Transition to Digital Ethics: A Primer from Philosophy to Practice

As digital technologies become more pervasive and powerful, they raise increasingly pressing ethical questions that need to be understood and addressed.

This book provides an accessible introduction to the important field of digital ethics. It explores topical examples of ethical problems created by the technology and shows how ethical ideas and values can be used to make sense of them. It provides the readership a clear, well-researched insight into the various issues under the banner of ‘digital ethics’, including how each of these issues relates to different technologies such as AI, smartphones, and automated decision-making (to say the least). This is coupled with contemporary ideas on ameliorating ethical harm and risk, which are grounded in philosophical thought, presented in an accessible way.

The book will benefit those who design and implement digital technologies and, more broadly, anyone with an interest in the compelling ethical and social issues arising from digital technologies. It carefully and clearly describes the philosophical ideas as well as technical considerations behind contemporary digital technology use, to provide the reader with a solid footing for further exploration of this rapidly expanding field.

Marc Cheong is Deputy Director of the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics (CAIDE) and Senior Lecturer of Information Systems (Digital Ethics) at the University of Melbourne, and Honorary Burnet Institute Senior Fellow. His research interests are in social media, bridging philosophy/ethics and IS, and societal implications of technology, among others.

Simon Coghlan is Deputy Director of CAIDE and Senior Lecturer of Digital Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He is a moral philosopher and a former veterinarian. His research interests are in AI ethics, including how AI affects humans, animals, and the environment, and in robot ethics, including the ethics of human interactions and relations with machines.