Ethicswishing

Henry Catalini Smith

Ethicswishing

People mean well but ethics is hard. In tech, we have a knack for applying ethics in the most useless ways possible — even when we earnestly want to improve humankind's lot. Why does this matter, why are we failing, and how can we fix it?

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The amazing feeling when someone puts words to something and you immediately recognise it a dozen times over in your own memories.

Ethicswishing (in tech) is the belief that if you are committed to being ethical and understand technology, then you are well-equipped to build technology for social good. But the truth is that building tech for social good is a lot like having sex in a bathtub: if you don’t understand the first thing about sex, it won’t help that you’re a world-class expert in bathtubs.