Information Technology: A Very Short History of Computer Ethics

Information Technology: A Very Short History of Computer Ethics

          Professor Norbert Wiener came up with the field of computer ethics in 1940s It was basically related to track and airplane and to calculator its trajectory. He developed a new branch of science called ‘Cybernetics’. It is considered to be,

“The Science of information system”

        In the year 1948 in his book ‘Cybernetics’. He wrote about construction of artificial machines. In the year 1950 he published “The human use of human being” which is still today one of the most powerful basics of research and analysis in the field. He wanted to include all the possible professionals in the concept of computer ethics. 

        It remained under-development for many years and it was taken seriously around 1960s. It was the time when the crimes related to computers were growing. Donn Parker wrote a book on computer crime and created a code of computer ethics in the year 1973.

       In the mid 60s and early 70s, new laws regarding computer crimes were developing and around the same time a computer scientist MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) created a programme named ‘Eliza’ for further research. He later on wrote a book named “Computer power and human reason” in the year 1976 on computer ethics. Walter Maner defines computer ethics by saying that,

“It studies the problems created by and for computer technology”

        World get inspired by the work of Maner and decided to run the workshop of computer ethics across America, he also launched an essay competition on computer ethics in which James Moor in his article “What is computer ethics?” (1985) gave the definition that it includes consideration of both personal and social policies for the ethical use of computers.

       This branch developed because there were many courses, research centres, conferences, text books and articles on it.

        In the past few decades, the field of computer ethics has developed significantly and it has bright future as it is a field related to computer technology, on the other side, some people believe that the branch of computer ethics would disappear very soon. In the year 1995, one of the scholars said on computer ethics that this branch would develop globally as computers would became a necessary in the near future. He was confident about it because computer revolution was taking place in the whole world.

         Later Johnson also offered the same hypothesis and said that computer ethics and ordinary ethics will be the same. 

         Around 21^st century people come to know that computer ethics has got many different views from all the thinkers, and it also can be said that this branch of computers would remain forever. 

“There is a lot of misuse of every useful thing”