Professor Urged the ICT Developers to Be Responsible for the Consequences of Their Inventions

​The eleventh conference of International Federation for Information Processingin (IFIP) was organised in Finland for the first time.  The University of Turku was chosen as the host, as Postdoctoral Research Fellow Kai Kimppa from Information Systems Science is one of the national representatives at IFIP.

– Our goal is to share information within the theme ICT and Society. The participants include national representatives of IFIP from several countries and they will pass this information on in their own country. As academics, we will of course also strive to advance our field of science, said Kimppa.

The first keynote speaker in the event was Professor Don Gotternbarn from Software Engineering Ethics Research Institute, who has been talking about ethics since the 1970s, but has noted that companies and developers still forget to consider the ethical aspects. 

– We easily think that hackers are bad guys who break into banks or gather information illegally, those evil people. That’s not us, our parents raised us better. When a problem occurs, we just say “things happen”, stated Gotternbarn.

However, the Professor reminded the audience that most of the problems happen because of our good intentions, when we have not thought of the consequences. As an example, he took a radiotherapy machine where the treatment was started by pushing the x key and the chosen dose was cancelled with the c key.

– Look how those keys are situated on the keyboard. ”Mistakes happen”, said Gotternbarn.

Excitement Exceeds Responsibility

Considering the point of view of the user fixes some of the problems, but some mistakes happen because the developers are blinded by their knowledge, skills and desire to create something new. As an example, Gotternbarn presented the contact lenses developed by Google which can measure the insulin levels from tears.

– If the glucose level drops too low, the contact lenses give a warning and the diabetic can react. A wonderful invention, right? Or is it? What happens to those who cannot afford to buy these contact lenses? When people with means start to use the contact lenses, the demand for other types of measurement devices decreases cutting down the profits and increasing the unit prices. That leads to a situation where poor people have to pay more for their measuring devices, illustrates Gotternbarn and continues by toying with the idea that someone has raised a hand and asked if there was another way.

– If the glucose level can be measured from tears, could it be measured from sweat? How about a plaster? Would that be cheaper? I’m not a medical professional, but you can always ask questions, says Gotternbarn.

In his speech, Gotternbarn emphasised ”our” ethical responsibility. Things should not be changed headlong just because someone asks you to and you are technologically adept to do it. It has to be considered how the innovation will change the society.

– Let’s consider a medication dispensing machine. In a hospital, the medicine is given to the patients and it is supervised that they take the pills. With the machine, medicine can be dispensed for 30 days and the patient is told that he or she has to push a button once a day to get the medicine. What happens with the use of the machine? The person pushes the button and wonders after a moment: “did I already push it? I should probably push it again”. Or how can we know if the person takes the medicine after pushing the button? We could move from everyday follow-up to a monthly follow-up, but what will happen. We have to be responsible for the consequences, says Gotternbarn. 

Text and photos: Erja Hyytiäinen
Translation: Mari Ratia