists (i.e. the majority of people) is that
consciousness is purely an emergent phenomena. I disagree with this view, but
I think within a hundred years we'll consider strong optimization algorithms
to be non-human people. The question then becomes, what about animals? I think
humanity's treatment of animals will become an important moral issue before I
die.

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SamReidHughes
The use of computers to discover crimes and the power this gives by making it
possible to create new kinds of crimes that would previously be unenforceable.

