Ethical Challenges in AR / VR
Introduction
As virtual and augmented reality develop rapidly, we have seen their potential to transform our relationship to technology and society. In the many projects we have chronicled in this series, we see an expanding opportunity to reinvent learning. However, immersive technologies will raise new ethical challenges, from issues of access, privacy, consent, and harassment to future scenarios we are only now beginning to imagine.
Of course, every new technology disrupts established practices. We’ve seen the internet democratize information; watched social media transform our sense of privacy, personal relationships, and political debates; and witnessed the mobile era make technology ubiquitous and completely portable. Many of the issues raised by these developments are still the catalyst for debates in the educational community. Not surprisingly, many of these questions resurface in virtual and augmented environments.
Realistic VR experiences can hijack our senses. Studies suggest that VR experiences can counter our tendency to stereotype by race or gender through having people virtually embody the experience of others. However, that also means it has the potential to reinforce negative stereotypes. We are already dealing with the crisis of “fake news” in society and on our campuses.
As immersive technologies become ever more realistic with graphics, haptic feedback, and social interactions that closely align with our natural experience, we foresee the ethical debates intensifying. What happens when the boundaries between the virtual and physical world are blurred? Will VR be a tool for escapism, violence, and propaganda? Or will it be used for social good, to foster empathy, and as a powerful new medium for learning?
Ethical challenges
Social isolation
There’s a lot of debate around whether VR is socially isolating. On the one hand, the whole experience takes place within a single user’s field-of-vision, excluding others from physically participating alongside them. On the other hand, developers like Facebook have been busy inventing communal meeting places like Spaces, which help VR users meet and interact in a virtual social environment.
There is also the question of whether forums like Spaces may even end-up “detaching” users by leading them to neglect their real-world social connections. Studies have already demonstrated that our existing social media consumption is making many of us feel socially isolated, as well as guilty and depressed. There’s also plenty of evidence to show that real face-to-face interactions are a crucial factor in maintaining good mental health. Substituting them with VR without further study would be ill-advised.
Torture/virtual criminality
Philosopher Thomas Metzinger is one of a growing number that have expressed concern that VR headsets could be employed by the military as a kind of “ethical” alternative to regular interrogatory torture. Whether this is truth or speculation, it nevertheless establishes a critical need to understand the status of pain, damage, violence, and trauma inflicted by other users in a virtual environment — be it physical or psychological.
At what point does virtual behavior constitute a real-world criminal act?
Manipulation
Attempts at consumer manipulation via advertising trickery are not new, but up until now they’ve been 2-dimensional. As such, they’ve had to work hard compete with our distracted focus. Phones ringing, babies crying, traffic, conversations, music, noisy neighbors, interesting reads, and all the rest. With VR, commercial advertisers will have access to our entire surrounding environment (which some psychologists argue has the power to control our behavior). This will ramp up revenue opportunities for developers, who now have (literally) whole new worlds of blank space upon which they can sell advertising.
Commentators are already warning that this could lead to new, covert tactics involving product placement, brand integration and subliminal advertising.
Privacy and data
Last, but not least, the more we “merge” into a virtual world, the more of ourselves we are likely to give away. This might mean more and greater privacy worries. German researchers have raised the concern that if our online avatars mirror our real-world movements and gestures, these “motor intentions” and the “kinetic fingerprints” of our unique movement signatures can be tracked, read, and exploited by predatory entities. Again, it’s clear that there needs to be an open and consultative dialogue with regards to what is collectable, and what should be off-limits in terms of our virtual activities.
How developers can address these ethical challenges ?
When we think about software development, ethics isn’t always the first thing to pop into our minds. After all, when creating software, you as a developer are supposed to address technical questions such as functionality and project specifications. But what we usually fail to recognize is that software and technology affect people’s lives on a personal level and have the power to make them either better or worse.
Everything people do today involves some kind of software. Driving a car, buying food, communicating, commuting, watching TV, shopping online — the list goes on and on. These technologies power our lives and are inseparable from human life.
Technology has even changed how businesses operate. In order to be the first to introduce products to the market, the best in development, most innovative in products and services, many enterprises overlook the side effects of their ventures and the issues they may cause to people’s lives.
Take Google for instance. Here is some of the information it has about you: where you’ve been, your search history, applications you’ve used and with whom you use them, your YouTube history, etc. Google even allows you to download all the data they have about you — in all honesty, it would fill a huge number of Word documents!
What happens if the government or another legal entity demands information on clients from the information you’ve gathered with software you built? Where does your moral commitment lie? Have you conveyed your strategies clearly to your clients, and how have you secured their information?
Personal data security is one of the biggest concerns in the digital world because of the sensitive information that your clients trust you with. Personal information is a point of interest for many organizations, from national security to cybercriminals. The companies that don’t have policies in place for how to act in these kinds of situations place their clients at risk by not informing them of how their data will be treated.
The tricky part about ethical questions is that they address a person’s own moral code that has been formed through years of education, family, and societal impact. Add to it that life is not always black and white, and you have yourself a nice brain-twisting puzzle.
Even though facing these ethical dilemmas as software developers seems tricky, there are solutions and steps we can take to do better.
Following the Code of Ethics
There is a really useful set of rules called the Software Engineering Code of Ethics that indicates the moral and professional commitments of software engineers. This code was created by a global team made up of mechanical, government, military, and instructive experts.
These are the eight principles created by the ACM Committee on Professional Ethics:
1. Public: Software engineers shall act consistently with the public interest.
2. Client and employer: Software engineers shall act in a manner that is in the best interests of their client and employer consistent with the public interest.
3. Product: Software engineers shall ensure that their products and related modifications meet the highest professional standards possible.
4. Judgment: Software engineers shall maintain integrity and independence in their professional judgment.
5. Management: Software engineering managers and leaders shall subscribe to and promote an ethical approach to the management of software development and maintenance.
6. Profession: Software engineers shall advance the integrity and reputation of the profession consistent with the public interest.
7. Colleagues: Software engineers shall be fair to and supportive of their colleagues.
8. Self: Software engineers shall participate in lifelong learning regarding the practice of their profession and shall promote an ethical approach to the practice of the profession.
Sometimes, software developers may not realize how much impact they have on people’s lives through the products that they create. Knowing that people’s quality of life could depend on how the software in mobile and web applications that they use in daily life was created is a good reminder of the role of software developers in global processes.
Business ethics are never just black or white, but every developer has their own responsibility to see how their decision to engage in a certain practice during a development process can affect others in the future. Even though you might not be among the decision-making group in the company, it’s everyone’s individual choices that can make a change in how companies treat their consumers. Thinking that unethical practices don’t concern you is simply wrong — if you know about unfair practices in a company and don’t take any action, you become an accomplice to it.
Conclusion
This list is not exhaustive, and some of these concerns will be proven groundless in good time. Regardless, as non-technicians and future users, we are right to demand full and clear explanations as to how these tripwires will be averted or mitigated by VR companies.