Ethical skills for the digital world
The importance of digital technologies (Internet of Things, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, social networks, smartphones, web, etc.) has grown exponentially over the last decades. The scale at which many digital systems now operate means that their impact on societies and environments around the world is considerable. The associated risks of harm at large scale increase accordingly. While ethical concerns with technology design and development are not new, engineers have to adapt to a range of new challenges with the fast evolving landscape of the digital domain.
Building on state of the art approaches in engineering ethics education, we develop resources and provide support for teachers to integrate digital-specific ethical thinking skills into engineering courses:
- A game-based approach for engineering students to learn about bias and fairness issues in Machine Learning.
- A visual tool for assessing ethical risks when designing, developing or using digital solutions: the “Digital Ethics Canvas”.
- “Responsible Software”: a course for Computer Science students on the responsible design of software.
Contact
This project is funded by swissuniversities in the P8-Digital Skills Programme and carried out in partnership with the University of Neuchâtel (UniNE) and the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETHZ).
| Hardebolle, C., Macko, V., Ramachandran, V., Holzer, A., & Jermann, P. (2023). The Digital Ethics Canvas : A Guide For Ethical Risk Assessment And Mitigation In The Digital Domain. Proceedings of the 51st SEFI Annual Conference. https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/305816 |
| A game-based approach to learn about ethics in Machine Learning (March 2023), EPFL Actualités. https://actu.epfl.ch/news/un-jeu-pour-explorer-les-questions-ethiques-dans-l/ |
| Hardebolle, C., Jermann, P., Tormey, R., Dehler Zufferey, J., Gillet, D., Holzer, A., Felber, P., Bentel, K., Brändle, U., & Kortemeyer, G. (2022). A Canvas For The Ethical Design Of Learning Experiences With Digital Tools. Proceedings of the 50th SEFI Annual Conference 2022, 2282‑2287. https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/299962 |
| Hardebolle, C., Kovacs, H., Simkova, E., Pinazza, A., Di Vincenzo, M. C., Jermann, P., Tormey, R., & Dehler Zufferey, J. (2022). A Game-Based Approach to Develop Engineering Students’ Awareness About Artificial Intelligence Ethical Challenges. Proceedings of the 50th SEFI Annual Conference 2022, 2276‑2281. https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/299932 |