Why it matters

With many businesses still in survival mode, it’s easy to conclude that ethical technology doesn’t need to be a priority, or can be lumped in with other ‘soft’ aspects of corporate social responsibility. But there are multiple reasons why it’s become business-critical and could have a massive impact on an enterprise’s ability to build value in the future. 

First, what’s meant by ‘technology’ in the business context has changed radically. A few decades ago, when it was largely limited to accounts or payroll systems, “it either worked right or it didn’t,” says Parsons. “There was very little that could go wrong from an ethical perspective. If the software was functioning properly and there was no fraud involved, there really weren’t any ethical implications. It was easier in many ways to know whether something was working as intended.” 

Contrast that with today, when technology is embedded in sensitive areas like healthcare, criminal justice and access to financial services. “These are all areas where the ethical impact of getting something wrong is far greater,” Parsons says. “In some cases, it’s even difficult to define what constitutes the right answer.” 

Second, consumer awareness of, and sensitivity to, ethical issues is arguably at an all-time peak - and many are willing to vote with their wallets on a company’s ethical performance. One recent survey of consumers in the US, for example, found a significant majority (68%) see sustainability as important when making a purchase, and that 49% are willing to pay more for sustainable products. 

Technology-driven ethical lapses, like Apple’s credit scoring system apparently making sexist decisions, or unintended racial bias in an algorithm used by healthcare provider UnitedHealth, can quickly spiral into full-blown scandals, endangering relationships with customers and regulators and pressuring the bottom line. Recent disclosures to investors by Microsoft and Google have warned of the potential havoc ‘bad’ AI could wreak on their respective brands.

“There’s real evidence as to why companies should do the right thing over and above the risk factor,” says Laura Paterson, Principal Consultant at ThoughtWorks. “There are tangible benefits to having an ethical technology approach and being purpose-led.”

A major consideration is that how a company uses technology is likely to have a direct effect on its ability to attract and retain future talent. Research shows millennial and Generation Z talent aspire to work for ethical enterprises and are highly concerned about the consequences of the adoption of technologies like AI in their organizations. A study by responsible technology think tank, Doteveryone, of tech workers in the UK found 28% had seen decisions made about technology that they believed could have negative ethical consequences - and that 18% of those ended up leaving their organizations as a result.

For companies failing to address technology’s ethical ramifications, “if you look at the social movements, the zeitgeist of the moment, there’s not only a huge reputational risk externally, there’s a huge risk internally with employees,” notes Chad Wathington, Chief Strategy Officer at ThoughtWorks. “In tech companies, we’re seeing a wave of activism in the workforce. Workers are aware of the power of corporate interests in modern democracies, and are prepared to organize to influence corporations to act politically, and ethically, on their behalf.” 

However, “we still have a long way to go,” says Wathington. “The ways we capture mass sums of data about people online and across all their devices to build profiles hasn’t really slowed down. As much as some players in the space have tried to make tracking harder, it’s an arms race, and the means of monitoring are getting more and more sophisticated.”   

The reality is there’s often a business imperative to deploy technology in an unethical way. Incorporating behavioral design or subliminal messaging to ‘hook’ a customer on a game or app can, for example, be the ‘right’ thing to do in the pursuit of profit or shareholder value. “By defining revenue as your measurement of success, that is what you’ll focus on,” says Paterson. “And as long as that’s seen as the indicator of success by society - and investors - it will difficult for organizations to escape from that mindset.”

Diversity (Make sure there’s a range of viewpoints in the room):

The ethical issues or implications of the products a company builds can only be fully thought through when they’re examined from different viewpoints - and that requires the participation of diverse teams. 

“It’s very difficult for people to actually think and view a problem from another person’s perspective,” says Parsons. “We try our best - in fact it’s one of the principles in our own social change manifesto, trying to view the world through the eyes of the oppressed - but we don’t always succeed. It’s much easier if you’ve got somebody in the room who can represent that perspective because it’s their lived experience.” 

Ideally diversity should expand beyond the lines of gender, background, ethnicity or sexual orientation to functional areas. “You certainly need people from design to be represented because they’re the stewards of how the customer interacts with the technology,” notes Wathington. “But also, someone from finance because they might need to examine or balance the profit motive. And legal, compliance and security, so those processes aren’t a gate-check at the end, but built in from the start with the right concerns in mind.” 

Diversity and inclusivity also need to be reassessed as products develop, since seemingly welcome advancements can have negative consequences for access and affordability. “We started with paper forms and moved to online, then mobile, and now we’re looking at ways of interacting with technology that go beyond that,” Paterson says. “The challenge is that as you move along the continuum you’re potentially losing your ability to reach all users. If you develop a product feature for Alexa, what does that mean for people who can’t hear or speak? Diversity has to include the intersectionality of people who have the technology and people who can or can’t use it.”

Inquiry (Ask the tough questions, systematically):

Connected to diversity, as Parsons points out, “unless the right group of people are asking the right questions, you won’t get the answers that accurately reflect the ethical implications of what you’re building - especially for groups that aren’t represented.” 

To ensure the ‘right questions’ are raised, it can help to employ formal tools and frameworks that guide teams through structured processes of inquiry - and a number of methods have been designed and fine-tuned for precisely that purpose. (See 'The ethical tech toolkit' below). 

According to Wathington these exercises shouldn’t be viewed as a chore but “part of a holistic approach to design and customer experience” - a welcome opportunity to flag trouble spots that could come back to haunt the enterprise later, and to introduce appropriate checks and balances.

Constituencies (Make sure multiple stakeholders are considered):

Ultimately product builders won’t be able to answer all ethical questions or consider all impacts themselves. For any innovation with potentially game-changing consequences for society or the environment, there should be an effort to secure a broader consensus on what’s being created. “When you start asking questions like what self-driving cars should do when faced with the dilemma of prioritizing the life of a driver or a pedestrian, it’s no longer something a programmer or some group of analysts sitting around a room should decide,” says Parsons. “These are questions that society as a whole needs to start tackling, and deciding what the right ethical response should be.”  

When rolling out a technology, companies should consider limitations or knock-on effects that may only apply to specific groups, such as children, the disadvantaged or the elderly. “It’s about understanding all your possible users, how they experience your customer journey and use technology to interact with you,” says Wathington. “There are still huge gaps there. In mobile, a lot of developers still go for the iPhone first because it’s the more expensive mobile platform. Some companies don’t care about whether the product is more expensive to consume, or a worse experience, for those who are poor. Companies have to ask themselves whether they’re just marketing to the affluent - and whether that’s okay.” 

Pointing to how organizations can sometimes neglect this process, Paterson gives the example of the collaborative tools - Zoom, G Suite and the like - that have proven crucial to enabling work to continue throughout pandemic-induced lockdowns. At many organizations these were adopted without much thought to varying levels of access. 

“It’s increased the digital divide in many respects because no one really stopped to ask whether people could access these services,” she says. “I was astonished to find that even within our own organization there were some people who didn’t have broadband, and we had to work out a way to provide it. We had blind spots in our awareness of the type of access people have, and also that quality of access can be an issue. Maybe someone’s connection isn’t great. Maybe they’ve got five people in the house trying to do video calls at once. It’s important to understand technological decisions won’t impact all people the same way.”

Internal structures at some companies prevent this. “Most organizations still aren’t set up to be able to have the flow of information, of feedback,” says Paterson. “As a technologist who’s influencing some externally-facing, high-stakes system, you’re probably best positioned to know where the vulnerable spots are. If you’re not being asked or listened to, the company doesn’t know what to fix, and you’re also not able to highlight opportunities.” 

In this regard, being ethical has much in common with being effective. “There’s a lot of parallels between agile ways of working and ethical ways of working,” Paterson notes. The same feedback loops that drive effective product development and regular, incremental improvement can be used to support better ethical choices. 

For companies seeking to build these capabilities, Wathingon has one main recommendation: start small, perhaps with a core group working on a single product, to establish the mechanisms, then learn from the experience and scale up. 

“Once you’ve got critical mass, you get to institutional knowledge, where you don’t need the same 10-15 people to lead everything because you’ve worked through it,” he says. “You have the stories, templates and frameworks that enable you to handle whatever’s important in your context.”