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2015 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Ethical Issues in Ubiquitous Computing—Three Technology Assessment Studies Revisited

Author : Lorenz M. Hilty

Published in: Ubiquitous Computing in the Workplace

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This paper discusses ethical issues in ubiquitous (or pervasive) computing from the perspective of the general discourse on ethics in computing, which started in the 1970s, two decades before the “ubicomp” vision emerged. The IFIP “Human Choice and Computers” (HCC) conferences are used as points of reference for the general computing ethics discourse, and three technology assessment projects related to the ubicomp vision serve as a (nonrepresentative) sample of documents from the discussion of ethical issues in a ubicomp world. Revisiting these studies from the general computing ethics point of view shows that the basic issues have persisted, but ubicomp has added new aspects that were not anticipated in the earlier discourse.

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previous chapter The Question of Ethics in Ambient Intelligence
next chapter Socio-ethical Issues of Ubicomp: Societal Trends, Transparency, and Information Control
Footnotes
1
“Pervasive computing” is considered synonymous to “ubiquitous computing” in this context.
 
2
Strictly speaking, this case is not about technology paternalism, but about an unintended consequence of introducing computational technology in a paternalistic environment.
 
3
Dissipation of responsibility addresses the problem of accountability in complex distributed human–machine systems [16, 30] and is not to be confused with what is known as “diffusion of responsibility.” This is the psychological phenomenon that people tend to feel less responsible for their individual actions the larger the group of people who could take action.
 
4
Dematerialization effects of computing result in relevant reductions in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, if not compensated by rebound effects [10, 17].
 
5
Embedded ICT hardware can also compromise established recycling processes [22, 23, 34].
 
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Metadata
Title
Ethical Issues in Ubiquitous Computing—Three Technology Assessment Studies Revisited
Author
Lorenz M. Hilty
Copyright Year
2015
Book
Ubiquitous Computing in the Workplace

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-13451-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-13452-9

Copyright Year: 2015

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13452-9_4

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