ethics, innovation and the law · ethics, innovation and the law classroom notes. activity 2:...

Ethics, Innovation and the LawClassroom Notes

Age Range: KS4 or KS5

Timing: This unit is designed to be run across a lesson lasting at least one hour. We would suggest that, where possible, two hours is allocated to allow you to explore each activity fully. Suggested timings are only given as a loose guide. You should spend as long as required on each activity depending on your students needs.

Curriculum references:

Citizenship KS4:

■ Parliamentary democracy and the key elements of the constitution of the United Kingdom, including the power of government, the role of citizens and Parliament in holding those in power to account, and the different roles of the executive, legislature and judiciary and a free press. ■ The legal system in the UK, different sources of law and how the law helps society deal with complex problems.

Related lesson plans:■ Social Media and the Law ■ Human Rights

Lesson ObjectivesStudents will...

■ Explore the way technology has developed and the impacts this has on them and society

■ Learn about the laws that regulate the use of technology, and the challenges of keeping up with the pace of change

■ Consider the ethics of using technology.


Design technology:

■ Investigate new and emerging technologies.■ Understand developments in design and technology, its impact on individuals, society and the environment, and the responsibilities of designers, engineers and technologists.

Cross Curricular Links:SMSC:

■ Enable students to distinguish right from wrong and to respect the civil and criminal law of England.■ Encourage respect for democracy and support for participation in the democratic processes, including respect for the basis on which the law is made and applied in England.■ An understanding of how citizens can influence decision-making through the democratic process.■ An appreciation that living under the rule of law protects individual citizens and is essential for their well-being and safety.

Worksheets and Resources:Worksheet 1: Benefits and challenges of AI

Worksheet 2: Scenarios

Worksheet 3: Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI)

Worksheet 4: Debate judging criteria (optional)

A glossary of terms has also been included within the resources. Words highlighted in pink can be found within the glossary.

© Young Citizens is an initiative of the Citizenship Foundation • Charity Reg. No. 801360 1

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Overview of Lesson:This lesson focuses on the impact of new digital technologies on individuals and society. It then goes on to explore what role the Government should have in legislating to regulate these technologies.

Please note: The topics covered during this lesson include references to social media and areas such as discrimination. Be aware that students may disclose personal experiences and need additional support.

Introduction: (5 mins)

Show the class this short animation which introduces the topic of this lesson - https://vimeo.com/345702078

Share the lesson objectives on slide 2 and explain to the class that they will be looking at the impact of technological developments in the last 50 years, and what the government should do to regulate these technologies.

Show students slide 3 which contains two key words - ethics and law. Ask students to consider the following question:

Q: What is the difference between ethics and the law?

The students should discuss this briefly in pairs before feeding back as a whole class. The definitions can be found on slide 4.

Activity 1 (15 mins):An era of change - Students explore how technology has changed over the last 50 years and the benefits and challenges of these changes.

Activity 2 (20 mins):Technology and the law – Students learn about the laws that regulate the use of technology examining a number of different scenarios.

Activity 3 (15 mins):Should we regulate the use of technology? – Students consider to what extent the use of technology should be regulated.

Optional extension (45 mins):Keeping up with change - Students debate whether or not all new technology should be regulated to ensure it is being developed for the good of society.



Activity 1: An era of change (15 mins)

In this activity, students will discuss technological change, including the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and begin to consider whether the use of technology should be regulated.

Show students the two images of phone devices on slide 5 and ask them to consider the following question:

Q: How has the way we use phones changed over time?This is an introductory activity - you shouldn’t spend more than a few minutes on it. Give the students a couple of minutes to discuss and write down what they can do with each of these devices in small groups. Some of the ideas they might come up with are:

Landline phone Smart phoneMake phone callsReceive voice messages

Make phone callsReceive voice messagesSend and receive text messagesSend and receive emailsAccess the internetTake pictures / videosUse social mediaGet directionsPlay gamesWatch videosShopUse a virtual assistant (Siri, Google Assistant, Bixby)(This list could be endless!)

Feedback as a whole class.

Show the class slide 6. In pairs or small groups ask the class to write down all of the new products and services they can think of that have evolved or developed because of new technology in the last 10 years.

Some ideas they might come up with include: driverless cars (Tesla), video streaming services (Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime, etc), smart home hubs (Alexa, Google Home), smart televisions, online shopping, music streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music), robot delivery service.

Ask students to consider the question on slide 7:

Q: What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?Computer systems that are able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as the ability to understand language, recognise pictures, solve problems, make decisions and learn.



Activity 1: cont. Slide 8 - Split the class into small groups and give each group a copy of worksheet 1. The worksheet contains a number of statements. Ask the class to sort these statements into challenges and benefits of new technology.

The answers are on slide 9 and below:

Benefits Challenges■ More tedious basic tasks can be undertaken by AI, which frees up humans to do more complex and creative activities and be more productive.■ Using AI can make businesses more efficient, as they are able to work more quickly. A good example of this is the automobile industry. AI has enabled factories to produce vehicles more quickly.■ AI is less prone to random errors in the way that humans are.■ Machines can work constantly without any need for breaks.■ The use of AI can help keep humans safe because computers can undertake some tasks that would be dangerous for humans to do, for example, handling nuclear material.

■ If there is existing bias in a decision-making system, AI can learn this bias if care is not taken. For example, facial recognition systems are poor at recognising and differentiating amongst people with darker skin.■ It is not always obvious who is responsible when AI makes a mistake, or causes harm.■ The greater use of AI means there is a lot more data, including personal data, in computer systems which requires strong security to keep the data safe. Data breaches and hacking are potentially very serious.■ Machines do not have any emotions and moral values, and cannot make judgements between what is right and wrong.■ AI cannot learn every possible scenario that might happen and therefore could be fooled in ways that humans wouldn’t be.

Feedback as a whole class. Encourage students to expand on their answers and state why they came to the conclusions they did. Time permitting students could also be asked to come up with their own examples.

Conclude the activity by asking the questions on slide 10.

Q: How do you feel about some of the things technology can do?Students should be encouraged to reflect on the benefits and challenges they have looked at. Ask them if they can think of any additional benefits and challenges of AI.

Q: Do you think there should be restrictions on the way technology is used?Students might talk about the need for law and regulation, and might have some ideas about who should be responsible for this (e.g. the government, companies). This will enable you to move into the next activity.



Activity 2: Technology and the law (20 mins)

In this activity students will learn about laws that regulate the use of technology using some scenarios. Please note that some of the scenarios are based on real life cases, while others are fictional. This is explained in the notes for each one. The activity could be carried out individually, in pairs or in small groups.

Slide 11 - Give each group/student a copy of worksheet 2. Ask them to read through each scenario and consider the following two things:

■ Do you think anything has been done wrong ethically?■ Do you think any laws have been broken?

There are some additional questions for consideration on each scenario to help stimulate discussion.

After five minutes take in some feedback and then go through slides 11-18, which explains some laws that might apply in these scenarios. Give students an additional five minutes to review their original decisions. You might want to provide printed copies of slides 12-19 to help them do this.

Take in some feedback on each scenarios. Use the notes in the table below to support the discussion. Draw out their views on the ethics of each case as well as going over the legal aspects.

Scenario Teacher notesFacebookIt is claimed that Facebook data from people who took part in a personality quiz was sold to Cambridge Analytica, who used this information without permission to help the campaigns of politicians, potential-ly including the Brexit referendum campaign.

It is believed that the data of about 87 million people was shared, including 1.1 million in the UK. Both firms denied any wrongdoing.

Consider:■ Was it right to sell this data? Why or why not?■ How would you feel if Facebook or other social media platforms used data from your profile in this way?

It was ruled that both Cambridge Analytica and Facebook broke the Data Protection Act 1998.

Facebook were fined £500,000 for two breaches of the Data Protection Act 1998. The fine was the maximum amount possible at the time.

Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL Elections, was fined £15,000 for failing to respond to an American citizen’s request for copies of information it held on him. The company went into administration in May 2018 after the scandal.

The Data Protection Act 1998 has been superseded by the Data Protection Act 2018, which incorporated the standards of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), a new EU regulation, into UK law.

The 2018 Act has strict rules about how your personal data is collected, used and stored. Further details of these rights can be found on slides 12-15.

The maximum fines for companies that break this law is 20 million Euros or 4% of the company’s turnover – whichever is higher. This would mean if Facebook were found guilty of a similar offence today they could receive a fine of around £2.2 billion.


Ethics, Innovation and the Law Classroom Notes

NDASPolice in the UK have set up a system called the National Data Analytics Solution (NDAS), which uses multiple data sources such as crime logs and stop and search data to identify individuals who are known to the police and are at risk of escalating into more serious violent crime.

The police say that individuals identified by NDAS will not be arrested, but it will enable them to prioritise interventions that will stop the person from committing a violent crime, such as help from social services and mental health professionals.

Consider:■ What are the benefits and challenges of this kind of system?■ How would you feel if this were used by your local police?

There is no law against this kind of system, however it does present a considerable ethical dilemma. If the data was later used to make arrests, it would need to satisfy the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Details of this Act can be found on slide 16.

NDAS is not currently a real system in use, however it is something that is under development by West Midlands Police who aim to have a prototype ready in the near future. As well as identifying people at risk of committing violent crime, the system aims to identify potential victims of crime. The system could be used by all police forces in the UK.

The police say that this system will help them to target resources more effectively in police, social service and health systems that have undergone budget cuts. Use of such a system presents several ethical dilemmas including:

■ The system might make inaccurate predictions■ The data being used includes information about arrests, which tend to be concentrated in poorer communities where more police are deployed. This may lead to ethnic and social bias in the system (which could breach the Equality Act 2010 this Act is further discussed in the next scenario)■ There is no way to know if the prediction was correct after an intervention takes place.

Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, a police officer can arrest:

■ Anyone who is about to commit an offence■ Anyone who is in the act of committing an offence■ Anyone whom they have reasonable grounds for suspecting to be about to commit an offence■ Anyone whom they have reasonable grounds for suspecting to be committing an offence.

The third bullet point is most likely to apply in this scenario. As part of your discussion you might want to ask students if they think an arrest using AI would satisfy this requirement, i.e. would it be ‘reasonable’ to arrest someone on this basis?



AmazonAmazon began using AI software to automatically sort through CVs and select the most talented applicants.

However, the algorithm taught itself to favour male candidates because it was trained using data from job applications over the previous ten years, which were mainly from male applicants.

Consider:■ How do you feel about computers being used for this kind of task? What are the benefits and challenges of it?

The law was not broken in this case.

However, if Amazon had continued to use the software after they had identified the bias, it would have been in breach of the Equality Act 2010. Under the Equality Act 2010 it is against the law to treat any person unfairly or less favourably than someone else because of a protected characteristic. More details of this Act can be found on slides 17-19.

The software was introduced in 2014 at Amazon’s Edinburgh office. It gave applicants a ranking out of five, which was used to identify the strongest applicants. While Amazon used the tool, it did not fully replace staff at any point.

It was dropped in 2015 when it became clear that it was not ranking CVs in a gender-neutral way. It downgraded any CV that contained the word ‘women,’ for example.

The development of this kind of technology is still ongoing. In Sweden recruiters are currently testing a robot called Tengai which is designed to carry out unbiased job interviews.

End the activity by asking students the following question:

Q: Are you surprised that the law was/wasn’t broken in any of these scenarios?



Activity 3: Should we regulate technology? (15 mins)

At the start of this activity students will reflect on the scenarios above as a starting point for considering whether the law should be used to regulate the use of technology. Ask the following questions.

Q: Thinking about the scenarios you have just discussed, do you think the law is always the best way to regulate the use of technology?

Some ideas the students might think of include:

■ The development of new technology is very fast and the law cannot keep up because introducing/changing laws takes time

■ Laws around the use of technology can be difficult to enforce because it can be hard to identify who is responsible for problems that occur

■ The law holds companies/people to account in a way that other regulations cannot■ Most companies will consider ethics in any activity they undertake■ There are existing laws that can address many of the issues raised by the use of technology (e.g.

discrimination, data protection).

Q: What might you do instead?

Some ideas the students might think of include:

■ Regulatory bodies such as the Advertising Standards Authority.■ A code of practice (these are normally managed by a regulatory body, for example the Editor’s Code

managed by the Independent Press Standards Organisation).■ It is worth noting that membership of regulatory bodies and following a code of practice are normally optional

– you might want to explore the students’ opinions about this.

Q: What might happen if we regulate the use of technology too much?

Some ideas students might have:

■ Too much restriction might mean there is less innovation, because businesses would be concerned about possible consequences if they (inadvertently) break the law

■ Heavy restrictions might put businesses off locating in the UK, because they will have less freedom to innovate

■ This in turn could impact the types of jobs available in the UK and the level of investment in our economy.



Activity 3: Continuation

Q: What should be the consequences of breaking laws relating to the use of technology?

Encourage the class to consider things such as whether a company as a whole should be held accountable when a law is broken or whether individuals within the company should be. Do they think current laws, for example around data protection, go far enough?

Ideas could include:

■ Fines for companies (probe about how much these could or should be – does it vary depending on the size of the company or the severity of the offence?)

■ Criminal prosecution of individuals (which could lead to prison sentences, fines or community orders).

You could link this discussion back to the Facebook scenario. They were fined £500,000, and their profit in the last 3 months of 2018 was approximately £5.26 billion, so the fine was about 0.01% of their quarterly profit.

Show students slide 22 which contains information about the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, set up by the Government in 2018.

Give out worksheet 3. Working in small groups, the students should discuss the question on the sheet and write down their final answers. Ask each group to share with the rest of the class.


Plenary (5 mins)

Slide 23 – Ask students the following questions as a conclusion to the lesson. These questions can be in the form of written answers or a whole class discussion. You can use this as an opportunity to revisit the learning objectives and to clarify any insecurities in knowledge.

Q: List three new things that you have learnt in this lesson.

Q: What have you found most surprising about what we have discussed today?

Q: Share one piece of important information, concept or view you now have.


Optional extension activity: Keeping up with change (45 mins)

This activity gives students the opportunity to consolidate and apply the knowledge that they have gained during the lesson.

Explain to students that during this activity they will be debating the following motion (slide 24):

“All new technology should be regulated to ensure it is being developed for the benefit of society”

Split the class into two groups; one arguing for the motion and the other against. Allow each group sufficient time to prepare their arguments. Conduct the debate using the format provided below (slide 25).

Decide if there will be a competitive element to the debate with a winner being announced at the end. If you do decide to make it a competition you may like to ask additional members of staff to come in and be on the judging panel. A score sheet has been provided (worksheet 4).

Team TimeOpening statement For 3 minutesOpening statement Against 3 minutesPresentation of additional arguments For 3 minutesPresentation of additional arguments Against 3 minutesShort break to allow teams to prepare for their rebuttals Both 10 minutesRebuttal:Team to defend against the opposing arguments and try to ar-gue against the supporting arguments put forward by the opposing team. No new information should be added at this stage.

Against 3 minutes

Rebuttal For 3 minutesClosing statement Against 3 minutesClosing statement For 3 minutes



Benefits and challenges of AIRead through the statements below and decide whether they represent a benefit or challenge.

More tedious basic tasks can be undertaken by AI, which frees up humans to do more complex and creative activities and be more productive.

Using AI can make businesses more efficient, as they are able to work more quickly. A good example of this is the automobile industry. AI has enabled factories to produce vehicles more quickly.

If there is existing bias in a decision-making system, AI can learn this bias if care is not taken. For example, facial recognition systems are poor at recognising and differentiating amongst people with darker skin.

It is not always obvious who is responsible when AI makes a mistake, or causes harm.

AI is less prone to random errors in the way that humans are.

The greater use of AI means there is a lot more data, including personal data, in computer systems which requires strong security to keep the data safe. Data breaches and hacking are potentially very serious.

Machines can work constantly without any need for breaks.

The use of AI can help keep humans safe because computers can undertake some tasks that would be dangerous for humans to do, for example, handling nuclear material.

Machines do not have any emotions and moral values, and cannot make judgements between what is right and wrong.


Ethics, Innovation and the Law Worksheet 1

ScenariosRead through each scenario and decide whether you think what happened was ethically wrong, and if anyone broke the law.

FacebookIt is claimed that Facebook data from people who took part in a personality quiz was sold to Cambridge Analytica, who used this to information without permission to help the campaigns of politicians, potentially including the Brexit referendum campaign. It is believed that the data of about 87 million people was shared, including 1.1 million in the UK. Both firms denied any wrongdoing.

Consider:

Q: Was it right to sell this data? Why or why not?

Q: How would you feel if Facebook or other social media platforms used data from your profile in this way?

NDASPolice in the UK have set up a system called the National Data Analytics Solution (NDAS), which uses multiple data sources such as crime logs and stop and search data to identify individuals who are known to the police and are at risk of escalating into more serious violent crime.

The police say that individuals identified by NDAS will not be arrested, but it will enable them to prioritise interventions that will stop the person from committing a violent crime, such as help from social services and mental health professionals.

Consider:

Q: What are the benefits and challenges of this kind of system?

Q: How would you feel if this were used by your local police?



AmazonAmazon began using AI software to automatically sort through CVs and select the most talented applicants.However the algorithm taught itself to favour male candidates because it was trained using data from job applications over the previous 10 years, which were mainly from male applicants.

Consider:

Q: How do you feel about computers being used for this kind of task? What are the benefits and challenges of it?



The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI)

Q: If you were on the CDEI, what would be the first actions you would recommend to government to make sure data and AI is used safely and ethically? Why do you think these are the most urgent?

Things you might like to consider:■ Are there any laws that need to be developed?■ How might you regulate the use of technology?■ Does more work need to be done to decide how best to regulate the use of technology?■ What ethical dilemmas do you think are the most urgent to address?



Judging criteria:

Higher score if:■ Virtually no reliance on script / notes■ Information presented is accurate■ They presented confidently■ They spoke clearly and loudly■ They followed the set format for the debate■ All team members took the process seriously and paid attention at all times■ Arguments were convincing and well-reasoned

Lower score if:■ Heavy reliance on script/notes ■ Arguments were unclear or inaccurate■ They lacked confidence■ They spoke quietly■ They did not follow the set procedure■ Arguments were not convincing or well-reasoned■ Not all team members took the process seriously or paid attention at all times

Stage of debate For Against Max. score

Opening statement 10

Presentation of additional arguments

10

Rebuttal 10

Closing statement 10

TOTAL 40

Winning team:



GLOSSARY

Artificial IntelligenceComputer systems that are able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as the ability to understand language, recognise pictures, solve problems, make decisions and learn.

The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI)The CDEI is an advisory body set up by Government and led by independent experts. It is responsible for:

■ Identifying the opportunities for strengthening ethical and innovative uses of data and AI

■ Agreeing and sharing best practice

■ Advising Government on actions it needs to take to ensure that data and AI is used safely and ethically

https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/centre-for-data-ethics-and-innovation-cdei

EthicsA set of beliefs about what is morally right and wrong.

LawA rule, usually made by a government, that is used to order the way in which a society behaves.


Ethics, Innovation and the Law Glossary

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