The Foundation of Computer Ethics
Computer ethics as a field of study was founded by MIT professor Norbert
Wiener during World War Two (early 1940s) while helping to develop an
antiaircraft cannon capable of shooting down fast warplanes. One part of the
cannon had to “perceive” and track an airplane, then calculate its likely
trajectory and “talk” to another part of the cannon to fire the shells. The
engineering challenge of this project caused Wiener and some colleagues to
create a new branch of science, which Wiener called “cybernetics” – the
science of information feedback systems. The concepts of cybernetics, when
combined with the digital computers being created at that time, led Wiener
to draw some remarkably insightful ethical conclusions. He perceptively
foresaw revolutionary social and ethical consequences. In 1948, for example,
in his book Cybernetics: or control and communication in the animal and the
machine, he said the following:
It has long been clear to me that the modern ultra-rapid computing machine
was in principle an ideal central nervous system to an apparatus for
automatic control; and that its input and output need not be in the form of
numbers or diagrams but might very well be, respectively, the readings of
artificial sense organs, such as photoelectric cells or thermometers, and the
performance of motors or solenoids… we are already in a position to
construct artificial machines of almost any degree of elaborateness of
performance. Long before Nagasaki and the public awareness of the atomic
bomb, it had occurred to me that we were here in the presence of another
social potentiality of unheard-of importance for good and for evil. (pp. 27 –
28)
In 1950 Wiener published his monumental computer ethics book, The Human
Use of Human Beings, which not only established him as the founder of
computer ethics, but far more importantly, laid down a comprehensive
computer ethics foundation which remains today – half a century later – a
powerful basis for computer ethics research and analysis. (However, he did
not use the name “computer ethics” to describe what he was doing.) His
book includes (1) an account of the purpose of a human life, (2) four
principles of justice, (3) a powerful method for doing applied ethics, (4)
discussions of the fundamental questions of computer ethics, and (5)
examples of key computer ethics topics. (Wiener 1950/1954, see also Bynum
1999)
Wiener made it clear that, on his view, the integration of computer
technology into society will constitute the remaking of society – the “second
industrial revolution” – destined to affect every major aspect of life. The
computer revolution will be a multi-faceted, on-going process that will take
decades of effort and will radically change everything. Such a vast
undertaking will necessarily include a wide diversity of tasks and challenges.
Workers must adjust to radical changes in the work place; governments must
establish new laws and regulations; industry and business must create new
policies and practices; professional organizations must develop new codes of
conduct for their members; sociologists and psychologists must study and
understand new social and psychological phenomena; and philosophers must
rethink and redefine old social and ethical concepts.
Neglect, Then a Reawakening
Unfortunately, this complex and important new area of applied ethics, which
Wiener founded in the 1940s, remained nearly undeveloped and unexplored
until the mid 1960s. By then, important social and ethical consequences of
computer technology had already become manifest, and interest in
computer-related ethical issues began to grow. Computer-aided bank
robberies and other crimes attracted the attention of Donn Parker, who wrote
books and articles on computer crime and proposed to the Association for
Computing Machinery that they adopt a code of ethics for their members.
The ACM appointed Parker to head a committee to create such a code, which
was adopted by that professional organization in 1973. (The ACM Code was
revised in the early 1980s and again in the early 1990s.)
Also in the mid 1960s, computer-enabled invasions of privacy by “big-
brother” government agencies became a public worry and led to books,
articles, government studies, and proposed privacy legislation. By the mid
1970s, new privacy laws and computer crime laws had been enacted in
America and in Europe, and organizations of computer professionals were
adopting codes of conduct for their members. At the same time, MIT
computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum created a computer program called
ELIZA, intended to crudely simulate “a Rogerian psychotherapist engaged in
an initial interview with a patient.” Weizenbaum was appalled by the reaction
that people had to his simple computer program. Some psychiatrists, for
example, viewed his results as evidence that computers will soon provide
automated psychotherapy; and certain students and staff at MIT even
became emotionally involved with the computer and shared their intimate
thoughts with it! Concerned by the ethical implications of such a response,
Weizenbaum wrote the book Computer Power and Human Reason (1976),
which is now considered a classic in computer ethics.