Does the computing industry have an obligation to address social and political issues such as income inequality? How well suited is it to meet such challenges? How does the ethos of the computing industry influence its take on “fixing” social, economic, and political problems? Can tech save the world?
This issue is an interesting one to me. I don’t think that the computing industry should bear the entire burden of social and political issues at all—this is something that needs to be fixed on a global scale, if any fixing is expected to happen. In my mind, the computing industry is one with the largest instances of inequality because you have people like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Steve Ballmer who are some of the worlds richest people, and yet there are people in some third world countries who have very limited access to technology (where here I am fretting over the fact that I don’t have wifi access). So yes, the computing industry has an obligation to address the issues in its industry at the very least. And if you look at the Gates Foundation, (How the Gates Foundation Reflects the Good and the Bad of “Hacker Philanthropy”) you can see that they have been making strong efforts to do that by drastically changing the amount of diseases affecting nations around the world. But there is still definitely a gap.
How well is it suited to meet such challenges? Well obviously the computing industry cannot solve world hunger and it cannot fix all the worlds problems, but there are definitely issues that it can make strong efforts to fix—like making technology more widely available. Going back to the idea of underdeveloped countries, providing students with laptops and the resources to expand their knowledge to the information available to them on the Internet can provide them with an opportunity to receive higher education and push themselves to go farther than they ever expected to go, due to their socio-economic situation.
Even looking on a smaller scale, at the issue of Too Few Women In Tech, this is still definitely within the bounds of the computing industry to fix. Addressing this issues that this article brings up about it not being men’s fault that there is a gender gap in the technology industry—there definitely is—but it isn’t necessarily the men’s fault. It is true that women aren’t generally known to go as far as men in their careers because women are generally seen as mothers, and so taking the time to have a family distracts from their career. Also, women aren’t seen as ruthless and cold-hearted because they have a nurturing aspect to their character (which makes them good as mothers!). But this issue goes back farther in my mind to the elementary school level, where for a while girls have not been as encouraged to study in STEM fields. And great strides have been made to change this (which I find extremely exciting) but it still is going to take some time for these efforts to take root and make their way to the strong startups and entrepreneurs that are so vital to the industry. As a female, I do notice the difference, but I don’t think that any issues are going to change on a higher level, so the effort must be made in terms of younger girls, and then maybe after a few decades we’ll see a trend of more dominant females, rivaling the number of males.
How does the ethos of the computing industry influence its take on “fixing” social, economic, and political problems? The first moral imperative in the codes of ethics is: “Contribute to society and human well-being.” If society is unequal, then there is an obligation to change it so as to make the world a better place. Simple as that.
Can tech save the world? Definitely. The money made by tech moguls can go to foundations and causes that need it—again, the Gates Foundation is an example. But also the access to knowledge that comes with technology is key. Tech can make the world easier and more accessible to everyone. People who cannot speak due to handicaps have learned to use technology to be their voice; watches have been made to alert a doctor when someone is having an epileptic seizure; technology is used in testing vehicles before people are allowed to drive in them; and the list of helpful technology only continues (but I don’t have enough words to write about them).
I found this quote from The Refragmentation very interesting: “We take for granted the forms of fragmentation we like, and worry only about the ones we don’t.” I think it summarizes well what my entire argument is—there are definitely some issues that I find more worrisome about the efforts the computing industry is facing, and the rest, that I do not find as distressing, I tend to sweep under the rug more. Just some food for thought.
sarah devitt 