Studying Ethics Across Disciplines; Lehigh News, April 10, 2019

Madison Hoff, Lehigh News;

Studying Ethics Across Disciplines

Undergraduates explore ethical issues in health, education, finance, computers and the environment at Lehigh’s third annual ethics symposium.

"The event was hosted for the first time by Lehigh’s new Center for Ethics and made possible by The Endowment Fund for the Teaching of Ethical Decision-Making. The philosophy honor society Phi Sigma Tau also helped organize the symposium, which allowed students to share their research work on ethical problems in or outside their field of study.

“Without opportunities for Lehigh undergrads to study ethical issues and to engage in informed thinking and discussion of them, they won’t be well-prepared to take on these challenges and respond to them well,” said Professor Robin Dillon, director of the Lehigh Center of Ethics. “The symposium is one of the opportunities the [Center of Ethics] provides.” 

Awards were given to the best presentation from each of the three colleges and a grand prize. This year, the judges were so impressed with the quality of the presentations that they decided to award two grand prizes for the best presentation of the symposium category.

Harry W. Ossolinski ’20 and Patricia Sittikul ’19 both won the grand prize. 

As a computer science student, Sittikul researched the ethics behind automated home devices and social media, such as Tumblr and Reddit. Sittikul looked at privacy and censorship issues  and whether the outlets are beneficial.

Sittikul said the developers of the devices and apps should be held accountable for the ethical issues that arise. She said she has seen some companies look for solutions to ethical problems. 

“I think it's incredibly important to look at ethical questions as a computer scientist because when you are working on technology, you are impacting so many people whether you know it or not,” Sittikul said.""

New definition of privacy needed for the social media age; The San Francisco Chronicle, January 28, 2019

Jordan Cunningham, The San Francisco Chronicle; New definition of privacy needed for the social media age

"To bring about meaningful change, we need to fundamentally overhaul the way we define privacy in the social media age.

We need to stop looking at consumers’ data as a commodity and start seeing it as private information that belongs to individuals. We need to look at the impact of technology on young kids with developing brains. And we need to give consumers an easy way to ensure their privacy in homes filled with connected devices.

That’s why I’ve worked with a group of state lawmakers to create the “Your Data, Your Way” package of legislation."

Stanford makes a startling new discovery. Ethics; ZDNet, June 4, 2018

Chris Matyszczyk, ZDNet; Stanford makes a startling new discovery. Ethics

"Now, in a glorious moment of chest-beating and head-bobbing, Stanford University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne has admitted that his university -- which spawned so many young, great tech titans, such as the founders of Google, Instagram and LinkedIn -- failed to make titanic efforts in the area of ethics. 

In an interview with the Financial Times, he revealed that the university now intends to explore the teaching of "ethics, society and technology."

As we survey the political and social carnage that seems to have been enabled by technology over the last few years, it's remarkable that this wasn't thought of before."