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Microtransactions & Lootboxes in Games

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(Alan, Danely, Xeon, Sriram) As the video-game industry reached the widespread popularity it is known for today, the overall cost of developing a video game grew, both for large studios and indie-developers. To account for this, many developers started to implement ways of monetization inside their games. These purchases usually cost lower than the game, and as such are called micro-transactions. However, there are many issues that rose from the advent of micro-transactions. One of these issues can be seen in the launch of the popular first-person-shooter game Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game released by Electronic Arts in 2017. The game, while lauded for its beautiful graphics and satisfying gameplay, came under extreme fire throughout the internet for what many saw as extreme monetization at the expense of user experience. Users have repeatedly criticized the difficulty of game progression due to the need to “grind” (spend an extended period of time to acquire in-game bene
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AI & Machine Learning

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  (Sriram, Danely, Alvin, Xeon) Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are more and more prevalent in every aspect of our lives, from policing to banking. As such, it is important that these algorithms are designed in ethical ways. Unfortunately, in the banking sector, that is not always the case. These algorithms have advantages including increasing speed, reducing mistakes, reducing labor costs, and enhancing customer experience. However, algorithms are not without bias. Bias can come from unrepresentative or biased data samples used to train the model, bias in the training of the model, or bias in the original design or adaptation after contact with new data. This is especially bad when credit scoring company uses shopping patterns or social media activity, which could be incorrect, in a non-transparent process, and result in denying credit without the consumer knowing why. Furthermore, an algorithm could use factors such as race or writing style, which have no direct c
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Stuxnet

The Stuxnet virus was launched by the United States and likely Israel, with the United States having officially taken responsibility. The purpose of the virus was to infect centrifuges used by Iran’s nuclear program, spy on them, and interrupt their operations. This action raised a number of ethical questions. Is it ethical for a government to attack another government’s technological infrastructure? There are many valid opinions on this issue, and it is highly dependent on the situation. With technological attacks it is possible for actors, whether terrorists or nation-states, to poison water supplies, or take down the electrical grid, with devastating and life destroying consequences. It is probably agreeable that anything that will kill innocent civilians is unethical, even in a time of war. The Stuxnet virus is easier to consider ethical, as it did not target innocents, and in fact was necessary to get information and possibly stop Iran from creating a nuclear weapon, which would
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The FBI... to aid or not to aid?

An individual’s privacy in the United States is protected by the Fourth Amendment, in which the “persons, houses, papers, and effects” of the people “shall not be violated”. With the advent of technology, however, the scope of the personal possessions of a person have expanded include digital property as well. The definition of a warrant, a right to access “the places to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized”, has thus been blurred by the ease of access to personal digital property. One main example of the debate over the right to exercise the Fourth Amendment comes from the seizure of technology in order to access information that could assist criminal investigations. Tech companies, although not obligated to assist in such investigations unless summoned by a subpoena, have the option to assist the government. This being said, however, there exists opposing stances on this action. One prominent company that assists in government law enforcement is Best Buy. In a lawsuit
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Game Dev Tycoon

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                     (Sriram,Danely, Alvin, Edwin) In April 2013, Greenheart Games released Game Dev Tycoon, a single-player game in which the player gets to simulate the evolution of the game development industry by starting their own company in the 1980s. Because of huge hit that the gaming industry has taken due to bootleg games, the creators of Game Dev Tycoon released a bootleg version of their game on torrenting sites to toy a bit with the users who downloaded the pirated game. The game logged how many people pirated the game, as well as made the game inside the game get pirated. Piracy is a widespread issue in the software industry, especially for the video game sector. Piracy is the process of distributing and acquiring an illegal copy of a piece of intellectual property without having to pay for it. Essentially, piracy is stealing, with the same consequences to the creator of a work as stealing an item from a store. However, people attempt to justify pirating software thro
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Uber and Lyft in Austin

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                                                                                     (Sriram, Danely, Alvin, Xeon) In 2016, Austin voted 56% to 44% against Proposition 1, which allowed ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft avoid requiring fingerprint background checks for their drivers and other regulations regarding drop-offs and pick-ups in traffic. Uber and Lyft had spent around $8 million lobbying voters for their support in the vote, so the loss was a big blow. Voters against Proposition 1 believed that it was the company’s responsibility to keep their customers safe. The majority of Austin resident voters decided that they valued their own safety over lower ride fares. Uber and Lyft both warned that they would leave if Proposition 1 wasn’t passed, and that the city would have much more drunk driving fatalities, arrests, and the city’s tech industry would falter. However, the reality of the situation was far from that. DWI arrests even reach their lowest in the last fiv
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No-Poach Pacts

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(Sriram, Danely, Alvin, Xeon) A no-poaching agreement, or a no-poach pact, is an agreement between multiple companies to not recruit from each other, and is currently illegal under U.S. antitrust laws. One main issue resulting from no-poach pacts is the decrease in the availability of jobs in the market, giving companies leverage to offer below-market wages and reducing the abilities for workers to collectively bargain. Despite the clear unethicality of the pact, companies discreetly collude, placing workers in a large, unfair disadvantage. In September 2015, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled that Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe will pay $415 million to approximately 64,466 workers for their role in creating a no-poach pact “involving senior executives … creating ‘no-poach’ lists” that were “part of a scheme whereby companies agreed not to recruit each others’ employees” (Roberts 1). This unethical act have severely limited the potentials of many of the companies
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