The impact of technology on the world is massive and without it, only God knows what the world would look like in this age and time. I have seen people argue about the world being a fair place without technology and I just laugh because they are ignorant of many things. The population of the world isn't the same thing as yesterday and this means that the human race naturally needs technology to get a lot of things done, we need it in different ways to keep surviving.
Imagine what transportation would look like in the year 2024 without technology, it would mean we still have to travel with Donkeys, Horses and camels, how many of these animals does the population of the current world need to move around every day? Today we can connect to the world in the blink of an eye without leaving the comfort of our house, we can travel to any part of the world with ease and technology has made this possible.
Technology has done beyond what many of us excepted and it's impossible not to be impressed by the numerous innovations out there today making life much easier for us. Every day, people bring their ideas to life with the help of technology and it's quite amazing but are many of these innovations ethical and what's an innovation without ethics?
Ethics has to do with moral principles, standards and values so bringing innovation into the discussion would mean that there are principles that should always guide the development, implementation and use of any innovation. If I am not mistaken, those are the three stages of an innovation and they must be done with ethics.
If we look around the world today, we will point out some innovations that are unethical but ethics isn't something we take seriously as far as a group of people in power are benefitting a lot from the innovation. One of them is industrialization and I am not condemning it but there are industrial practices that are unethical which has put the world as a whole in chaos. One of those unethical practices has to do with how waste is discharged into the environment, and as long as an innovation is destroying the environment while being helpful, it's unethical.
At this stage of the world, we really can't do without industrialization but a lot of things can be improved to meet with many industrialization ethics but making more profits is what matters to the people in charge.
Aside from industrialization, there are many innovations we are enjoying today and have turned a blind eye to their unethical side. Firstly, let's talk about a few innovation ethics;
Environmental sustainability is one thing every innovation must preserve and as long as an innovation would only bring harm to the environment, it's unethical no matter how important it might be to the human race.
Safety and Risk/damage control is another thing every innovation must consider because when there is high risk for the users of the innovation without any form of risk control, I doubt if there is something else to describe that other than unethical.
Every innovation has no right to deprive any human of their fundamental rights and this is quite important because what's left of someone's existence when their rights are been taken away by an innovation.
The ideas behind innovation ethics are simple and it is for our good because these innovations wouldn't harm themselves, we (the users) are the ones at risk. Every innovation is meant to make life easier and not complicate things. When an innovation meets ethical standards, there is no reason why it shouldn't be embraced. Let's take the wide acceptance of AI as a case study, a lot of people enjoy the use of Artificial intelligence which is super cool but there are still a few doubts I have about it.
The wide use of AI in the world today automatically means we are empowering Artificial Intelligence with lots of information about us that might be accessible by the unknown. I take data privacy very important and believe it's a limit no innovation should cross because a lot of things can go south with many users information going into the wrong hands.
To be honest, I don't know where zero limits on the use of AI technology can lead but one thing I am sure of is that wherever there are no rules or laws which can be termed as limits, terrible things are bound to happen because such innovation would be abused. Every innovation must have its limits to keep things in check and this way, we can maintain ethics not just as innovators but as users as well.
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