Who Needs Big Data Ethics: Opinions of IT Developers and Leads on the Need to Create a Professional Code of Ethics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2024.5.2596Keywords:
big data, artificial intelligence, artificial sociality, professional ethical code, big data ethicsAbstract
Widespread digitalization affects not only technological processes, but also social norms and practices. Many decisions that significantly impact individuals and society are increasingly made based on big data analytics or delegated to artificial intelligence. In such conditions, IT specialists become new agents of power who influence society not through persuasion, but through the technologies being developed and implemented. This explains the increased interest in the beliefs and values of IT developers, as well as their ability to take moral responsibility for their professional decisions.
The article presents the results of a two-stage empirical study, consisting of in-depth interviews (n = 8) and a targeted survey (n = 50). Analysis of these data showed that the community of IT specialists is fragmented and disunited. The need for ethical regulation of the professional activities in this group is not expressed, and ethics is perceived rather as a hindrance or an unnecessary addition to the legal means of regulating work with big data. Generally, IT leads are less interested in ethical regulation of work with big data than non-managerial personnel, which may be due to a commitment to the interests of companies focused on direct or indirect profit maximization. Despite the weakly expressed need for the development and implementation of a professional ethics code, big data experts made several valuable suggestions and comments regarding its structure and content and noted that it should primarily be aimed at ensuring the reliability of big data storage and the protection of personal data.
Acknowledgments. The article was prepared with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 2328-01288), https://rscf.ru/project/ 23-28-01288/.
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