Final Paper (Agribots)

 

In the digital age, technology does not cease to amaze, aide, and leave humankind with questions and concerns. For the past 12,000 years, agriculture has relied on manual labor to harvest crops across the globe. With the rise in technology, agricultural robots, also known as agribots, are in development with the intention of replacing human manual labor. Agribots have applicable use during the harvesting stage of the agricultural cycle. According Eduardo González, Jr., State Diversity Specialist, Cornell University Cooperative Extension Farm workers in United States, 1 to 3 million of migrant workers work on harvesting.  Agribots not only promise the farmers of America a profit gain and make feeding the increasing world’s population possible, but also compete with millions of farmworkers for the same position. The development of crop appropriate agricultural robots that work with nearly perfect accuracy will bring long term economic and social advantages to society, but the issue of creating these machine brings an environmental concern. When we look at the ethical dilemma of jobs at stake and the earth’s health, we must look through a just and overly beneficial framework.

Technology in the agriculture domain is not a new idea. Historically, technology in agriculture has yielded higher productivity, where productivity is the ratio of input to output (Madden & Thompson, 87). The result of higher productivity continues to yield larger quantities of food, which is a sensible result. The role of agriculture is to adequately feed the world with fresh produce and plentiful crops. A problem that technology in agriculture has worked to solve, and continues to solve, is helping agriculture meet its task of feeding our world population. According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, there will be 9.7 billion people on planet earth to feed by the year 2050. With such an increase in our population, the role of agriculture will remain as feeding the population. Technology, albeit not necessarily digital, has revolutionized agriculture in various eras. In order to keep up with the demand of food, feeding people at this scale will continue to utilize the scalable aide that only modern technology can provide.

Technology in agriculture affects three dominant areas, according to Dr. Sarala Gopalan. These areas are social, environmental, and economical. Each sector includes varying stakeholders. One stakeholder is the consumer, as their stake is the consumption and purchase of agricultural harvest.  As a consumer, food consumption is essential for living. Whether it be for health or energy, the daily consumption of food is vital to a consumer. The stake for the consumer is then to not only have an adequate amount of food to purchase, but to be able to do so at an affordable market price. Early adopting farms will have a beneficial stake in adopting automated technology into their harvesting process. By adopting early, farm owners will increase their profits. The rise of crops and decline in human age introduces a dilemma for the farmer; some of the harvest has the potential to be left unattended due to to imbalance of crops to human works(2009). The farmer will then benefit from adopting an agribot workforce by preventing the rotting of harvest.  The national economy will also be a beneficiary as their purchasing power increases. The national economy can also benefit from the export of farming commodities (Madden & Thompson, 88). The two stakeholders that can potentially be negatively affected by technology in agriculture are the current farm workers and animals. The current farm workers whose job is to harvest crops will be in competition with the automation of their job. Depending on the city of the fields, a varying percentage of citizens will become unemployed. The safety of animals in the handling procedures, like milking a cow, for example, are contingent upon the reliability of the technology at hand. If the machinery operating on the animal has little to no flaws, it can sustain the animal’s longevity. On the other hand, if the machinery is defective, the animal’s health will be at risk. All of the above-mentioned stakeholders each will influence how the ethical temperature on the matter unfolds.

The subject of automating manual labor with agribots introduces multiple perspectives. The two oxymoronic perspectives that bubble above the rest are the states of job loss and job creation. Automating such a position brings to question the elimination of all low-skill positions, which is at the heart of the ethical dilemma and a scare to current farm workers, economists, and politicians. There exists an other side to this fear; the side of job creation. Capitalizing on sophisticated 21st-century technology in agriculture also opens a new line of specialized positions. Specialized programmers and robotic engineers will be needed to design, create, and maintain these lines of robots. A relieving perspective of any possible worry due to job loss is that is leaves us with a larger pool of potential investment money that can be used to fund new companies. If the robots are truly profit enhancing and yield higher quality of fresh produce as they are marketed to be, the amount of benefits that can come from their creation and implementation are revolutionary. Other perspectives include the lower cost of food due to the abundant production.  All of these perspectives need to be addressed before any person’s manual labor becomes automated.

The current market of agribots have come a long way where technologies such as the Gripper, Manipulator and End Effector have been designed to produce a higher quality of fresh produce in an efficient manner. The End Effector, is designed for grasping, pushing, and cutting produce and is being used in Japan on grapes and berries for tasks of spraying, harvesting and packing.  The Gripper is designed in such a way that it considers the crop it will be working on. If a crop requires for the fruit to be cut from the stem, it will be designed with a device to serve these capabilities. This grasping device has a simplistic design and is useful for harvesting. The Manipulator serves as the body, which allows the gripper to navigate its environment. The Manipulator are “created from a sequence of link and joint combinations.” (RobotWorx). Manipulators are not usually mobile, but rather are mounted on the ground. The current state of robots do have computer vision capabilities and other sensing capabilities, but are not quite where they need to be to replace humans on farms.

The transition from where agriculture is today to where it is going to be will not happen overnight.  The creation of reliable robots that are created for the appropriate crop will need to be created and thoroughly tested.  Because farms are more challenging to automate than factories, agribots will need dexterous engineering to withstand the natural dynamic conditions of a farm. The ultimate goal of engineering efforts will need to fulfill the desired outcomes a farmer has for their crops. Tony Stentz of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, says that picking fruit is not the challenge, but rather doing so cost efficiently is. Luckily for farmers, agribots of today have been engineered to include vision and other sensing systems to meet their promise of efficiency.  The nature of fruit variation with varying levels of sensitivity needs to be considered as well. Robots will need to be able to perform hand-picking movements such as twisting, plucking or sucking produce from stems all the while doing so with the right amount of pressure. Farms have far more variables to consider when they are placed in outdoor environments, like changing weather conditions. Though we have robots that are capable of manual labor in greenhouse environments, engineers need to consider the longevity of robots in regard to dynamic circumstances.  Agribots that are able to withstand open air farm environments will need to be developed.

When agribots become fit for such dynamic conditions and not have the limitations the the agribots of today have, each farm will have options to consider for their workforce. Assuming that enough early adopters find success with the integration of agribots in place of humans, even for a portion of their land, popularity and agribot demand is assumed. In this hypothetical case, farmers will have three options of adoptions. The first option for farmers will be for farmers to remain fully human operated, despite the rise in agribot popularity.  The second option that farmers will be able to make is the polar opposite; to rid human manual labor entirely and transition to a fully agribot operated farm. Spread, a Japanese vegetable producer has already set out to do this (2016). There does not need to be such polarity, though. The other option that is in the realm of possibilities is to reserve a fraction of low-skill manual positions for humans that are not in the position to acquire expert skills to create or maintain robots. Each option has weighted benefits and drawbacks that need to be closely examined by farm owners who wish to progress in their agricultural endeavours.

The first option of preserving an all human workforce has short term benefits for a small percentage of the population. On the other side of the same coin, it also reaps long term drawbacks to society. Remaining in the state of an all human workforce prevents the unfortunate possibility of a father or mother, or any existing manual laborer for that matter, becoming incomeless. The benefit is clear for the existing manual workforce; job security. The farmer is rest assured that the human is knowledgeable on safe picking and has exceptional vision and sensory capabilities from experience. Deciding to go with this option is to use a fairness or just ethical approach, which means that whatever is deemed as just is first observed through a fairness lens. Consequences in this case, are not considered.  Conversely, preserving an all human operated farm raises issues that Japan is facing right now. The problem of an aging population eliminates personpower to execute all parts of the agricultural cycle — planting, cultivating, maintaining, and harvesting. In this option, there is the undesired end for a farmer, which is to lose crop due to insufficient harvesting effort. A farm operating entirely on human power also comes with limitations of a solely sun-lit workday. As the population continues to grow, the limitations of an all person workforce will not be able to meet the demands of a much larger human population. Deciding to go with this option is to use a fairness or just ethical approach, which means that whatever is deemed as just is first observed through a fairness lens. Consequences in this case, are not considered.

Considering the second option of completely automating manual labor also has its share of benefits and drawbacks. Under the assumption that a farmer is making a decision to operate their farm solely on agribots due to their proven dexterous abilities to weather dynamic outdoor environments and familiarity with the crop or crops associated with the farm, very little concerns are raised. Aside from taking the jobs of various people, the other potential drawbacks are defects in technology. They may not be one hundred percent reliable in all weather conditions, despite previous testings, and will need regular maintenance in the case of updates or replacement. This is part of business and not necessarily a hindrance to business, as humans also are liabilities. Similarly, agribots will have costs that can accumulate to more than humans. Humans cost about $25,000 a year, while agribots can cost $32,000 each, according to researchers from the Bosch Group (2016). Various other benefits that this transition brings is, oxymoronically job creation. Jobs will be created for the research, design, creation and maintenance of Agribots. These jobs, of course require skills that will employ a skilled workforce rather than a lay workforce. To mitigate the negative effects that the job loss aspect of this option brings to low-skilled workers, there is the option for manufacturing companies to prioritize their low-skilled positions to the group of people who will be left without a position as a manual laborer. This is under the assumption that manufacturing companies will be located in the United States, and not offshore. Under these assumptions, the benefits of having an all agrobotic work force can reap the efficiency it promises, with an initial cost that can be costly.  

If a farm is fully employed by Agribots, the assumption is that there will be an increase in production. Economic development is prized by growth with less (Tamney, 2015). With such a circumstance, John Tamny, Forbes Magazine author and author of Popular Economics,  hypothesized that robots will generate investment capital to fund future companies of the future. Due to the supposed surplus of revenue that will be generated by these agribots, there will be opportunity for farm owners to become investors. In this situation, farmers would use some amount of their earnings to fund other companies, thus creating an entrepreneurial eco-system of economic growth. This perspective is long term, and doesn’t account for the immediate results of job loss to the short term job loss or initial cost of agribots. The option of a full fledged agribotic workforce still does not account for the number of jobs that can be lost and not replaced. Though having this option will hopefully drive the children of farm workers to aspire to become skilled workers, the adults that have a family to maintain, or simply enjoy the outdoors will still be in a jobless dilemma, even if it is short term. Using this option involves a utilitarian approach which means that the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people is considered. An article from Santa Clara University says, “Given its insistence on summing the benefits and harms of all people, utilitarianism asks us to look beyond self-interest to consider impartially the interests of all persons affected by our actions.”

The third options is a hybrid of the last two options. The idea is that some farms will choose neither to be fully human operated or fully agribotic operated. Farms would instead have a fraction of their workforce be humans and the remainder be agribots. The ratio of people to agribots on a farm can vary depending on the advancements that have been made on the agribots, the type of produce the farm yields, and the heart that the farm owner has for keeping low-skilled positions open to those who either like the option of working with their hands in the outdoors or have no option. This option has much flexibility for fair mitigations on a farm-to-farm basis. There could be a grace period of keeping some number of employed humans until they find a replacement. Such measures eliminate any societal short term drawbacks that this transition could have. The same benefits that agribots generally bring to the landscape of agriculture still hold true in this option. One possible downturn is a revolt of human workers that do not like the idea of sharing a position of a robot. There is the possibility of human workers turning the table on their farm, in a worst case, it could be during harvest, where they are most needed. This option still holds the benefits of job creation, economic development and scaleable harvest. This option considers both approaches, the fairness and utilitarian views.

My solution is the third option of a hybrid plan. J.P. Gownder, an analyst with the Boston-based tech research firm Forrester, says that it is a job transformation, not a job replacement. A father  and mother will still have an opportunity to gain a position working a blue collared position, or with proper training, work along side the robot, not in lieu of it (Metz, 2016). Priority employment at robot manufacturing facilities will be given to previous farm workers in effort to mitigate the impact of this transition. When the time comes for a full migration from human to robots, I believe that the most ethical thing for a company to do is option two: keep a fraction of  human workers on the fields for the amount of time they see appropriate. This option seems like a conservative and flexible decision to make. Since the demographics vary from farm to farm, each farm would have the flexibility of making a ratio appropriate human to agribot count. This decision is sound especially for a farm that has not yet been an early adopter of agribots. They can always be introduced with a small fraction of agribots to test the water while human workers that were replaced would have the opportunity to work at the manufacturing facility, the remainder of human workers would also have an opportunity to secure a job elsewhere. Farmers that have been through early adoptions stages can still follow this route and utilize their current human workforce for purposes of partial agribotic maintenance, while workers still have work in the meantime. Having a hybrid workforce allows room for an interaction between human and robot. If a program was put in place to train existing works how to maintain these agribots, this would be the ideal case and could also be extended up until the replaced workforce would retire. The children of the farmers would ideally be placed in a program that taught them tech skills. This would allow for their potential to be realized as an individual and provide an alternative to physical labor that will not be available.

This is ethically justified through the lense of John Stuart’s Utilitarian framework where the greater good is done for the greatest amount of people. From this framework, the greater amount of good is the people that will be healthy due to proper food supply that was harvested by an efficient agribot workforce, job creation, economic development, lower cost in produce, new opportunities for existing manual laborer to possibly learn new skills and to maintain the agribots, a wave a new young engineers where the least amount of good is the short term loss of a job.  As a student of computer science and software engineering, the transition from a human workforce to one of agribots does not affect me economically, but theoretically benefits me. This recommendation is especially true under the assumptions that these decisions will begin to be made after more advancements have been made on the agribots. This is a scenario where the agribots have been designed and built to withstand the dynamic variations that an open air, less controlled, weather variant experiences. Some limitations to this stance could be that existing laborers simply are not interested in learning how to maintain new agribots.

Seeing that technology is inevitable, and in fact growing quickly in agriculture, being academically prepared is the best solution for the youth. Students interested in agriculture need to make an educational choice to study a major that falls in the STEM category (Science Technology Engineering and Math).  If people are studying the Science of Agriculture, it would be wise to minor or at least be knowledgeable in computer science to some extent. For the adults who are in fear of job loss, I would recommend being financially ready in the case that their job does become replaced by an agribot. Having a savings fund to account for up to 6 months to a year of income would alleviate any financial loss during time spent away from work during their job transition. If the current farm worker is able to commit time to learning technical skills at a local community college or online, they would find a greater chance of keeping up with the changing landscape of jobs. A farm owner who sits in the ultimate decision seat needs to carefully consider their land size, current workforce, and future implications of which option is best to execute the demand that a growing population bring.

Automating manual labor in agriculture can be done in an ethical matter. When agribots reach a reliable and agile stage, decision makers will need to make a decision that is best suitable for all stakeholders. Choosing to maintain a farm with a hybrid workforce will best reach the needs of all stakeholders. The stakeholders that this most aligns with is the consumer and farm owner, though current farm workers are considered to the full possible extent. The short term effect it can have on an individual or society can be mitigated by having the person affected prepare now, or by the farm owner’s best judgment in deciding how quickly they wish to increase the employment of amount of agribots.

 

References

University, Santa Clara. “Calculating Consequences:The Utilitarian Approach To Ethics”. Scu.edu. N.p., 2017. Web. 18 May 2017.

Madden, P., & Thompson, P. B. (n.d.). Ethical Perspectives on Changing Agricultural Technology in the United States. An Agricultural Law Research, 3, 85-116. Retrieved May 17, 2016, from http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/maddenthompson_ethical.pdf

Ziegler, P. (n.d.). The Impact of the Cotton Gin. Retrieved May 18, 2016, from http://www.teachingushistory.org/lessons/pdfs_and_docs/documents/theimpactofthecottongin.html

Gopalan, S., Dr. (2016, May 17). EXPERT GROUP MEETING ON GREEN AGRICULTURE FOR RIO 20, ISRAEL ROUND TABLE ON‐STAKEHOLDERS IN AGRICULTURE. Lecture presented at World Farmers Organization, India. Retrieved May 17, 2016, from http://www.uncsd2012.org/content/documents/505Sarala Gopalan.pdf

Historical Timeline — Farm Machinery & Technology. (n.d.). Retrieved May 18, 2016, from https://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farm_tech.htm

Tucker, Spencer C. (2013). American Civil War: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection. p. 16. ISBN 1851096825.

Emmert, B. (1994, December). Precision Farming. Retrieved May 18, 2016, from http://pubs.nal.usda.gov/sites/pubs.nal.usda.gov/files/at95-01_0.htm

Tamny, J. (2015, March 1). Why Robots Will Be The Biggest Job Creators In World History. Retrieved May 18, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2015/03/01/why-robots-will-be-the-biggest-job-creators-in-history/#5117096d1749

What is a robot manipulator? (n.d.). Retrieved May 20, 2016, from https://www.robots.com/faq/show/what-is-a-robot-manipulator

Metz, C. (2015, August 24). Robots Will Steal Our Jobs, But They’ll Give Us New Ones. Retrieved May 20, 2016, from http://www.wired.com/2015/08/robots-will-steal-jobs-theyll-give-us-new-ones/

Stock, M. (2016, January 19). Biodegradable bodies for more eco-friendly robots. Retrieved May 20, 2016, from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-smartmaterials-eco-robots-idUSKCN0UX25V

Fields of automation. (2009, December 12). Retrieved May 20, 2016, from http://www.economist.com/node/15048711

McCurry, J. (2016, February 02). Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm. Retrieved May 20, 2016, from http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/01/japanese-firm-to-open-worlds-first-robot-run-farm

Cost of Human vs. Robot – Indramat Products. (2014). Retrieved May 20, 2016, from http://www.indramat-us.com/cost-of-human-vs-robot/

Gonzalez, E. (2015, October 5). Migrant Farm Workers: Our Nation’s Invisible Population – eXtension. Retrieved May 20, 2016, from http://articles.extension.org/pages/9960/migrant-farm-workers:-our-nations-invisible-population

The Development of Agriculture. (n.d.). Retrieved May 20, 2016, from https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/development-of-agriculture/

 

Science gone wrong (9)

I recently read a book in my cultural anthropology course that really turned me off. I have high regards for the sciences and treasure the scientific method for multiple reasons. In this reading, however, I was not only angry but saddened that a line of work was carried out in the name of science.

The story was written about a cultural anthropologist, Naploeon Chagnon, who visited the amazon to study a tribe called the Yanomamies. The Yanomamies are a primitive and indigenous tribe. Chagnon went and began to take their blood samples, and even inject them with plutonium and other materials. Though he may have justified his reasoning to choose them as a control group, I was totally disturbed by his going into a culture and completely playing his American card wrongly.

There needs to be a line drawn for anthropologists and any researcher for that matter. One should not be able to pull a science card to justify the harm of an other human being. This didn’t even happen to long ago, If I’m not mistaken, he still exists and is a professor. He was commissioned to go to field work for a researcher, Neel, who was a part of a different scientific initiative. Hopefully, this publically told story will help future researchers not use their sophisticated methods to contaminate a population.

One’s culture should not be taken or tested ever, especially for scientific exploratory reasons. This is not necessarily a tech related ethical dilemma, but the same mindset of superiority used for the harm of a less sophisticated tribe that we see unfold in Darkness in El Dorado can still be prevalent in the workplace.

It may not be as physical as taking blood, or injecting plutonium, but it could lead one to be verbally aggressive, and abruptly interrupt the existing culture.

https://savageminds.org/tag/napoleon-chagnon/

Open Source (10)

As data becomes more and more abundant, so does yield for some farmers. At face value, it may seem strange to think that data is directly associated with more food and profit, but it is. As large farms collect data on their farms, they are able to use this information to give them insights to their soil, crop, assets, and workers. This is a great idea but creates a wide gap for small versus large farmers.

To amend this wide gap, such a thing exists as open source. If large farmers buy into the open source community as a means to share their data, then small farmers are able to benefit. I am in favor of open source, and naturally in favor of open source data. I do however, understand the initial pushback that exists.

I worked on a data-driven project for an AgTech start up and was unable to see all of their data. There seems to be a concern amongst AgTech professionals over proprietary data. As idealistic as the notion of open source data sounds, I certainly do not think it will be well received. I think that after AgTech companies become more established, then there will be less resistant to sharing their data freely.

I say this because I was unable to access the companies data in fear of business advantages. As much as I would want to help a small farmer get more data, I also understand the risks associated with smaller companies sharing data that they believe will make their business unique.

A good compromise might be for AgTech companies to share more trivial data. Though a company could simulate data, it is much better to have real data, even though it might be trivial.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-data-small-business-ethics-agriculture-pedro-s-sarmento

Tax on knowledge (7)

Should top performing tech companies be required to share the wealth of information. Just as companies are taxed monetarily, should something similar exist for knowledge? This ideal may be better received in an American context, but not so much in somewhere, like say Colombia.

I met a Colombian woman recently whose husband’s cousin is wealthy. He has enough money for 5 generations to maintain the standard of living that he lives but wants to continue to get money for 10 generations. She asked him if he’d ever consider donating to charity, and he said no. Most people, apparently, do not see the value in philanthropy. In the US, we have a leading philanthropic company like Salesforce who built a 1-1-1 philanthropic model where Salesforce gives away 1 percent of their time, product, and equity. As someone who values charity, this is business done right.

An idea that I’ve seen some companies start are engineering in residence programs, much like Facebook’s involvement at CSUMB. The idea is novel and should be adopted by more top performing companies. I think it makes global sense for computer science specifically since there is a high demand for talent, but a disproportionate amount of qualified people. If we take a utilitarian approach to this, the numbers make sense. The idea is simple: top performing companies should be expected to share a fraction of their time at local schools, be it elementary, middle school, high school, or college.

This might sound a bit socialist, or something, but to me, if we took a tax scheme approach, more amounts of people would be able to benefit. Taxes pay for roads, and knowledge teaches people how to creates those roads. In principle, this may raise some ethical concerns, but they would be the same ones we have about taxes.

 

Source: I kind of just thought it was interesting. I am going to source myself!

Design for non-native speakers (16)

Last weekend, I hosted Salinas’s first overnight hackathon at the National Steinbeck Center in oldtown Salinas. It was a neat format, and AgTech themed. The spirit of the event was one of understanding different worlds of thought to develop a solution to a real-world problem. We had agricultural industry leaders like Lorrie Koster and Joe Pezzini, along with many local farmers and AgTech professionals. Day one started with a keynote by Lorrie Koster on industry priorities and was followed up by farmers and AgTech professionals pitching their ideas to inspire project ideas to participants. One farmer, Jackie Vazquez from Sundance communicated the importance of a need for simplicity in design for farm workers, namely indigenous folk that hardly even speak Spanish, but rather a dialect.

This makes me wonder about a huge workforce that goes unnoticed when designing software or anything for that matter. Is it okay for applications that are designed and created to be used by people that are not comfortable with English be acceptable? I don’t know if I could say it’s unethical, but a part of me thinks that if a company is at a point where they have the labor power to create and design with the intended user in mind, they should be responsible for designing to the needs of the user.

Not doing so creates a barrier between the intended user that could be eliminated. On the spectrum of right and wrong, I would say it’s more wrong to not design to those that are not native to the dominate language. This isn’t just here, but universally. I am putting myself in a situation, and I would feel less empowered to do my job if I was unable to operate a tool that was created for me to interact with.

Instead of having non-native speakers blindly memorize digital paths to the correct screen, companies need to keep the user in mind while not only designing but also in providing language preferences. Not doing so needs to been seen as unjust.

 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/herScriptCS/videos/1308327032554455/

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FherScriptCS%2Fvideos%2F1308327032554455%2F&show_text=0&width=400

Unpaid internships? Right or wrong? (15)

In my educational experience here at CSUMB, the subject of internships has come up various times. As a matter of fact, it was a central theme in my experience in the CSin3 program. Every Friday, for nearly all of my time here I heard about internships. How to prepared for them, how to search for the best one, virtually everything there is to know about internships, I was taught. As a computer science student at CSUMB, I have held three internships.

In a job market that requires experience 5 years of experience with a language that was developed only 3 years ago, the hunt can feel a bit overwhelming, and the position as an intern attractive. My first internship was at a college under my computer science professor, Dr. Sonia Arteaga. I worked as a computer science research intern where I developed an android application that detected diseases on apples. The second internship I got was for a local start-up company called HeavyConnect. After my internship, I had the option of interning at Taylor Farms in improving their image processing algorithm. Instead, I thought it more fitting and exciting to work for a start-up, so I joined HeavyConnect to work in their innovation wing, developing products that were not core to their business model, but could potentially be useful after they had been validated by the market. The last internship I had was at Salesforce, the fourth largest Software company in the world.

I’d say that my road to Salesforce relied heavily on my previous experiences at both my college and at HeavyConnect. All of my internships were paid, with the exception of a fraction of one. I read a post on Hackathon Hackers asking people about unpaid internships, and I responded with my experience in mind. During my time at HeavyConnect, their funds ran out, and were clear with everyone about it and gave us a choice to leave or to stay. I decided to stay to improve my skills, however, it is worth noting that I was only there for about 3 hours a week and was working on a product that was proof of concept, so my work was not illegal.

Some might argue, and as a matter of fact did argue that it wasn’t right for me to be working as an unpaid engineer. Though I wouldn’t give someone advice to do what I did, I do see the value and can speak to the benefits I received from my volunteered time. If someone wishes to do the same in pursuit of skill-building, I do not think that it is an unethical service.

I know that under certain conditions it is illegal, but if someone can negotiate and work out a student experience like I did, I think that it would be worth it and should not be frowned upon. Again, in such a competitive environment and a school that isn’t highly recognized, the only thing that can take one to the top is sheer work ethic and skill.

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/hackathonhackers/

Google sees you (14)

It seems as if there is a world of emerging technologies that bring with them much innovation, use, and room for ethical problems. As amazing as these technologies are, they raise much concern. Technologies like AI, for example, are in discussion. Since there is still room for development, much concern is hypothetical.  Something like Google Maps that already exists draws some controversy. I remember when I was first able to see my house from Google Maps. I was a little disturbed, but I also figured that I wasn’t that important where anyone would care to google my address in hopes that there would be a blurred out picture of me.

In this article, ‘Real-time satellite surveillance video’  takes this Google Maps on a whole other level. Instead of having images on Google Maps that are 1-3 years old, it would instead have real video capability. This is possible by two companies that Google Acquired. The article talks about two companies launching satellites into space that capture very close to the real-time footage. Such companies would be able to sell their videos to companies, the government, or wealthy clients.

I can only imagine how a person worth stalking would be very paranoid. Even though I don’t think I’m worth being crept up on by some wealthy customer to these companies, I still am concerned about the use of this data. I can see the good it can bring in reducing crime, and these days, terrorist attacks. I can also, however, see this data misused by a mal-intended government. If a wealthy nation gets their hands on this data and applied military strategy intelligence to the multimedia data, they would have a huge advantage over them.

I would also be concerned that mal-intended people would get their hands on this data. There has been a lot of awareness of human trafficking lately, so I can’t help but think of an awful use case. If a dollar amount is all one needs to have access to the data, I don’t trust that enough screening would happen. A serious clearance check needs to happen before anyone gets their hands on this data to avoid people like human traffic organizers use this.

As much as it could lessen crime, it can easily heighten it too, especially if these satellites are becoming easier to build, launch, and maintain. The more people that can not even buy the data, but even put their rocket into space, the easier it will be to facilitate crime. Even though I don’t think I would be a victim of something like this (but maybe I’m being naive), I still do not like the idea of firstly selling the data to anyone without a serious clearance, and secondly, I don’t think anyone can just launch a satellite into space to record people without their concent.

http://reilly.nd.edu/outreach/emerging-ethical-dilemmas-and-policy-issues-in-science-and-technology-2015/real-time-satellite-surveillance-video/

Does the presence of a market undermine the need for ethics? (13)

I was on a car ride with a business person recently. I will not disclose this individual’s name, as I do not wish to misrepresent them. I would, however, like to share the words I heard come out of this person’s mouth. The conversation, in my mind, was technical in nature. We were discussing the advancements in technology, particularly autonomous vehicles. We were talking about the mechanics of a self-driving car, and naturally, ethics came up. The classic conundrum came up: If the vehicle you are in faces an obstacle that happens to be a human being, what happens? Can the person in the vehicle choose to stop the car, or will the car continue in speed and drive into this person? The algorithmic possibilities are numerous, but which one is “right?”

I was beginning to like where the conversation was going until a person in the car said, “ethics don’t matter if there is a market.” Everyone kind of seemed to agree that this made sense. Most people in the car were not technical, but rather social entrepreneurs and business minded. This comment made me think of a comment that was made by an Uber software engineer said something similar. He said that there was “no room for ethics.”

These comments are frightening. People that are driven by profit, power, or maybe ignorance, do not see ethics in technology from a sensible perspective. This mindset and perspective can be quite damaging. If one sees ethics and business as independent don’t make this world any better of a place to live.

In an article I read, I realized that ethics isn’t only of concern when it comes to the technology in development, but also in marketing, finances and many other areas. Uber is known as an unethical company because of its CEO. The article I read mentioned that the ethical nature of the company tends to come from the top. This makes me wonder if every company should have an ethical leader. It might be a stretch to expect every company have an ethical expert or counselor, or even an ethical system in place that checks if their policies and procedures are ethical.

It would be difficult to put rules around certain marketing strategies, for instance. There was some fuss about Uber hiring people to take Lyfts and convince them to join Uber. Something like this, according to the article, was seen as ethical. This strategy seems permissible in a capitalistic society.  It might ride the ethical border, but I think there are more ethical matters that Uber does that are more noteworthy, like the software engineer who wanted to allow the payment not to go to the driver if a customer said they were unsatisfied.

Since this engineer was a senior engineer, they company did not want to lose him, so they questioned very little. Having an ethical system in place, would make the individuals involved in this conversation seem less uncomfortable.

https://www.industryleadersmagazine.com/uber-dire-need-ethical-leadership/

Digital Death Marketing (12)

In class recently, we talked about how social media accounts should handle deceased member accounts. The conversation came up because of a recent death amongst the faculty at CSUMB. The professor passed away, and through Facebook postings, it became known that this professor passed away because of suicide. This information was displayed on a public platform and then ended up being talked about by a different person in Kansas.

This idea of deceased people on the social web is a 21st-century dilemma that is interesting to think about. What is the correct protocol? Should there be laws that enforce social media companies to enforce in the case of deceased members?

This is another area that reflects the gap between laws, ethics, and technology.

The first question I can think of is the question of whether there should be a law. The second question is that if there is a law, what would that law make mandatory for social sites to implement. Would it only be social sites? What about other on-line services?

It becomes hard to regulate because it’s hard to stop people from sharing content. Even if there were laws in place, people would still find loopholes to share sensitive information during a timeframe that wouldn’t be deemed as illegal. There seems to be a lot of policing efforts that are needed by third party digital dead services. Perhaps that will be a necessity and software or APIs will be created to make socially agreed upon norms for handling such cases.

Chances are that companies with influence, net worth, and power will shape how these potential digital death laws are implemented. In which case, there is a potential for companies making biased decisions that can increase their revenue. Depending on the company, information that is made unavailable to the public could be horted by them. I could see a company knowing that a person is dead use it as a marketing opportunity for the friends. Perhaps the friends of the deceased person will be targeted with ads related to relevant products to cope with the loss, or funeral friendly attire or something.

In any case, more thought needs to be given to digital death and what can an can’t be used by companies after the person’s death.

http://www.ethics.org.au/on-ethics/blog/september-2016/online-grief-and-the-digital-dead

Keeping up with the laws (11)

If you’ve ever been an interview, chances are that your interviewer never asked you about your religion, political views, or sexual orientation. If they did, they might be able to get sued. Why? because it’s illegal to ask these questions.

In an article that I read called ‘Laws and Ethics Can’t Keep Pace with Technology,’ it made a great point about the aforementioned scenario. In contrast to the scenario, we have also heard that employers have made hiring decisions based on Facebook posts, content, and friend affiliation. This perfectly highlights the amount of work the law needs to do to catch up with advances in technology. The quest for catch up seems to enlarge as the days go on.

An area that has grown when we talk about ethics is the area of privacy laws. Since there are a lot of technologies that pick up on data about us: search queries, fit bits, social media, google maps, etc., the issue of privacy needs to be made clear.

The results of technology functionality gone wrong are bringing a large discussion. Laws need to be established that consider these scenarios. When a self-driving car goes in the wrong direction and results in a crash, for example, or a case where people’s pictures are taken without their consent by various devices. There are a lot of edge cases to consider for each technology that needs to be considered to be able to draw the best line.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/526401/laws-and-ethics-cant-keep-pace-with-technology/