Being Ethical or Right is a Relative Term and some times one may be Unethical but still Legal . Hence this makes the issue very complex. It’s also a Relative issue. What one person or community may feel Ethical may be felt Unethical by others. Issue of Morality has become a very important in a different aspect. With onslaught of Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics , Information Systems products and solutions will soon leapfrog in features to bring about new vistas of Customer Satisfaction. We are few years away from technologies such as Self Driving Cars and Autonomous Weapons. This Automation can create Disaster if it falls in wrong hands. Recent incidences in American Schools is a case in point. A Knife can be used to cut fruits and also to kill a person. Ultimately it’s the Mindset which decides its usage. Hence the term Ethical hacking came in the picture for IT Security. Tech Security expert with wrong intensions turns to be a Cybercriminal and undertake variety of crimes . Due to its fast paced continuous evolving nature it is very difficult to assign a morality code to many aspects of information technology. However considering havoc it can create in the future , if wrong mindset is driving it, need to reinforce Ethical Values and Moral science has become paramount important. One can patch a software code but can’t patch a human brain writing that code.

Leading Western Universities Harvard, MIT, Stanford and many more are offering various courses on Ethics and Morality courses for Computer Science Students at Undergraduate and Post Graduate level. In India we consider such education as a part of our upbringing and some of it is part of School Curriculum. Time has come to revisit our Higher level IT Education. We should not rest on Lauding our Past and Culture. Today’s Young IT Students must learn Ramification of Artificial Intelligence over next 5-10 years . Focus on Helping technology to solve day to day problems and social issues should be on the top of minds of Tech nerds. Ethically lead Decision making will lead to positive value creation and products coming out of such a mindset will ultimately help the humanity.

Stanford University Computer Science Department in USA is planning to offer a new Ethics course titled “Ethics, Public Policy and Computer Science?”. It is estimated that around 1500 students will take this course in coming months. This new course covers various topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous machines, Privacy policy, Social media and Data Science . It is hoped that next generation of Tech Leaders will hopefully build Sane mind and develop solutions for humanity and not use their energies to harm people.

deepak@deepakshikarpur.com
Author is an IT entrepreneur, author and Digital Literacy activist