Ethical Computing Systems FInal

What is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study often used to illustrate?

A historic research ethics scandal where Black men with syphilis were misled and denied effective treatment, illustrating violations of informed consent, respect for persons, beneficence, and justice.

What is Therapeutic Misconception?

When research participants mistakenly believe the main purpose of a clinical trial is to benefit them personally, rather than to produce generalizable knowledge.

What is Coercion in consent?

Using threats or severe pressure to get someone to agree, making their consent involuntary and invalid.

What is Undue Influence in consent?

Offering excessive or inappropriate rewards or pressure that can cloud a person's judgment and undermine the voluntariness of consent.

What is a Vulnerable Population in research ethics?

A group with limited ability to protect their own interests or give fully informed consent, such as children, prisoners, or people with cognitive impairments.

What is the distinction between Enhancement vs. Treatment?

Treatment aims to restore normal health or function, while enhancement aims to improve capacities beyond a normal or typical level.

What is the ethical concern about Genetic Enhancement?

That it may increase inequality, create new forms of discrimination, and put pressure on parents or children to meet enhanced norms.

What is a Deepfake?

A highly realistic but fake audio or video created using AI, often showing people saying or doing things they never actually did.

What is the main ethical concern about Deepfakes?

They can spread misinformation, damage reputations, undermine trust in media, and be used for fraud or harassment.

What is Surveillance Capitalism?

An economic system where companies collect and monetize massive amounts of personal data to predict and influence behavior.

What is a Filter Bubble?

A situation where algorithms only show you information that matches your existing views, limiting exposure to diverse ideas and making polarization worse.

What is an Echo Chamber?

An environment in which people only encounter opinions that reinforce their own beliefs because of social or informational isolation.

What is a Nudge?

A subtle change in how options are presented that steers people's choices in a predictable way without forbidding options or significantly changing incentives.

What is the ethical concern about Nudging in tech design?

That it can manipulate users' behavior without their full awareness, raising questions about autonomy and informed consent.

What is a Black Box Algorithm?

An algorithm whose internal workings are not transparent or understandable to users, regulators, or sometimes even its creators.

What is Explainability in AI ethics?

The ability to provide understandable reasons for an AI system's outputs or decisions.

What is Accountability in AI systems?

The principle that there must be clear human responsibility for the design, deployment, and consequences of AI systems.

What is Bias in Training Data?

When the data used to train an algorithm reflects existing prejudices or imbalances, leading to unfair or skewed outcomes.

What is Predictive Policing?

The use of algorithms to forecast crime or allocate police resources, often criticized for reinforcing existing biases in law enforcement.

What is the ethical concern about Social Credit Systems?

That they can give governments or companies excessive control over people's lives, reduce freedom, and punish dissent through data-driven scoring.

What is Cyberbullying?

Harassment, threats, or humiliation of someone using digital tools such as social media, messaging, or online forums.

What is the ethical concern about Online Anonymity?

It can protect privacy and free speech, but also make it easier for people to engage in harmful behavior without accountability.

What is Doxxing?

Publishing private or identifying information about someone online without their consent, often to harass or threaten them.

What is the Principle of Least Privilege?

A security principle that users and systems should have only the minimum access rights necessary to perform their tasks.

What is Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)?

An authentication method that requires two different types of evidence (factors), such as something you know (password) and something you have (phone code).

What is Phishing?

A type of cyber attack where attackers trick people into revealing sensitive information by pretending to be a trustworthy entity.

What is Social Engineering in security?

Manipulating people into giving up confidential information or performing actions that compromise security.

What is a Zero-Day Vulnerability?

A software flaw that is unknown to the vendor and has no patch yet, which can be exploited by attackers.

What is Proportionality in Data Use?

The idea that the intrusiveness of data collection and use should be proportional to the importance of the purpose and the benefits obtained.

What is Data Anonymization?

Processing personal data so that individuals can no longer be identified, at least not easily, by the data alone.

What is Re-identification Risk?

The risk that supposedly anonymized data can be matched with other information to identify individuals.

What is Ethical Hacking?

Legally and with permission probing systems for security weaknesses to help organizations fix them.

What is Whistleblowing?

Revealing information about wrongdoing within an organization to people or bodies who can take corrective action.

What is Civil Disobedience?

Deliberate, public violation of a law for moral reasons, usually nonviolent and accepting legal consequences.

What is the main ethical question about Sex Robots or Sexbots?

Whether creating robots for sexual use objectifies persons, reinforces harmful stereotypes, affects real-life relationships, or changes how we view consent and intimacy.

What is the concern about Social Robots for companionship?

They might meet emotional needs while reducing human-human contact, raise questions about deception, and affect vulnerable users like children or the elderly.

What is Moral Deskilling?

The idea that reliance on machines to make decisions for us can weaken our own moral judgment and decision-making abilities over time.

What is Moral Crumple Zone?

A situation where humans take the blame for failures in complex automated systems, even when they had little control over the outcome.

What is the ethical concern about Lethal Autonomous Weapons and accountability?

That when a machine makes targeting decisions, it becomes unclear who should be held responsible for wrongful deaths or war crimes.

What is a Proportional Response in cyberwarfare?

A response whose scale and effects are in line with the original attack, avoiding excessive escalation.

What is Collateral Damage?

Unintended harm to civilians or civilian objects that occurs as a side effect of attacking a legitimate military target.

What is the main ethical concern about Drone Warfare?

It can lower the political and personal cost of war, risk more frequent use of force, and raise questions about distance killing and civilian casualties.

What is Disinformation?

Intentionally false or misleading information spread to deceive people.

What is Misinformation?

False or inaccurate information that is spread without the intent to deceive.

What is the Ethical Design of Technology?

Designing technologies with explicit consideration of values such as privacy, fairness, autonomy, and well-being.

What is Value-Sensitive Design?

An approach to technology design that systematically accounts for human values throughout the design process.

What is a Privacy Policy?

A document that explains what data an organization collects about users, how it is used, stored, shared, and what control users have.

What is Informed Opt-in vs. Opt-out?

Opt-in requires active consent before data is collected or used; opt-out assumes consent unless the user actively refuses.

What is a Terms of Service Agreement?

A contract between a service provider and user, setting rules for using the service, often including data use and limitations of liability.

What is a Moral Agent?

An entity that can understand moral reasons and be held responsible for its actions.

What is the debate about AI as Moral Agents?

Whether AI systems could ever have the understanding and autonomy needed to count as moral agents, or whether responsibility always rests with humans.

What is a Moral Patient?

An entity that can be harmed or benefited and therefore deserves moral consideration.

What are the main categories in Just War Theory?

Jus ad bellum (justice of going to war), jus in bello (justice in conduct of war), and sometimes jus post bellum (justice after war).

What is Jus post Bellum?

Principles governing the justice of ending a war and its aftermath, including fair peace terms, reconstruction, and treatment of defeated parties.

What is Virtue Ethics?

A moral theory that focuses on the character of the person, saying a right action is what a virtuous person would do.

What is Utilitarianism?

An ethical theory that judges actions by their consequences, saying the right action is the one that produces the greatest overall happiness.

What is Kantian Ethics?

An ethical theory that says actions are right if they are done from duty in accordance with a universal moral law.

What is the Categorical Imperative?

Kant's test for moral rules, requiring that you act only on maxims you could will as universal laws.

What is a Maxim in Kantian ethics?

A personal rule or principle of action that states what you are doing and why.

What is Virtue according to virtue ethics?

A stable character trait or habit that disposes a person to act and feel in the right way.

What is the Golden Mean?

Aristotle's idea that virtue lies between two extremes of excess and deficiency.

What is Informed Consent?

A process where a person voluntarily agrees to a treatment or research participation after being fully informed.

What is Implied Consent?

Consent that is not explicitly stated but reasonably inferred from a person's actions.

What is the Belmont Report?

A foundational document in research ethics that identifies three main principles for research with human subjects.

What is the Belmont principle of Respect for Persons?

The requirement to treat individuals as autonomous agents and provide extra protection for those with diminished autonomy.

What is the Belmont principle of Beneficence?

The obligation to maximize potential benefits and minimize potential harms to research participants.

What is the Belmont principle of Justice?

The requirement that the benefits and burdens of research be distributed fairly.

What is Human Enhancement?

The use of medicine, technology, or interventions to improve human capacities beyond what is necessary for health.

What is the principle of Procreative Beneficence?

The idea that parents have a moral obligation to select the child who is expected to have the best possible life.

What is Strong AI?

Artificial intelligence that would genuinely understand, think, and have a mind like a human.

What is Weak AI?

Artificial intelligence that is designed to perform specific tasks or simulate intelligent behavior without genuine understanding.

What is the Chinese Room Thought Experiment?

An argument that a person following rules to manipulate symbols could appear to understand Chinese without actually understanding it.

What is the Turing Test?

A test where a machine is considered intelligent if a human judge cannot reliably distinguish its responses from those of a human.

What is Automation?

The use of machines, software, or systems to perform tasks with little or no human intervention.

What is the main ethical concern about automation and jobs?

That widespread automation can displace workers and increase inequality.

What is the Attention Economy?

An economic model in which human attention is treated as a scarce resource that companies compete for.

What are Dark Patterns?

Design tricks in user interfaces that manipulate users into making decisions they might not otherwise make.

What are Cookies (on the web)?

Small pieces of data stored in a user's browser by a website.

What is Behavioral Targeting?

The practice of tracking users' online activity to build profiles and show them personalized ads.

What is Intellectual Property?

Legal rights that protect creations of the mind, giving creators control over use.

What is Copyright?

A form of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship.

What is a Patent?

A form of intellectual property that gives an inventor exclusive rights to make, use, and sell an invention.

What is the difference between Identification and Authentication?

Identification is recognizing a user, while authentication is verifying their identity.

What is Authorization (in security)?

The process of deciding what an authenticated user is allowed to do or access in a system.

What is the Uncanny Valley?

The phenomenon where robots or digital humans that look almost, but not exactly, like real humans cause feelings of unease or creepiness.

What is a Principal (in access control)?

An individual or entity that can be granted rights or permissions in a system.

What is a Role (in access control)?

A set of permissions tied to a job function, where users are assigned roles and gain the permissions associated with that role.

What is Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)?

A security model in which access permissions are assigned to roles, and users are assigned to roles.

What is the difference between Offensive and Defensive weapons?

Offensive weapons are designed to attack and harm an enemy, while defensive weapons are designed to protect against attacks.

What is the Doctrine of Double Effect?

A principle that says it can be morally permissible to perform an action that has both good and bad effects if the bad effect is not intended.

What is Just War Theory?

A framework that sets moral rules for when it is just to go to war and how war should be fought.

What is Jus ad Bellum?

The part of Just War Theory that deals with when it is just to go to war.

What is Jus in Bello?

The part of Just War Theory that deals with how a war should be fought.

What is Proportionality in war?

The requirement that the harm caused by military actions must not be excessive in relation to the expected military advantage.

What is Discrimination in war?

The requirement that combatants distinguish between legitimate military targets and noncombatants.

What is the main ethical concern about Autonomous Weapons?

That they may undermine accountability and violate principles of discrimination and proportionality.

What is Meaningful Human Control (in weapons)?

The idea that humans should remain involved in critical decisions about the use of lethal force.

What is Confirmation Bias?

The tendency to seek out information that confirms one's existing beliefs.

What is Anchoring Bias?

The cognitive bias where people rely too heavily on the first piece of information they receive.

What is Conformity Bias?

The tendency to follow the opinions or behaviors of a group.