Week 0

Intro/ growth of tech

What is Ethics?

A set of standards that governs behavior

How is ethics compared to professionalism?

The conduct, aim, or qualities that are characteristic of a professional in a given field.

What are the ethical principles to consider throughout this class?

Nonmaleficience

Beneficience

Justice

Autonomy

Respect for persons

Schools of ethical thought

Utilitarian ethics

Deontological ethics

Virtue ethics

Nonmaleficience

do no harm

Beneficience

maximize possible benefits, minimize possible harms

Justice

benefits distributed fairly

Autonomy

self governing, ex ability to make informed and voluntary decisions.

respect for autonomy: informed consent

Respect for persons

treat people as autonomous

people with diminished autonomy are subject to protection

Utilitarian Ethics

focused on maximizing the most good for the most people

consequentialist - whether an action is good or bad depends on the outcomes

Deontological ethics

focused on rules/ duties

virtue ethics

Focused on the person rather than the action

More emphasis on moral character

The definition of biotechnology

The use of living organisms, their components, or biological systems to make new products

biomimicry

technologies inspired by (or modeled on) biological organisms, their components, or biological systems

biology

the study of life and living organisms, including their physical structure, composition, function, and development

Moore’s Law

the observation that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles roughly every two years, which makes computers faster and cheaper over time.

Transistors

semiconductor devices that amplify/control/generate electrical signals

can act as switch

Knight’s Law

trend of ever-increasing productivity of biological engineering

what are the key points of Moore’s Law

the rate of change is sometimes predictable

biological and or technological limits could affect what the curve looks like, as do resource constraints