Its Time To Start Practicing What We Preach

If there is one thing I learned from taking an ethics class, it is the fact that every engineer should be required to take a course in ethics before graduating.

My classmates and I sit in a discussion section week after week discussing the ethical issues we face every day when interacting with technology, but what really comes of it? A few future engineers might walk away with new ideas to consider when innovating, but the rest of our discourse can just be considered in vain if no large-scale change is made.

Image illustrating the phrase "you are missing the point"

In his paper, "Values in Technology and Discolsive Computer Ethics", Philip Brey analyzes the idea of values, norms and a host of other ethical questions that technology faces. Brey discusses the idea of "embedded values", or values that are inherent to a computer system.

The issues Brey sheds light on are present today in our current technologies. The disconnect arises, however, when nothing is done to teach future engineers to recognize these potential shortcomings. Most institutions, including The University of Michigan, don't require kids to learn about Information Ethics before graduation. Future engineers, lacking perspective, go on to create products that lack certain accessibility functionality, in other words, accessibility is not a part of these technologies' embedded values.

An image representing web accessibility.

An example of web accessibility would be the caption included with the images on this post. These captions allow someone with a visual disability using a text reader to still be aware of what images are present on the page. This is a basic principle that is still frequently overlooked.

This lapse in responsibility has led to the rise of software companies focused on teaching designers how to make technology more accessible such as Deque Systems. Deque focuses on providing web and app developers with tools to make their products more accessible. Deque is fulfilling the role of educational institutions and the government itself who have overlooked this issue.

Deque System Logo

Luciano Florida talks about the ever-expanding "infosphere" and the line between what separates humans from technology getting blurrier and blurrier, in his essay titled Infosphere. Taking these considerations in mind, I believe it is important for accessibility to shift from an "embedded value" into a "norm" so that the current issues with accessibility are not carried on into our fourth technological revolution.