A4.4.2 · Ethical considerations
Ethics as technology spreads
By the end you can
Discuss the ethical side of computing becoming part of daily life, why ethical guidelines need regular review, and how risks can be reduced.
A generation ago a computer was a box on a desk. Now computing is in your phone, your car, your school and the cameras in the street, mostly working in the background. The previous page was about the ethics of machine learning specifically. This one steps back to ask what happens to people and society when computer technology becomes part of everyday life, and why the rules about it never stay still.
Why ethical guidelines keep changing#
| Reason | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| New technology brings new dilemmas | Existing guidelines were written before it existed and may not cover it. | AI raises questions of accountability and bias that older rules never considered. |
| Values change | What society expects shifts over time. | Growing concern for privacy led to laws such as the . |
| Harm appears later | Effects cannot always be foreseen; reviewing lets us correct them. | Social media brought cyberbullying and misinformation, which needed new guidelines. |
| Trust | Guidelines that are out of date erode public trust in the technology and its makers. | People stop sharing data with companies they think do not take privacy seriously. |
| Innovation versus ethics | Reviewing keeps a balance between progress and protection, and allows safeguards to be built before harm occurs. | Testing a medical AI before it is deployed. |
| Global effects | Technology crosses borders, so guidelines must consider different cultures and international norms. | Rules about data that differ between countries. |
Emerging technologies and what they might mean#
Four technologies appear in the syllabus. For each, think about three groups of effects: on society, on individual rights and privacy, and on equity (who gets the benefits).
| Technology | Promise | Concerns |
|---|---|---|
| Faster drug discovery, materials science, modelling and optimisation. | Could break current encryption and expose private data; benefits may go mostly to wealthy nations and companies; some jobs disrupted. | |
| Digital information on the real world: education, healthcare, training, entertainment. | Constant data collection and surveillance; distraction and accidents; overlays that mislead. | |
| Immersive training, therapy, social contact, entertainment. | Isolation and over-immersion; anxiety or distress for some users; harmful or misleading virtual worlds. | |
| Convenience, personalisation and efficiency in homes, healthcare, industry and cities. | Job displacement; bias repeated at scale; surveillance and loss of privacy; people not knowing that AI decided something. |
Cameras in streets, stations or shops match faces against a database to find wanted people or missing children.
Possible benefits
- Can help find missing people or suspects quickly
- Can speed up identity checks at borders and entrances
Possible risks
- Constant surveillance of people who have done nothing wrong
- Error rates can differ between groups of people, leading to wrongful stops
- Face data is permanent: a face cannot be changed after a leak
Who is affected
- Everyone who passes the camera
- People wrongly matched
- Police and the organisation running the system
Questions worth asking
- Who agreed to this, and can people opt out?
- How accurate is it for every group, and who checked?
- How long is the data kept, and who can see it?
Balancing the benefits and the risks#
Ethics is often about choosing what serves the wider good while protecting individuals. A fair discussion considers:
- Individual rights: privacy, autonomy, freedom from discrimination.
- Society: work, relationships, education, democracy and public trust.
- Equity: who benefits and who is left out, within a country and between countries.
The risks can be reduced, which is called : identify the risk, then lower its chance or its impact. For new technology this usually means:
- Proactive regulation: setting out rules before the technology is everywhere.
- Transparency and explainability: making systems say what they do and why, so bias can be found and decisions challenged.
- Public education: so people can make informed choices about the technology they use.
- Testing, audits and human oversight for systems that affect people's lives.
Check yourself
Ethics as technology spreads
Quick questions, made fresh every time and marked here. Do a few until they feel easy.
Exam practice
Paper 1-style questions
5 questions · 19 marks
Write your answer as you would in the exam, then show the mark points and tick each one your answer made. These are our own questions in the style of the exam, not past-paper questions.
1.Explain why ethical guidelines for technology need to be reassessed regularly.
[3]Explain: Give reasons: say what happens AND why, or how one thing causes another.
2.Outline the possible social and ethical implications of quantum computing.
[3]Outline: A brief account: the main points, without much detail.
3.Distinguish between augmented reality and virtual reality, giving one ethical concern for each.
[4]Distinguish: Make the differences between two things clear.
4.Suggest three ways in which the risks of a new technology such as pervasive AI could be reduced.
[3]Suggest: Put forward a sensible answer for the situation given, with a reason. There may be several good answers.
5.Discuss the ethical aspects of AI systems becoming part of everyday life in homes, schools and cities.
[6]Discuss: Look at the question from more than one side, weigh the points against each other, and come to a conclusion.
Past papers
Old exam questions on this topic
From HL Paper 1, May 2014 to November 2025. These papers were set on the previous syllabus, so the wording may differ from today's exam, but the topic is the same. Find the questions and markschemes in your school's past-paper pack.
| Paper | Question | Marks | About |
|---|---|---|---|
| November 2019 | 9(d) | 4 | Social and ethical issues of a new computer system |
| May 2016 | 10 | 3 | An ethical consideration of workplace CCTV |
| November 2014 | 13(f) | 6 | Ethical implications of people having to carry GPS devices |
In a nutshell
- As technology becomes part of daily life, new dilemmas appear that old guidelines did not foresee. Ethical norms change with society, so guidelines must be reassessed regularly.
- Reasons to review: new technology, changing values (privacy law such as the GDPR), unforeseen harm (social media), keeping public trust, balancing innovation with ethics, and global differences.
- Quantum computing: could break encryption and speed discovery; access may be unequal. AR: constant data collection and distraction. VR: isolation and distress. Pervasive AI: job displacement, bias at scale, surveillance.
- Reducing risk (mitigation): proactive regulation, transparency and explainability, public education, testing for bias and human oversight.
- Weigh individual rights (privacy, autonomy) against benefits, and who gets access to those benefits (equity).