Ethical Concerns Related To The Application Of Drone Technology

Definition of Ethics

Discuss about the Application of Drone Technology and Its Ethics.

Ethics is defined as a set of moral principles that are generally applied in any type of behavior or application. Initially, ethics was only considered in terms of human behavior at a certain situation or environment but since then, it has been applied in almost every field, including application of technology, workplace operations, commercial sector and others (Luppicini and So 2016). Various institutes and organizations have also developed certain ethical codes of conduct that are to be followed by the employees and other stakeholders. Following the codes of ethics closely is considered as proper professional behavior that one stakeholder or employee must exhibit at the workplace. In addition, the concept has also applied in the application of new technology as their ethical concerns and implications are first addressed before releasing it in public.

In this report, the ethical concerns related to the application of drone technology have been analyzed personal stances and standpoints regarding the same have also been provided.

Analyzing the chosen situations regarding the use of drones in various fields like military, parcel and medicine delivery and others, there are a number of ethical issues associated. Of these, the three main ethical issues associated with these cases are as follows.

Ethics Regarding Military Use – The first main ethical issue that is identified from the chosen cases is the use of drones for military purposes. It has been seen that in many military activities and warfare in the Middle Eastern countries, countries like USA are utilizing drones to kill terrorists in remote locations while they are being controlled by military personnel located far away from the action point (Walsh and Schulzke 2015). However, most of the times, the soldiers are told that they are playing games with drones for entertainment purposes, which is not the actual reality. This is ethically wrong in various levels. First, lies are built around the soldiers and people are getting killed while the soldiers are playing so-called “games”. Second, while these drone operations are going on, thousands of innocent people die. This is because the drones have no intelligence to judge innocent people or terrorists (Custers 2016). They are simply programmed to fire whenever they capture heat signature of any human being. Third, it is also unethical to fight people without even participating in the battlefield even if they are terrorists as the most acceptable ethical rule of battle is to fight face to face to the same field.

The Three Main Ethical Issues Associated with Drone Use

Ethics of Delivery Using Drones – While the delivery process using drones have been tested in many countries, many people have raised ethical questions regarding the delivery using drones. The main point of concern is regarding the intelligence of drones and the most commonly asked question is who will take responsibility if the drone delivers a package to a neighbor instead of the directed user due to some programming errors or faults (Finn and Wright 2016). Another major concern is that since the drone is unmanned and unsurveilled, someone else may steal the contents of the drone without anyone’s notice. Hence, extensive use of drones for delivery of packages is still far away unless these particular ethical concerns are addressed.

Privacy Issues Related to the Use of Drones – Another major ethical concern regarding the use of drones is the privacy issue. Many citizens have raised concern that the drones are being used by the government as well as other organizations for spying on them i.e. drones are just spying tools used by various entities. Even in the delivery drones, people fear they have hidden surveillance devices that breach their rights to privacy (Philip et al. 2018). While there are existing laws to prevent spying on citizens and breaching their right to privacy, there is no one to find out if the drones are used for valid purposes but also used as spying devices. As a result, drones are not yet commercially used unless these ethical issues and problems are addressed with specific usage guidelines and ensuring they are not misused by any government or organization.

The stakeholders associated with the three ethical issues and their reasoning in their perspectives are shown in the following table.

Ethical Issue	Identified Stakeholder	Perspective
Military Use	Battalion Chief	This stakeholder uses his force to control the drones for making unwarranted as well as unmanned attack on a terrorist infested area. His perspective is that even through this warfare technique is unethical and causes a lot of collateral damage, it also saves the lives of his soldiers who can then be used in future warfare (Buchanan and Keohane 2015). Furthermore, in war, the lives of the innocent soldiers are also lost and hence, in order to save them, some amount of collateral damage in drone warfare is acceptable.
Use in Delivery	Ecommerce Manager	To this stakeholder, delivering products using drones not only saves time but also saves a huge amount of human and monetary resources (de Miguel Molina and Campos 2017). For instance, if a particular product is to be delivered to a customer residing 20 km away from the delivery point, the company has to send a delivery boy with a vehicle (bike for instance) that also requires fuel costs. On the other hand, if a drone is used, it can simply be programmed and charged with electricity and then sent to the customer without incurring any further costs.
Privacy Issue	Government	Although most of the governments have denied spying on the citizens, their standpoints on the use of drones for spying can be understood easily. With each day, the number of terrorist attacks around the world is increasing as also the number of recruits done by terrorist organizations (Di Nucci and de Sio 2016). Naturally, it can be easily understood why governments want to spy on the citizens as many of the terrorists try to mix with common citizens prior to performing an attack in a particular area.

 

Based on the points of views of the stakeholder groups, some of the seven ethical principles can be assigned to them based on their ethical stances. These are shown in the following table.       

Stakeholder Group	Suitable Principle of Ethics	Ethical Stance of the Stakeholder Group
Battalion Chief	Justice	The ethical stance of the battalion chief is that using drone warfare, he is trying to bring justice in the world by killing the terrorists and also not allowing them to kill his innocent soldiers (Belair-Gagnon, Owen and Holton 2017). It also means ethical to him because the terrorists have been responsible for the losses of lives of thousands of innocent people and using his soldiers to fight them face to face will cause deaths of even more innocent people. Hence, to him, use of drones to attack the terrorists is the best possible option for him in terms of ethics.
Ecommerce Manager	Beneficence	The ethical stance of this stakeholder is that he is benefitting both his company and his customer by using the drones for delivery of the products (Williams 2015). Not only he is saving a huge amount of resources and man power, he is also being able to deliver the product to the customer in literally matter of hours and thus being able to provide the customer with prompt and clean service.
Government	Non-Maleficence	The ethical stance of the government in this particular ethical scenario is that they are not doing any harm to the citizens by spying on them or exerting their power to breach the citizens’ right to privacy (Keene 2015). They are simply trying to monitor the citizens as a precautionary measure and a part of their defense techniques, trying to detect any suspicious activities or search for a suspected terrorist.

 

Related to the three ethical issues identified in the previous sections, I have some personal values that may or may not support the stances taken by the stakeholder groups identified. My personal values regarding three identified issues are as follows.

Military – According to me, although there are certain ethical rules of warfare that were generally followed in the past, I feel that the army generals need to take some tactical moves in order to outsmart the opponents especially the terrorists who cause deaths of thousands of citizens without any reason. Hence, as per this particular value, the use of drones as a mean of warfare is justified. However, there is another major ethical issue associated with it. Generally, the terrorists make their camps in areas densely populated by common people. As a result, if drones are used for warfare in these zones, they will also kill thousands of innocent people in that area in addition to the terrorists (the drones are only able to detect human movement by analyzing their heat maps and hence are unable to distinguish between innocent people and terrorists. For this reason, I do not like the idea of using drones for warfare, at least for now. However, I also feel that in future, if the drones can be programmed to detect a specific group of people based on the weapons carried by them, facial characteristics and others, then only the drones can be used as a tool in warfare.

Stakeholders’ Perspectives on the Three Ethical Issues

Delivery – I feel that this is a very useful application of drone that benefits both the commercial organization and the customers. In spite of the ethical concerns raised by the users of ecommerce services, according to me drones will find very extensive use in product delivery in the very near future. Furthermore, the ethical concerns raised by the users can easily be solved by simply making certain technical changes in the drones as well as some functions like return the product to the seller if it is not received by the buyer, take biometric signature from the customer before delivering the product to him and others. If these suggested measures can be implemented and all the ethical concerns are addressed, drones can easily be viable tools of ecommerce within a very short period of time.

Privacy – Based on the ethical issue presented by this, I somewhat support the stance taken by the government to use the drones as a tool for spying and surveillance. Each day, the condition of the world is deteriorating and the numbers of terrorist attacks are increasing day by day. Hence, this is no more the time to decide whether surveillance is breaching the rights to privacy of the citizens. As long as it does not impose any restrictions on the citizens or does any harm, I feel it is necessary step to ensure the security of a country and its citizens.

Of the three stakeholder groups discussed, I think the ecommerce manager is most likely to be right. Drone technology will truly revolutionize ecommerce once it becomes commercially viable and all the associated technical and ethical issues are addressed completely. Although it will also mean the loss of jobs for a large number of people working for the ecommerce organization, drone technology will be commercially successful and will also help in increasing customer satisfaction regarding delivery of the products.

Industry Code Evaluation Regarding Use of Automated Vehicles

In order to perform this analysis, three different codes of ethics have been considered – Australian Computer Society (ACS), Project Management Institute (PMI) and Institute of IT Professionals New Zealand (IITP). Based on their different codes of ethics and professional conduct regarding industry standards, it is found that all of these industry codes will suggest protection of public rights and safety regarding the use of automated vehicles. Although these standards have different codes of ethics and professional conduct, the common factor in all three is the protection of public interest and rights especially in the use of certain technologies for public benefit only.

Comparison of Codes of Conduct / Ethics for the Three Industry Bodies

Personal Values Regarding the Three Identified Issues

As three industry standards are chosen for analysis, the basic differences and similarities between them are as follows.

	ACS	PMI	IITP
	Differences
Basic Coverage	It deals with mainly personal development and behavior as per ethical codes and standards.	It mainly deals with the responsibilities and personal behavior of an IT professional as per ethical codes and standards.	It mainly deals will development of personal skills, team working skills and management of conflicts as per ethical codes and standards.
Structure	Simple structure with minimum explanations of the codes.	Detailed structure under different specific headers.	Simply structure with larger explanations provided later on.
	Similarities
Similar Code	It talks about preservation of public interest.	It talks about responsibility in maintaining public interest.	It talks about community focus during the application of any new technology.
Continuous Development	It emphasizes on continuous development.	It emphasizes on continuous development.	It emphasizes on continuous development.

Conclusion

Finally, it can be concluded that in spite of setting ethical codes and guidelines, there are certain complex situations that were not considered while preparing the ethical guidelines. As a result, in spite of not breaching ethical codes and guidelines, organizations are unable to utilize drone technology unless they are provided with legal permission and approval from the government regarding the use of the same. In addition to addressing genuine ethical issues associated with the drones, it is also important to review the ethical guidelines prepared and make necessary changes to accommodate the complex situations mentioned above. Furthermore, the use of drones should not breach the privacy of an individual or harm innocent people in any way.

References

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