DOES TECHNOLOGY NEED TO BE ETHICAL?

                Over the past 50 or 60 years, technology has brought significant changes to our lives. Yet there remains some disagreement as to whether technology needs to be ethical. To begin with, ethics is generally defined as a theoretical discipline that reflects on the good or responsible actions of human beings. It is claimed that there is no room for ethics; existing technology should create machines as intelligent as humans and use them  in every area. However, some people argue that technology has a responsibility to society to be ethical because new technological developments may harm people.  Moreover, trust in the tech world continues to erode due to the increase in the vulnerability to hacking and the proliferation of misinformation via Google and Facebook.

                First of all, one point which is believed to be absolutely pivotal is the fact that new technological developments may harm people. It is important to emphasize that there are some adverse effects of technology on human life, so the adverse effects of technology are widely debated. The debate on using technology such as gene editing techniques on the Designer Baby Experiment in China, for example, has become a hot-button political issue, involving scientists, policy-makers, politicians and religious groups because how ethical is it to use technology to improve human species? Therefore, the adverse effects of technology are an undeniable fact and some developments may harm people.

                When it comes to the second point, at the heart of the matter lies another contributing factor: trust in the tech world continues to erode due to the  increase in the vulnerability to hacking and the proliferation of misinformation via Google and Facebook. Similarly, the discussion on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has mobilized civil society, scientists and policy-makers in a wide debate on ethics and safety. Request for transparency and the desire to be ethical are increasingly central to these debates. A serious hacking event has happened in the USA. The hacked folders included the personal data of about 50 million Americans  which was/has been harvested  via Facebook. This  was announced as ‘’a mistake’’ by Mark Zuckerberg, who is the founder and owner of Facebook. Zuckerberg has been criticized during  the investigation. But there is no obvious conclusion and explanation about both GMOs and the hacking event. Therefore, there is a wide debate about whether technology needs to be ethical.

                On the other hand, some proponents argue that there is no room for ethics; existing technology should create machines as intelligent as a human and use them in every area. According to them, these machines should be the most superior and intelligent species in the universe. However, these technologies may have devastating consequences/lead to a lot of serious problems for human beings: for example, (For example..) artificial intelligence might be uncontrolled or get out of control:  we saw/have seen  an apparent instance in the latest Facebook AI Experiment. After a few hours, it was turned off by Facebook because it got out of control and it created its own language.Therefore, Technology needs to be ethical and should  not be used  in every area like in the case of the Facebook AI Experiment and the Designer Baby Experiment.

                To summarize, whether technology needs to be ethical is a controversial issue. There are those who claim that  there is no room for ethics; and technology should create machines as intelligent as humans and use them in every area. However, it seems that technology needs to be ethical because new technological developments may harm people, and trust in the tech world continues to erode due to the increase in the vulnerability to hacking and the proliferation of misinformation.

KUBİLAY ESER

THE ROLE OF MUSEUMS

 Museums and art galleries should concentrate on local works rather than showing the cultures or artworks from other countries.  To what extent do you agree or disagree?

    Museums and art galleries have long been at the forefront of preserving and representing cultural values and histories of almost all countries throughout the centuries. However, whether they should mainly represent traditional and local cultures or display an international collection is open to dispute. I personally believe that traditional museums should focus on outlining the cultural aspects and artworks of the country while having separate museums with items from other countries does not hurt the national feeling.

    To begin with, educating people about the history and traditions of a country is one of the primary reasons why we have museums in the first place. They conserve important cultural specimens, artefacts, artworks and other items to boast about our past. Such museums, which primarily signify our tradition, should comprise things we, as a nation, can be proud of, rather than having internationally acclaimed artworks or sculptures. For instance, many national museums in Europe solely focus on preserving artefacts and artworks from the country only and they are quite popular among international tourists.

    Having said that, the concept of the museum in the modern era has changed to a great extent. We now have aviation museums, war memorials, motor museums, computer museums, archaeological museums and the list goes on. To make this type of museum popular and useful, we have to have international collections. For instance, the Motor Museum in Australia has a collection from more than 20 countries and they serve their purpose just fine. Museums with international compilation often attract tourists and can be a great way to promote tourism.

    To conclude, national and traditional museums should focus on nurturing national history while we also need museums with international collections to make them more functional and famous. One does not necessarily diminish the necessity and usefulness of another category.