Mind the App - Considerations on the Ethical Risks of COVID-19 Apps

6 Pages Posted: 20 Apr 2021

See all articles by Luciano Floridi

Luciano Floridi

Yale University - Digital Ethics Center; University of Bologna- Department of Legal Studies

Date Written: June 01, 2020

Abstract

In the past months, there has been a lively debate about so-called COVID-19 apps developed to deal with the pandemic (Morley et al. 2020b). Some of the best solutions use the Bluetooth connection of mobile phones to determine contacts between people and therefore the probability of contagion, and then suggested related measures. In theory, it may seem simple. In practice, there are several ethical problems (Morley et al. 2020a), not only legal and technical ones. To understand them, it is useful to distinguish between the validation and the verification of a system, remembering that these words are used here only in the design/engineering sense, and certainly not philosophically. The validation of a system answers the following question:“are we building the right system?”

Keywords: Ethics, AI, Healthcare, COVID-19

Suggested Citation

Floridi, Luciano, Mind the App - Considerations on the Ethical Risks of COVID-19 Apps (June 01, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3830426 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3830426

Luciano Floridi (Contact Author)

Yale University - Digital Ethics Center ( email )

85 Trumbull Street
New Haven, CT CT 06511
United States
2034326473 (Phone)

University of Bologna- Department of Legal Studies ( email )

Via Zamboni 22
Bologna, Bo 40100
Italy

HOME PAGE: http://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/luciano.floridi/en

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
103
Abstract Views
1,012
Rank
469,563
PlumX Metrics