Ethics Class Discussion Questions

We will have 5 ethics discussions throughout the semester. Students will watch a clip or read chapters of Race After Technology and reflect on questions before each one. Below are the reading assignments and discussion questions.

Ethics Discussion #1: The Social Dilemma (Friday 9/18)

Watch the Netflix Documentary The Social Dilemma, which is available on Youtube below (courtesy of Netflix)

Then answer the following questions either here or on discord under the #ethics channel if you feel comfortable sharing with your classmates

  1. What surprised you about this?
  2. What didn't surprise you about this?
  3. Do you plan to change your behavior now that you know what you know? If so how? If not, why not?
  4. Is there anything you think they didn't cover that you're worried about?
  5. Do you think anything was exaggerated or blown out of proportion?

Ethics Discussion #2: Race After Technology Introduction (Monday 9/27)

Pre-Class Discussion Questions

  1. Even if it is against the law to encode race in certain databases, how can companies get around this; i.e., what are "proxies" for race?
  2. What overlap do you see between the first chapter and the discussion we had on the first day? What overlap do you see between The Social Dilemma?
  3. Based on what you read in the first chapter, what would Dr. Benjamin say to the the following claim we made in our first discussion: "The best path to mitigate tech addition is to educate ourselves about technology and learn how to moderate our own use, rather than to create regulations"
  4. What is Dr. Benjamin's view on "dragging", and what do you think AI's role is in this practice?
  5. Meet Bob. Bob spends a lot of time wrestling with the ethical implications of super-human computer augmentations, such as a device that plugs into the brain to do arithmetic for us, and the implications that has on consciousness and being human. What would Dr. Benjamin say to Bob?

Class Discussion Questions

  • What is the New Jim Code?
  • How do choices made by private tech industries influence and operate as public policy decisions?
  • Why is it impossible for designers and developers to be colorblind? How has the white aesthetic influenced artificial intelligence? What examples of this dominant aesthetic have you witnessed in your own use of technology? When have you seen tech companies use Black celebrities to advertise their products?
  • How have you witnessed access to technology positioned as a solution to racial inequality?

Ethics Discussion #3: Race After Technology Default Discrimination (Ch. 1) And Coded Exposure (Ch. 2) (Friday 10/29)

Ch. 1: Coded Exposure

  • What are the dangers of the supervised learning framework in perpetuating inequities and sterotypes?
  • Distill the McWhorter vs Benjamin dialogue on whether robots are racist
  • Give an example of how "social credit" systems can be gamed

Ch. 2: Default Discrimination

  • Explain the vicious feedback cycle that can happen with predictive policing
  • Explain Dr. Benjamin's argument on how glitches are actually pointing to larger systemic issues rather than trivial little hiccups
  • How did "dragging" come up again in this chapter?

Class discussion questions (courtesy of Ruha Benjamin)

  • What is a robot? How have robots been included in discourse about dehumanization? How are robots included in discourse about racialization? How does a focus on robots obscure the realities of a deeply unequal tech labor force?
  • How does the example of the automated soap dispenser illustrate racist design? Why does Benjamin suggest that we should avoid thinking about technology within a binary of good versus bad or trivial versus consequential
  • How is technology used for surveillance? What messages have you seen about surveillance as a necessary or helpful mechanism? How is surveillance used to facilitate systemic discrimination?

Ethics Discussion #4: Race After Technology Coded Exposure (Ch. 3) And Technological Benevolence (Ch. 4) (Wednesday 11/17)

Ch. 3: Coded Exposure

  1. Provide examples of 3 software ("AI") vision systems that the book mentions as susceptible to bias
  2. Why did the South African committee that negotiated the return of the remains of Saartjie Baartman decline to test them?
  3. What is an Aadhaar number? What are the dangers of this system?

Ch.4 Technological Benevolence

  1. Name two distinct technological "fixes" discussed in this chapter and what their pitfalls are
  2. What did Janet Vertesi do to evade internet surveillance systems, and what was the result?

Below are some additional examples (since this book came out) of vision technologies that have fallen into racially biased pitfalls

Class Discussion

  • Do you believe in automated screening for hiring?

Ethics Discussion #5: Race After Technology Retooling Solidarity, Re-Imagining Justice (Ch. 5) (Friday 12/10)

  1. Explain how Jay-z's app "Promise" is hiding a darker commercial purpose when compared to its progenitor "Appolition"
  2. Give two examples in which VR could be used to exploit people when they purport to generate empathy for them
  3. What is an equity audit?
  4. Read over this article about Timnit Gebru's new DAIR institute.

Class Discussion

We zoomed out and voted on a class about how mature people thought different technologies were, versus how ethical they were. Below is what students came up with, which matches experts in the field to a large degree. I am proud of how far the class has come!