Jianhang Liu

EE 394
4/21/2019

EE 394: Ethics Essay

We always heard the word ‘Ethics’ on the scientific magazines, discovery videos,
and TV news. But what is the meaning of ethics, and why do we need ethics? Ethics is
a kind of moral principles that restrict out behavior, make us do the right things,
and have the all-round thinking. There is a rule in IEEE named ‘Code of Ethics’,
which insists what people in the group of IEEE should have, for example, people
should protect others privacy, rejecting bribery, be honest, clearly explain details
to the target people, and so on. The ‘Code of Ethics’ is aimed at keeping the
development not deviating from the correct path, and make the scientific technology
serves people better.
There was an ethical situation happened on me when I was in high school. At the
end of each semester in the high school, we are required to finish some specific
labs, collecting the data and making the lab report individually. The first step is
to design the lab project theoretically, for example, the topic, what material is
required, and how to get the conclusion, etc. After the permit of design, students
need to collect the data when doing the lab project during their free time. Finally,
students are required to submit their lab report including their idea, thought, data
and conclusions. However, at that time, I found that although my theoretically design
is correct, the actual result doesn’t match my prediction towards this lab. Since
the lab project has a time limitation and it is hard for me to restart the lab, I
only have two choices at that time: forgery the experiment results or find what’s
going wrong in my lab project. The first method can make sure that I will receive a
high score in this project and hard to be discovered. The second method can ensure
the authenticity of the experiment, and there exists the possibility of failure of
me in this project if I cannot find what’s going wrong. In this case, if you choose
to cheat in the project, you may receive the higher grade of the project, if you
choose to correct the project, you followed the rules of ‘to be honest and realistic
in stating claims or estimates based on available data’. Finally, after the serious
thinking, I think that as an engineer, I need to pursue the honesty and rigor.
Finally, I decided to find out what going wrong and make it corrected. Luckily, I
successfully found the mistake and get the ideal result after the correction.
Back to the class discussion, our group discussed two events in the class. One
is the Amazon Echo in the murder case. In this case, Amazon Echo, a smart speaker
produced by Amazon, is the potential key to solving the murder case. Obviously, the
police department did not know how much information can be found in Amazon Echo, and
they asked Amazon to provide the information. However, Amazon declined to provide
any information and they said that they won’t release customer information without
a valid and binding legal demand.
In this case, the first license of IEEE Code of Ethics applies:’ To hold paramount
the safety, health, and welfare of the public..’. In this case, as discussed, Amazon
should release part of the data stored in the Echo in order to hold the safety of
the public. So, in this case, the conflict is clear: Police want the information
inside Echo, which may infringe the privacy of people while Amazon won’t release
the information in order to protect the privacy, and another point: release the
stored data of Echo may cause the resistance of public towards Echo and Amazon’s
product due to the private information collection and exposure. For this problem
during discussion, two of our group believes that Amazon should keep the private
information from released to others while the other two people, including me, believe
that since the information recorded by Amazon Echo is a key towards this case, it is
make sense that the police department should handle those information. After the
long discussion, our group has made a consensus that after received the legal document
of consent, Amazon should filter out and submit useful information towards this case
while keep other irrelevant data not released. This is the most appropriate course
of this case because it either protects the private information of people being
released or offers the useful information to police department for case detection.
In fact, this case is not just a single case, and it happens everywhere in our
life, which is finding the ideal balance between information privacy and the usage
of information. For example, ‘terms of use’ always appears when using a new function
of apps or website, which is the contract about the information privacy and the
information usage. Another example is the Face ID, the new unlock method of iPhone,
which will scan the face data and save it inside the device, not uploaded it in
cloud. This will make user feel comfortable when scanned by the video camera, which
will protect their data, face images, better than handled by the server.
After reviewing the 6 virtues of ethics, I picked three of the six virtues that
I feel are most related to the case study, they are: honesty, responsibility, and
self-discipline, which refers three different aspects in the case study. Self-
discipline refers people themselves, means that they should follow the rules,
controlling their behavior by themselves, and during the case study, self-discipline
means you should do your own part without being bribed and inducted. In this case,
the police department should do their best to solve the murder case from being
interrupted.
Responsibility refers the action to others; you should always be responsible to
any data and conclusion you made in the case study. In this case, the police
department should responsible for the private data received from Amazon from being
released.
Finally, honesty is the necessary bridge between you and others. With honesty,
you can exchange information and datas in order to get useful details, which will
increase your efficiency and make it more reliable when doing the case study. In
this case, Amazon should submit the information they think useful to the police
department truthfully.
For other three virtues, they are the derivatives of the main three virtues
mentioned above. For example, integrity is related to honesty, fidelity is the
derivative of responsibility and self-discipline. For me, I think that there is
another ethical virtue could apply to the case study, the punctuality. As we all
know, many information has its own timeliness in the case study, some information
will become useless if the time of case study becomes too long, which will make the
efficiency lower.