"Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none."

March 12, 2021 8:08 AM

The Ethics Litmus Test - A Card Deck. "The deck and activities help build up our ethics capacity and vocabulary — as individuals and as part of a team. Use the prompts to practice grappling with the grey, inconvenient, or ambiguous challenges in our everyday work." Also: The Tarot Cards of Tech - a set of provocations to help creators and designers consider the impact of their work. "...instead of 'move fast and break things', slow down and ask the right questions."
posted by storybored (11 comments total)

Really interesting -- I think a lot of decisions (from big ones to intemperate internet posts) might be made better with some of these prompts; "Would this make a good episode of Black Mirror?" or "Would it be ok if this decision set a precedent?" or "How would I feel if this were the last thing I did in this job?"
posted by Superilla at 8:56 AM on March 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

Reminds me of Eno's Oblique Strategies. Nice.
posted by doctornemo at 9:07 AM on March 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

Oh hey, I have a physical copy of The Tarot Cards of Tech, from before it looks like they moved to a self-print PDF?

Really neat, I love the questions it prompts. Lent it out to a past CEO at work before, I don't remember if something specific came of it but he found the prompts neat as well.
posted by CrystalDave at 9:23 AM on March 12, 2021

One glaring omission: “Who will be hurt by this decision?”

And the follow-up: “Will the people who are hurt by this decision have the resources/power to fight for their individual equitable outcome?”

That last one may not be worded correctly (please, anyone, take a stab at it) - but the gist is, “are you affecting a whole group of people who will have no power to fight back individually or collectively, or do the people who will be negatively affected have the resources to adjust, innovate, or advocate effectively?”

Kind of makes me sad that we have to have cards for these.
posted by Silvery Fish at 9:29 AM on March 12, 2021 [7 favorites]

UK Labour MP Tony Benn had five questions that would work:

“What power have you got?”
“Where did you get it from?”
“In whose interests do you use it?”
“To whom are you accountable?”
“How do we get rid of you?”
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:59 AM on March 12, 2021 [19 favorites]

@doctornemo, hard same----"Discard an axiom", "Is there something missing?", "Listen to the quiet voice", and "What wouldn't you do?" specifically. I'm going to circulate to all the people I know who've been asking questions about ethical/responsible/explainable Artificial Intelligence, and see if they can get these questions baked into the software they use.
posted by adekllny at 10:39 AM on March 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

I’d rather have Benn’s questions baked into AI, myself.
posted by clew at 12:31 PM on March 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

My ethics guidelines
1. Would you tell your mother? When would you tell her?
2. Would you tell your child? When would you tell?

Thus we discharge our moral duties
1. to generations past
2. to generations future

The rest is commentary
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 9:08 PM on March 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

I like that the first activity prompt includes ableist language of the kind that even the giant tech corpo I work for has intentionally discarded. That's a really great start.
posted by paimapi at 10:17 AM on March 13, 2021 [2 favorites]

paimapi, please excuse my ignorance. I'm hoping to use these cards or similar at work. What is the ableist language that I need to discard? I'm guessing blind, or perhaps 'blind advocate' as a phrase?
posted by tumbling at 5:16 AM on March 14, 2021

I work with people who are blind, and count some as my friends - I don't believe "blind" as a description is ableist. But "mystery" or "random" might be a better choice in this situation where you must advocate for a position you don't get to choose.

I bet the maker would be open to feedback on this.
posted by harriet vane at 7:11 AM on March 14, 2021