
Stanford to step-up teaching of ethics in technology - raleighm
https://www.ft.com/content/a374fdac-6589-11e8-90c2-9563a0613e56
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cirgue
Ethics are cool, but I think misses the point. A huge part of acting ethically
is understanding on a fundamental level why that's important. For that, you
have to have some decent history education and some framework for thinking
about how actors in a large complex system respond to incentives. Just saying
'this is ethical and this isn't ethical' shortchanges students of the really
valuable part of understanding ethics in the context of their work and
personal lives.

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thedailymail
Any ethics professor who teaches 'this is ethical and this isn't ethical' is
doing it wrong.

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krageon
I have had the dubious pleasure of getting ethics classes in multiple schools.
I don't think I've ever had one where that wasn't basically how the class
went. I'm sure that _is_ doing it wrong, but that doesn't mean that it's not
the norm.

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nibsfour
Two big ethical problems that can be hard to prevent and address if they
happen in business in my experience are:

\- Unethical person is critical to survival of company. Do you fire them or
not? (and it's clear they won't change).

\- Big company doing gray area things (say, anti-competitive policies or
attitudes) where most or all individuals are acting ethically. Are there any
viable options other than full on whistle-blow or silence? (that actually
work?).

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bigger_cheese
For 2) In Australia where I am from there are a number of Industry watchdogs
such as ACCC (Competition and Consumer Commission), ASIC (Securities and
Investment), ABCC (Building and Construction).

The ACCC for example investigates Anti-competitive behavior and has the
ability to levy fines etc.

This is somewhat topical at the moment in the wake of ongoing banking Royal
Commission which has turned up huge ethical breaches in the banking and
finance sector (Interest rate rigging, fraudulent lending, Cartel behavior
etc). There have been some editorials recently about perceived toothlessness
of ASIC failing to go after the perpetrators with full weight of penalties
available

(for instance editorial here: [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-04/crime-as-
misdemeanours...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-04/crime-as-
misdemeanours-tale-of-two-law-enforcement-agencies/9830742) )

I think US equivalent would be something like SEC but I'm not sure if they
have a consumer competition focused watchdog like ACCC that goes after anti-
competitive behavior.

