Ethics in Social Networking and Business 2

The Future and Changing Paradigms

Pierre Massotte

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119457039
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Radiology, Radiotherapy & Nuclear Medicine

This book, the second of two volumes dedicated to ethics in social networking and business, presents the future and changing paradigms related to ethics, and morality in our interconnected society.

This volume analyzes advanced topics, including new technologies, transhumanism and uberization, to provide a more complex, shared and collective environment into why business ethics is essential for managing risks and uncertainties.

The Ethics in Social Networking and Business series is the result of a cross-integration of real experiences (from IBM, society and the Rotary Club), transdisciplinary works in decision making, and advances at the boundaries of several scientific fields.

1
Evolution and Impact of Advanced Technologies on Humankind and Business

1.1. Introduction

The “new technologies” considered hereafter are related to the general concept of NBIC (Nanotechnologies, Biotechnologies, Information technologies and Cognitive sciences). They anticipate the emergence of any improvement that affects human performance and sustainability, our lifestyles and the way we will act in the future.

Therefore, it is very important to describe this new context, where ethics will play a role of key importance. More specifically:

• – this chapter will show how the environments of both business and humankind will evolve: where we are going and what the benefits of new technologies for human beings will be;
• – to better understand the relationships we will have between ethics and artificial intelligence, in terms of task optimization, transhumanism, Asimow, etc. (Chapter 2);
• – to better understand the relationships we will have between ethics and uberization, logistics, transportation, the shared economy and new work organizations (Chapter 3);
• – to better understand the relationships we will have between ethics and social networks, the sharing of ideas, the economy of sharing, the emergence of new needs and innovation, the new modes of working based on cooperation and collaboration (Chapter 4).

It is also important to note that the more we work with the basic biologic systems and the nanomechanisms available in the nature, the more we will be able to go further in the evolution of humankind and our life principles.

For instance, to explain such a paradigm change, we will take the example of the DNA. Many scientists know that the DNA is much more powerful than any computer program: however, how can we apply this capability to our daily lives? There are, in fact, two possibilities:

1. 1) The traditional approach consists of developing new computer programs, taking into account the way a living organism works through mimicry. Therefore, we could develop ANNs (artificial neural networks) to perform classification, clustering or ranking activities in decision-making. ANNs are very useful for deep learning and to develop cognitive robots. There are also genetic algorithms, simulated annealing techniques that can be used to optimize solution search, improve our immune system, control evolutive situations or develop adaptive programs. At last, the study of ants or colonies of bees (collaborative social animals) enable us to see how a collective intelligence can emerge, how we can build a complex structure, etc. In fact, in all these examples lies a transposition of some underlying mechanisms from one field of sciences to another.
2. 2) The new approach consists of remodeling a problem and adapting it to the capabilities of the living DNA organism. Here, it is not mimicry (from information to biology, or vice versa); we use the Turing machine properties of the DNA (molecules or biological structures) to directly exploit a kind of living being computer capability [ROQ 16, DEL 17].

Here, we face an ethical problem different to the one of bioethics or advanced sciences exploitation: we cannot adapt or change something like Mother Nature in order to solve one of our problems, but we entrust to nature the care of defining or finding the solution. We no longer have control of the algorithm!

1.2. Evolution of technologies

In our global world, the way business is conducted is of a dynamic and unforgiving type. Competitiveness is increasingly acerbic (often due to greed) and requires us to be reactive and to protect our business sectors with more and more vigor.

Some people are aware of the need to continually adapt our strategies and ways of thinking. We often talk about new technologies or a “technological revolution”. In fact, as with the industry, IT is used mainly to automate and formalize existing processes, to save time and to put rigor (e.g. traceability, information control, etc.) into our practices. This desire to improve our processes is already a progress in itself, but it is not enough.

To clarify, it is worth pointing out that in our economy, industry in particular has already undergone many changes and innovations over the past century. We will not go back in time to explain this evolution, but we will focus on what is most important.

During the last century, the industry evolution was subject to five disruptive changes:

1. 1) Mechanization. By the end of the 19th Century, the development of coal and steam engine energy directly fostered the mechanical and textile industry.
2. 2) Agro-chemistry. It is the result of advances in the development of industrial chemistry and war chemistry (bacteriological) that have generated a multitude of new molecules, which have also allowed (by adjacency phenomena) us to positively evolve our practices (in the sense of the general interest).
3. 3) Intensive production. After the Second World War, for strategic reasons (but also economic, geopolitical, etc.), the industrial metamorphosis addressed all the sectors of our economy as well as our society itself. It is the source of productivity and quality.
4. 4) The 1990s and genetics. Just as we know how to control our environment, it is now possible to control the welfare of living species. Quantitatively, qualitatively, and also from sanitary or phytosanitary point of view, it becomes interesting to modify the chromosomal nature of the species. Just as one knows how to make a clonal selection at the level of plants, since GMOs (genetically modified organisms) appeared in 1985. We are entering the era of transhumanism with all the consequences that one can foresee in terms of the benefits for our living species, the evolution of the world and the risks that can arise from this.
   This, of course, raises ethical and risk management issues, but it would be good here, rather than adapting a blocked ideological posture, to analyze the in’s and out’s, risks and benefits, and then to “manage” the situation in a slightly more intelligent way.
5. 5) The present. Since 2010, a new step is being taken with the Industry 4.0 plan of progress. The action plan is based on five factors: (1) the agility of the production system (dynamic volume flexibility); (2) the collaborative working mode and the human factor; (3) a high flexibility (product variability); (4) lean manufacturing to produce more with less resources; (5) optimization or best usage of resources and decision making.

The implementation of the Industry 4.0 concepts “naturally” implies innovations to be carried out through a large usage of new technologies. In order to simplify this integrated concept, I would call that universal and global concept: “High Precision Technology”.

It requires a combination of key technologies referred to as NBIC. NBIC refers to a set of complementary technologies: Nanotechnologies, Biotechnologies, Information processing and Cognitive sciences. In other words, Computer Science, Big Data, Internet of Things (IOT), Internet of Everything and Cognitivism (signal processing, knowledge management, artificial intelligence, deep learning). Indeed, they are implemented in the best sustainable way in different tools; we can quote: robotics, sensors, drones (unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)), tablets and computers, Watson, etc.

However, talking about “Industry 4.0” is not easy:

• – About the technologies to be used, we can state that a lot of advances are still expected to fulfill the requirements and the objectives defined by the executives. To be more specific, and focusing on ethics, we will remind (at this stage of Industry 4.0) the following domains to be enhanced:
  • - semantic web and metadata;
  • - identity and security in the information system;
  • - biometrics;
  • - radio frequency identification (RFID);
  • - new generation of smart sensors;
  • - the geospatial web and geolocalized services;
  • - mesh networking and social networks;
  • - grid computing;
  • - new inspiring technologies: cognitive robotics.
• – In parallel, the set of organizational problems to be solved either in logistics (mutual storages), distribution of production units, or PLM, etc. are related to: (1) global resource sharing; (2) security; (3) load balancing; (4) distance neutrality; (5) open standards. They require an acute sense of ethics.

1.2.1. A challenge

What is important here is the fact that we are in a collaborative world, with exchanges of big data, and that we are linked to the notion of hybrid systems: man/machine (hence the notion of transhumanism), and of working with interconnected systems (contrary to what one thinks, the collaborative systems are not open to cooperation but to a strong individual involvement and interest for what is done in a common and coordinated project. We will not debate here this aspect: it can be found in the social networking chapter).

To summarize and refocus on industry or transportation: installing a GPS system and an image processing system associated with a camera and a computer to move correctly between working stations is called “automation” and represents an improvement in itself.

In the field of production, design and assembly, the monitoring of devices and equipment, driven and controlled with sensors and programmable controllers allows us to better manage an activity. However, all this is local, partial, limited in scope … when applied correctly.

Since the 1990s, computer innovations have allowed us to learn everything about certain processes and have allowed us to adjust the practices, planning, scheduling and sequencing, and then to adjust the production parameters, etc. However, as said before, it is just process automation, and a limited use of the information system.

The digitization of our society means we are facing a huge mass of data (currently on the order of exabytes = 10 × 18 units of information, or even zettabytes = 10 × 21 are pasted and stored each year). The competitive advantage that can be gained therefore comes from being able...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Foreword
• List of Acronyms
• Introduction
• 1 Evolution and Impact of Advanced Technologies on Humankind and Business
• 2 Ethics and Transhumanism: Control using Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
• 3 Ethics and the New Business and Labor Organizations
• 4 Ethics and Social Networking
• 5 Ethics: Misuses and Whistleblowing in Big Data and the Web
• 6 The Underlying Mechanisms to Improve Ethics: Virtues, Laws and Cultures
• 7 Uses of Ethics: Between Virtue, Humanism and Illiteracy
• 8 Ethics, Temporality and Spirituality
• 9 Ethics: Perspectives and the Future
• Bibliography
• Index
• End User License Agreement