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Knowledge/A Level/H446/01 Computer systems/Moral and Ethical Issues/Automated decision making

Automated decision making

1.5.2 Moral and Ethical Issues

Moral and Ethical Issues — Note 2 of 9

Candidates need to understand how the use of computers to make decisions automatically has moral, social, ethical and cultural implications and risks. This includes the impact on those who make the decisions, the people the decisions affect, and the need to collect additional information to ensure decisions are accurate and valid.

What you need to know

Computers are increasingly used to make decisions automatically, from approving loans to trading shares and driving cars. This brings speed and consistency, but raises questions of accuracy, bias and accountability.

What to know

  • Examples: credit scoring and loan approval, stock market trading, insurance pricing, CV screening, autonomous vehicles, medical diagnosis support.
  • Benefits: decisions are made quickly and consistently, at large scale and without human fatigue.
  • Risks: decisions are only as good as the data and algorithms used; biased data leads to biased decisions; errors can affect many people at once.
  • Accountability: it can be unclear who is responsible when an automated decision is wrong, e.g. the programmer, the company or the user.
  • People affected may not understand, or be able to challenge, how a decision was made.
  • More personal data may need to be collected to make decisions accurate, which raises privacy concerns.

Exam technique

  • Tip:Consider the people who MAKE the decisions, the people the decisions AFFECT, and the data needed for decisions to be accurate.

Moral and Ethical Issues

Note 2 of 9

  1. 1Computers in the workforce
  2. 2Automated decision making
  3. 3Artificial intelligence
  4. 4Environmental effects
  5. 5Censorship and the Internet
  6. 6Monitor behaviour
  7. 7Analyse personal information
  8. 8Piracy and offensive communications
  9. 9Layout, colour paradigms and character sets
Topic overview
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