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Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are critically impacting society and the environment. They are now an integral part of the challenges posed by the current Anthropocene era. To help in facing these enormous challenges, the entire ICT supply chain (from design to development, manufacturing, usage, deployment, and disposal) should take into account the three dimensions of social desirability, environmental sustainability, and ethical acceptability. In this thesis these concepts are proposed as a joint requirement for a new approach to ICT and with a more precise focus: a good, clean, and fair ICT. A good ICT is designed with a human-centred approach, a clean ICT is environmentally sustainable and minimizes the impact on the planet, and a fair ICT takes into account the working conditions of people along the entire supply-chain. These characteristics represent a triple condition that in this thesis is called Slow Tech (inspired by the Slow Food movement that uses good, clean, and fair with reference to food).

Among the many stakeholders of the ICT world, this thesis concentrates on the engineers, the designers of the complex systems (hardware, software, networks) that are shaping our society: in short, computer professionals. They usually work inside organizations and companies, but their skills, competencies, and professional code of ethics are the sources of fundamental design choices. In particular, this thesis identifies ethics as one of the new competencies needed by the next generation of computer professionals and, strongly related to it, complementing their university education with a subject that, for simplicity, will be referred as "Computer Ethics". Two fundamental questions are: how can this requirement for an ethical competence be fulfilled? How can universities prepare the next generation of computer professionals so that they are "ethically grounded"? This grounding in teaching and training is the main reason for the overall title of this thesis: "Teaching Computer Ethics". The main point of this thesis is that the reflections stimulated by the analysis of the ICT stakeholders' network and the use of the three Slow Tech questions are two important tools for improving the ethical skills and competencies of computer professionals. The methodology and my empirical experience of teaching Computer Ethics at the Politecnico of Torino described in this thesis provides interesting results in this direction.

This paper is concentrated on the ethics education for computer scientists. They are the future  computer professionals, one of the core nodes of the Infornation and Communication Technologies (ICT) stakeholders' network. The paper is organized in five sections: a general introduction to the subject with a short review of the several approaches to this kind of education, a basic description of the theoretical foundations for ethics education, an overview of the proposed methodology, a short summary of the results from the field experience, and a conclusion.

This book chapter reflects the content of one of the 2017 IFIP summer school's workshops. This workshop's focus was chiefly around whether one should forget about privacy as a basic human right. The workshop was co-led by members of the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP)'s working group on social accountability and computing. The challenge was proffered that today's commercial push for free trade in people's data, supported by information technologies, requires counterbalancing efforts to be made from the public interest point of view. During the workshop, this preoccupation with the public interest was addressed through a number of different questions, which in turn inspired in-depth discussions. Each of the four questions/topics covered is handled here in a separate section of the book chapter. The four points are illustrated through images and illustrations that have often been drawn from works from the fields of art, education, ethics, film, literature, and philosophy. Note: Many of these themes are among the core subjects of the conference entitled This Changes Everything [1], which is the thirteenth in a series of Human Choice and Computers (HCC) (HCC13) to be held in Poznan, Poland, on 19-21 September 2018, and run by IFIP.

This paper addresses the challenges of designing sustainable Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems. The complexity of ICT systems, the number of stakeholders involved (technology providers, policymakers, users, etc.), and the extension and global scale of ICT supply chain are the main challenges at the core of the complex relationship between ICT systems and the planet Earth. ICT offer an opportunity for an exchange between matter-energy and information: the better use of information offers the greatopportunity for decreasing the environmental impact of human activities by decreasing the matter and energy consumption. But, on the other side, like anyhuman activity, the design, production, use, and disposal of complex ICT systems,has as a consequence a growth in entropy. This intriguing dilemma is one of the most difficult challenges in front of designers, ICT companies, users, and policy makers. This paper concentrates on the designers, the engineers’ dilemmas: what are the ethical competences, the skills, the methods for addressing these complex ethical dilemmas? Among the many ethical approaches, the“virtue/future ethics” is proposed as a core ethical competence for the designers and engineers of the future.

This paper addresses the challenges of teaching computer ethics to engineers. The computer professionals are identified as the starting point of the stakeholders network of ICT and as a consequence it is underlined the importance of computer ethics courses for engineers. To this purpose, a simple four-steps methodology is proposed for teaching computer ethics. The importance of applying the paradigm of complex systems is then described and the three dimensions of Slow Tech (good, clean, and fair ICT) are proposed as a compass for designing complex socio-technical systems. Finally some preliminary results coming from the feedback of about some hundreds students in several years are illustrated.

This paper proposes a reflection on cloud computing among users, organizations, policy makers, and providers. In particular the focus is on the social and ethical implications for organizations developing a strategy for cloud computing. Also the new roles and responsibilities of the CIOs are analyzed within the complexity of the stakeholders' network around cloud computing. The cloud opportunities but also the issues of concerns are investigated due to their importance for organizations that are more and more shifting towards virtual enterprises.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how Slow Tech can support the celebration of the 20-year series of ETHICOMP conferences, with its ethical and societal focus, building on earlier descriptions of Slow Tech. The paper takes Slow Tech’s ideas a step further to explore how a roadmap and concrete checklist of activities can be developed.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a thought leadership or conceptual piece. Its approach is based on a normative, qualitative discourse. It, nevertheless, indicates a shift towards concrete actions.

Findings – Extracting from a brief historical overview, the paper lays out the means of building a Slow Tech roadmap and a Slow Tech checklist of actions. It also investigates a number of the challenges that might face Slow Tech in the future.

Research limitations/implications – The paper has implications for stakeholder fields as far-ranging as corporations, computing professional associations, universities and research institutions and end-users.

Originality/value – As with other investigations of Slow Tech, the value of this paper is in its call for reflection followed by action. It provides a useful complement and counterbalance to an earlier paper by the same authors: “Slow Tech: a quest for good, clean and fair ICT” published in Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society (Vol. 12, issue 2, pp. 78-92).

We propose to steer the digital revolution towards a new kind of ICT, by designing and developing technologies that are good, clean, and fair. An ICT that is human-centred, and that takes into account both the limits of the planet and those of human beings.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the term Slow Tech as a way of describing information and communication technology (ICT) that is good, clean and fair. These are technologies that are human centred, environmentally sustainable and socially desirable.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper's approach is based on a qualitative discourse that justifies the introduction of Slow Tech as a new design paradigm.

Findings

The limits of the human body, and the need to take into account human wellbeing, the limits of the planet and stakeholders' interests in decision making, all suggest the need for a new paradigm, Slow Tech, in the design of ICT and ICT systems. Three scenarios are described as case studies.

Practical implications

In order to prepare the next generation of researchers and computer professionals, many different actions need to be taken. Universities and colleges need to redesign education programmes for computer scientists and engineers by introducing subjects related to the social and ethical implications of computing (currently, only few countries, like the UK, have already done this), and computer professionals' associations need to introduce a code of ethics or ethical analysis into their members' career development. As a result, future computer professionals who are familiar with the Slow Tech approach will be able to collaborate much more easily across the kind of cross disciplinary teams suited to design human centred, sustainable and desirable technologies.

Social implications

Rather than simply focusing on the role of computer professionals, all members of society are called to play a new role in the design of future ICT scenarios. Starting a societal dialogue that involves computer professionals, users, researchers, designers, ICT industrialists, and policy makers is very much needed.

Originality/value

The value of this paper is in its call for reflection followed by action. Based on an holistic approach to the design of new ICT systems, the paper advocates a new starting point for systems design: it should be based on a long-term view of the desirability and social importance of technologies, their environmental impact and sustainability, and the fairness and equity of the conditions of workers involved in the computing manufacturing processes.