Ethics in ITUniversity of MaltaIn-Class Presentation
Group:Int Group C
Members from UoM:Jonathan SpiteriOwen SaccoDominic Bellizzi
Members from UL:Holly KennedyDerrick HowardLouise Keane
May 2008
Lemon county of Calidonia is facing a problem of crime backlog even worse than the state in general.
In order to move cases through the system even faster (yet with the same or better level of justice), the county is proposing replacing the people in the jury box with a single computer system
The system has been programmed with all pertinent legal precedents and has software which allows it to make decisions based on the facts given to it and its database of precedents.
Do you think that Lemon county should start to use this system?
Would it be ethical?
Discuss your answers from different ethical perspectives.
Recognise an ethical issue
Get the facts
Evaluate alternative actions from various ethical perspectives
Make a decision and test it
Act, then reflect on the decision later
The Stakeholders identified through forum discussions were:
Jurors
Accused
Plaintiff (claimant / complainant)
Defense Lawyers
Judge
Society
Ethical Relativism
Moral values that are relative to culture, nation, group, individual (subjectivism)
Virtue Ethics
Emphasising on the character
John Rawls Theory of Justice as Fairness
Justice is equal and fair to everyone
Divine Command Theory
Something is right because God will it
Social Contract Theory
A contract with our peers (society) to agree on a common set of rules
Kantianism
Act according to duty
Utilitarianism
Maximising happiness or pleasure
These were the theories actually discussed by our group via the forum provided:
Kantianism
Social Contract Theory
Utilitarianism
“To act in the morally right way, people must act according to duty”
“ It is not the consequences of actions that make them right or wrong but the motives of the
person who carries out the action “
Two Formulations
Formula of the Universal Law
“Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should be a universal law”
Formula of the End Itself
“Act so as to treat people always as ends in themselves, never as mere means”
First Formula
Can be perceived as a set of rules or a plan of action that is accepted universally
Humans tend to bend rules, base there actions on emotions and experiences
Computers can adhere to rules and can be unbiased from emotions or personal subjective preferences
Second Formula
Actions should be ends rather than means
According to Kant, even wrongdoers should be treated with moral respect
Humans suffer from deception therefore implying actions to be means
Computers could arrive to a verdict focusing on ends and eliminating any form of means
Kantianism uses the term "morals" when explaining their theory on ethics
Do we believe that computers can obtain these "morals“?
If a computer obtains certain "morals" it can explain its findings, but just quantitative manner.
Can computers come to a rational conclusion?
Rational: “agreeable to reason”.
Reason: “the mental powers concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences.”
Computers just calculate the information given to them
It is the notion that we are agreeing to be part of our society
Entering a contract with our peers to agree on a common set of rules
We must agree on a fair and just way to decide:
What rules have been broken
Punishing for breaking the rules
The law in most jurisdictions has an innate requirement for new judgments not to contradict the judgments passed in those courts
This is a daunting task if done manually
A task a computer could perform in seconds
Not all evidence is admissible in court
A lawyer can easily say something he knows to be inadmissible, fully expecting it to be struck from the record by the judge but hoping to influence the jury
This problem is eradicated when you replace the jury with a system in which the judge can decide out right what does and doesn’t get taken into account
Computers cannot replicate human mind and its decision making process
Premise behind the entire judicial system in is that an accused individual has the inalienable right to be appraised by a jury of their peers
Computers are susceptible to being hacked.
“....an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness—not just the happiness of
the performer of the action but also that of everyone affected by it.”
From: www.utilitarianism.com/utilitarianism.html
To consider having a computer orhuman jury in various situations
To include all Stakeholders in views
To consider happiness and unhappiness in the situations (utilitarian approach)
Human Jury
Reasoning and decisions based on theirpersonal experiences and life encounters.
Instinctively elicit behavioral and emotional reactions when facing or being driven into decision - making positions, leading to subjective judgment.
Consciousness and self-awareness may be negatively driven by strong emotions like despise, hate, sorrow, anger, compassion, love and pity.
Computer Jury
Not effected by personal judgmentbut only by the information actuallyfed to them.
Eliminates biased decision-making, prejudice and preference / inclinations which may somehow inhibit impartial judgment by humans.
In comparison, can a human be so unbiased?
Human Jury The jury selection process involves the
cost of researching on individual jurors.
Selection process may be time consumingincluding in-depth research on every juror.
Humans choosing humans?
Computer Jury One time cost to create the system
Always ready to process a trial on demand
Human Jury Humans are not computers Long trials = difficult to always
pay attention to details
Computer Jury Well designed computer system would provide
the same level of input. Stakeholders should be more confident in the
accurate capture of information.
Human Jury Effort for selected to
attend trials Disrupt jurors daily routine
Computer Jury Less pressure on society Jurors can have the right to choose if to
attend or to opt for getting replaced by a computer
Effects on Communication
Computing methods and Technology
Human Rights for fair judgement
Computers cannot communicate on the same level as humans
Humans are passionate, emotional creatures and do not communicate only verbally but use a lot of other methods such as the non-verbal communications.
All this will be lost with computers replacing human beings on a jury.
Presentation on computers needs to take care of:
▪ Length of text
▪ Technical jargon
▪ Visually appealing
Compare with juror sitting in court hearing the case and asking questions in real time.
Effects on Stakeholders
Unhappiness
▪ both the prosecution and defense lawyers would not have the opportunity to use communication skills to forward their arguments.
▪ On the same level, the society will not be satisfied that the outcome of the jury was a result of correct deliberation or not
Does current IT technology offer peace of mind?
Computers work by rules and they would decide according to rules inputted.
Computers cannot simulate the wealth gained from having different people with different cultures, opinions and values that is available when there is a mixed jury.
Are all people (eligible for jurors) computer literate?
Effects on Stakeholders
People still do not have confidence enough that information transmitted over the network cannot be hacked or tampered with.
▪ hacking,
▪ The current technology still do not offer the complete guarantee of privacy
People have doubts on the system itself
▪ the way data will be inputted,
▪ the type of algorithms to be used,
▪ lack of computing ability to differentiate between cases.
Rule Utilitarianism
▪ Not always a just judgement. (Is killing always wrong?)
▪ Would lead to a sort of ‘dictatorship’ were something is either good or wrong irrespective of motives, accused state of mind, threats, and other human factors.
Lack of variety/opinions/morals
▪ Different people in society are unhappy since they may think different from what the computer has been programmed to do.
Illeteracy
▪ Being illiterate is not a reason of disqualifying a person from serving as a juror in the traditional system, whereas they will be automatically disqualified if they have to read evidence or use a computer at home. This will deprive a fraction of society to serve as juror even if they want to.
A crime is committed against state and society.
State (breaking laws
Society (depriving it from peace, wealth and safety).
Effects on Stakeholders
Accused Unhappy due to:
▪ unfair trial, since computers do not possess any virtues and morals.
▪ A human being (whether accused or not) has the right to be judged by his peers and not by a machine.
▪ A computer cannot distinguish between different cases and situations, and most of all it cannot give any reason for its decision, except that of a guilty or not guilty version and whatever the programmer has inputted.
Society Unhappy due to:
▪ Most members of society would prefer a reason for the verdict.
▪ the society has a right to judge the accused rather than leaving the decisions to machines.
▪ while accepting the fact that a computer does not look at faces (which is a positive point), people still want to insert their society’s moral virtues in the judgment, which is something a computer cannot do.
▪ This is something a society has a right to do since the crime was committed against the respective society, in fact what is wrong in one society is good in another society and one cannot just use rule utilitarianism in all societies in the same way as will be done if computers were to replace human beings in juries.
Healthy discussion in group withdifferent views
No definite solution / decision reached
Although no definite conclusion was reached and everyone in the group took different views, the majority of group prefer to use computing technology in jury cases as a tool to help / aid the system rather than to replace people.
Examples of computer usage as aid:
Use of jurors,
Modelling of crime scene (agreed byboth defense and prosecution)
Database of past cases and verdicts
If we had to apply just a utilitarian view the conclusion would have been reached as above.
