Shannon Vallor

TITLE: The Ethics of App Development

ABSTRACT: From wearable technology to self-driving cars, from social and military robotics to mobile gaming and communication apps, traditional ethical visions of human flourishing or the ‘good life’ are increasingly challenged to adapt to a rising tide of transformative technologies associated with software engineering innovation. These innovations challenge cultures, nations, institutions, and individuals to redefine how we understand and foster enduring human values such as privacy, autonomy, justice, trust, civility and compassion. Dr. Vallor will discuss the many areas in which ethical life is being reshaped by software innovations and in particular, app developers, whose products alter human habits, choices and values, affect how we perceive and relate to others and our world, and in general transform the ways in which our brains access and respond to ethically relevant information. Dr. Vallor will pose the question of whether ‘ethical innovation’ in app development is a contradiction in terms, an idealistic dream, or the defining mark of a thriving software industry.

Shannon Vallor, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley, where she explores the ethical implications of emerging technologies including social media, robotics and digital surveillance. She is the author of a forthcoming book: 21st Century Virtue: Cultivating the Technomoral Self. In collaboration with Princeton computer scientist Arvind Narayanan, she has developed a free online teaching module on software engineering ethics now being used in 28 universities on 5 continents. The module has been featured in Pacific Standard and Slate magazines as well as the Communications of the ACM, the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society. She is Vice-President/President-Elect of the international Society for Philosophy and Technology, and a member of the University of Notre Dame’s research group on Emerging Technologies of National Security and Intelligence (ETNSI).