Module Introduction In this module, you will learn what a socio-technical system is, what are its constituents parts, how socio-technical systems (and their components) “embed” values, and how problems arise when these values (ethical, social, and even non-ethical) conflict with one another.

General Description A socio-technical system (=STS) is “an intellectual tool to help us recognize patterns in the way technology is used and produced.” It is also “a conceptual tool we use to help us understand the entire system within which a particular engineering system/technology is embedded. Ethical issues hardly ever arise about disembodied, abstract systems. Instead ethical issues arise when an engineering system/technology comes into contact with the real world.” (Chuck Huff, Good Computing: A Virtue Approach to Computer Ethics, draft manuscript for Jones and Bartlett Publishers)

Constituents Technology including hardware, software, designs, prototypes, products, or services. Examples of engineering projects in Puerto Rico are provided in the PR STS grid. In the Therac-25 case, the hardware is the double pass accelerator, in Hughes the analogue-to-digital integrated circuits, and in Machado the UNIX software system and the computers in the UCI laboratories that are configured by this system. Because technologies are structured to carry out the intentions of their designers, they embed values. Physical Surroundings. Physical surroundings can also embed values. Doors, by their weight, strength, material, size, and attachments (such as locks) can promote values such as security. Physical surroundings promote, maintain, or diminish other values in that they can permit or deny access, facilitate or hinder speech, promote privacy or transparency, isolate or disseminate property, and promote equality or privilege. People, Groups, and Roles. This component of a STS has been the focus of traditional stakeholder analyses. A stakeholder is any group or individual which has an essential or vital interest in the situation at hand. Any decision made or design implemented can enhance, maintain, or diminish this interest or stake. So if we consider Frank Saia a decision-maker in the Hughes case, then the Hughes corporation, the U.S. Air Force, the Hughes sub-group that runs environmental tests on integrated circuits, and Hughes customers would all be considered stakeholders. Procedures. How does a company deal with dissenting professional opinions manifested by employees? What kind of due process procedures are in place in your university for contesting what you consider to be unfair grades? How do researchers go about getting the informed consent of those who will be the subjects of their experiments? Procedures set forth ends which embody values and legitimize means which also embody values. Laws, statutes, and regulations all form essential parts of STSs. This would include engineering codes as well as the state or professional organizations charged with developing and enforcing them The final category can be formulated in a variety of ways depending on the specific context. Computing systems gather, store, and disseminate information. Hence, this could be labeled data and data storage structure. (Consider using data mining software to collect information and encrypted and isolated files for storing it securely.) In engineering, this might include the information generated as a device is implemented, operates, and is decommissioned. This information, if fed back into refining the technology or improving the design of next generation prototypes, could lead to uncovering and preventing potential accidents. Electrical engineers have elected to rename this category, in the context of power systems, rates and rate structures.

Socio-Technical System Attributes Socio-technical systems embody or embed value. As we saw in the previous text box, different constituents of Socio-Technical Systems can be designed to encourage the realization of some values and discourage the realization of others. Keeping this in mind, we can set forth the following characteristics of STS Socio-technical systems embody values These include moral values like safety, privacy, property, free speech, equity and access, and security. Non-moral values can also be realized in and through Socio Technical Systems such as efficiency, cost-effectiveness, control, sustainability, reliability, and stability. Moral values present in Socio Technical Systems can conflict with other embedded moral values; for example, privacy often conflicts with free speech. Non-moral values can conflict with moral values; developing a safe system may require more time and money. And, non-moral values can conflict; reliability can conflict with efficiency and cost. This leads to three problems that come from different value conflicts within Socio Technical Systems and between these systems and the technologies that are being integrated into them. Mismatches between the values embedded in technologies and the Socio Technical Systems into which they are being integrated. As UNIX is integrated into the University of California Academic Computing STS, the values of openness and transparency designed into UNIX conflict with the needs of students in the Academic Computing STS at UCI for privacy. Technologies being integrated into Socio Technical Systems can magnify, exaggerate, or exacerbate existing value mismatches in the STS. The use of P2P software combined with the ease of digital copying has magnified existing conflicts concerning music and picture copyrights. Integrating technologies into STSs produce both immediate and remote consequences and impacts. Socio-technical systems change These changes are bought about, in part, by the value mismatches described above. At other times, they result from competing needs and interests brought forth by different stakeholders. For example, bicycle designs, the configuration of letters on typewriter keys, and the design and uses of cellular phones have changed as different users have adopted these technologies and have adapted them to their special needs. These changes also exhibit what sociologists call a “trajectory”, that is, a path of development. Trajectories themselves are subject to normative analysis. For example, some STSs and the technologies integrated into them display a line of development where the STS and the integrated technology are changed and redesigned to support certain social interests. The informating capacities of computing systems, for example, which can be fed back into the improvement of manufacturing processes can also be redirected to monitor workers and enhance management power. Trajectories outline the development of STSs and technologies as these are influenced by internal and external social forces.Your first item here Background Constraints to Socio-Technical Systems Background constraints form yet another aspect of the analogy between ethics and design. Design problems focus on the realization of specifications which contain the outstanding and prominent features of the realized design or prototype. In ethics problems, ethical values and social concerns play the role of specifications when designing ethical solutions. Nevertheless, specifications must be realized over background constraints which are relatively inflexible and fixed in comparison with the specifications. Similarly we can identify features of STSs, not included in the list above, which have receded toward the background and persist through various trajectories run through by STSs. Resource Constraints: time, available materials, money, resources, and supplies, etc.. Interest Constraints: (a) individual needs, values, interests, rights, goods; (b) organizational traditions, objectives, missions, values, and requirements; (c) institutional, social, and political issues. Technical Constraints: current state of technology and technical limits or difficulties with setting up a feasible manufacturing process to realize a technical design). Constraints create obstacles that can prevent the implementation of an ethical solution. Identifying these quickly can make possible the development of effective counter measures. For example, knowing that your supervisor might oppose your recommendation because he might see this as undermining his authority makes it possible to devise ways of putting this recommendation so that it doesn’t appear to attack this authority. These constraints do not differ absolutely from the above-mentioned components of Socio-Technical Systems. But they do differ somewhat in terms of their prominence, inflexibility, and persistence.

Participatory Observation As we said above, a socio-technical system (STS) is “an intellectual tool to help us recognize patterns in the way technology is used and produced.” Constructing these tools requires combining modes of analysis that are ordinarily kept separate. Because STSs embed values, they are normative. These values can help to chart out trajectories of change and development because they outline values that the system needs to realize, maintain, or even enhance. In this way, the study of STSs is normative and a legitimate inquiry for practical and professional ethics. On the other hand, STS analysis requires finding out what is already there and describing it. So STS analysis is descriptive as well. In this textbox, we will talk briefly about the descriptive or empirical components of STS analysis. This material is taken from the draft manuscript of Good Computing: A Virtue Approach to Computer Ethics and has been developed by Chuck Huff. Interviews: Semi-Structured and Structured Interviews conducted with those familiar with a given STS provide an excellent source of information on the constituents of a given STS and how these fit together into an interrelated whole. For example, the STS grid on power systems was put together by experts in this area who were able to provide detailed information on power rates and protocols, software used to distribute energy through the gridlines, and different sources (representing both hard and soft technologies) of power generation. Field Observation: Those constructing a STS analysis go directly to the system and describe it in its day-to-day operation. Two books provide more information on the types and techniques of field observation: 1. David M. Fetterman, Ethnography: 2nd Edition, Applied Social Research Methods Series, Vol 17. London, UK.: Sage Publishers, 1998 and 2. James P. Spradley, Participant Observation. New York, Harcourt, 1980. The data collected in this method can also be used to construct day-in-the-life scenarios that describe how a given technology functions on a typical day. These scenarios are useful for uncovering value conflicts and latent accidents. See James T. Reason, Human Error, Cambridge, UK.: Cambridge University Press, 1990 for information on latent accidents, how they are detected, and how they are prevented. Questionnaires: Questionnaires are useful for gathering general information from large numbers of people about a STS. Constructing good questionnaires is a difficult process that requires patience as well as trial and error. (Trying out questions on classmates and friends is the best way to identify unclear or misleading questions.) Avoiding complex, overly leading, and loaded questions represent a few of the challenges facing those who would construct useful questionnaires. Archival and physical trace methods: Looking at user manuals provides insight into how a system has been designed and how it works. Studying which keys are worn down on computer keyboards provides information on the kind of work being done. Comparing how a system is intended to work with how it is in fact being used is also illuminating, especially when one is interested in tracing the trajectory of a STS. Working with archival and physical trace methods requires critical thought and detective work. None of the above methods, taken in isolation, provides complete information on a STS. Triangulation represents the best way to verify data and to reconcile conflicting data. Here we generate evidence and data from a variety of sources then compare and collate. Claims made by interviewees that match direct on-site observations confirm one another and indicate data strength and veracity. Evidence collected through questionnaires that conflicts with evidence gathered through archival research highlights the need for detective work that involves further observation, comparison, interpretation, and criticism. Developing STS analyses bears a striking resemblance to requirements analysis. In both cases, data is collected, refined, and put together to provide an analysis. A key to success in both is the proper combination of normative and descriptive procedures.

Exercise 1: Make a Table that Describes the Socio-Technical System Directions: Identify the constituents of the Socio-Technical System. Use the broad categories to prompt you. What are the major hardware and software components? Describe the physical surroundings. What are the major people groups or roles involved? Describe any procedures in the STS. Itemize the laws, statutes, and regulations. Describe the data and data structures in your STS. Use the two templates below that fill in this table for energy generation systems and for engineering ethics in Puerto Rico. Socio Technical System Table Hardware Software Physical Surroundings People, Groups, Roles Procedures Laws Data and Data Structures

Exercise 2: Identify Value Mismatches in the STS Directions: identify the values embedded in the STS. Use the table below to suggest possible values as well as the locations in which they are embedded. Integrity: "Integrity refers to the attributes exhibited by those who have incorporated moral values into the core of their identities. Such integration is evident through the way values denoting moral excellence permeate and color their expressions, actions, and decisions. Characteristics include wholeness, stability, sincerity, honesty to self and others, suthenticity, and striving for excellence. Justice: Justice as fairness focuses on giving each individual what is his or her due. Three senses of justice are (1) the proper, fair, and proportionate use of sanctions, punishments and disciplinary measures to enforce ethical standards (retributive justice), (2) the objective, dispassionate, and impartial distribution of the benefits and burdens associated with a system of social cooperation (distributive justice), (3) an objectively determined and fairly administered compensation for harms and injustices suffered by individuals (compensatory justice), and (4) a fair and impartial formulation and administration of rules within a given group. Respect: Respecting persons lies essentially in recognizing their capacity to make and execute decisions as well as to set forth their own ends and goals and integrate them into life plans and identities. Respects underlies rights essential to autonomy such as property, privacy, due process, free speech, and free and informed consent. Responsibility: (Moral) Responsibility lies in the ability to identify the morally salient features of a situation and then develop actions and attitudes that answer to these features by bringing into play moral and professional values. Responsibility includes several senses: (1) individuals are responsible in that they can be called upon to answer for what they do; (2) individuals have responsibilities because of commitments they make to carrying out the tasks associated with social and professional roles; (3) responsibility also refers to the way in which one carries out one's obligations (This can range from indifference to others that leads to minimal effort to high care for others and commitment to excellence) Free Speech: Free Speech is not an unlimited right. Perhaps the best place to start is Mill's argument in On Liberty. Completely true, partially true, and even false speech cannot be censored, the latter because censoring false speech deprives the truth of the opportunity to clarify and invigorate itself by defending itself. Mill only allows for a limitation of free speech based on harm to those at which the speech is directed. Speech that harms an individual (defamatory speech or shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre) can be censored out of a consideration of self-defense, not of the speaker, but of those who stand to be harmed by the speech. Privacy: If an item of information is irrelevant to the relation between the person who has the information and the person sho seeks it, then that information is private. Privacy is necessary to autonomy because control over information about oneself helps one to structure and shape one's relations with others. Property: According to Locke, we own as property that with which we have mixed our labor. Thomas Jefferson argues that ideas are problematic as property because, by their very nature, they are shared once they are expressed. They are also nonrivalrous and nonexclusive. Drawing Problems from Embedded Values Changes in a STS (e.g., the integration of a new technology) produce value mismatches as the values in the new component conflict with those already existing within the STS. Giving laptops to children produces a conflict between children's safety requirements and the safety features embedded in laptops as designed for adults. Changes within a STS can exaggerate existing value conflicts. Using digitalized textbooks on laptop computers magnifies the existing conflict concerning intellectual property; the balance between copyrights and educational dissemination is disrupted by the ease of copying and distributing digitalized media. Changes in STS can also lead to long term harms. Giving laptops to children threatens environmental harm as the laptops become obsolete and need to be safely disposed of.Values Embedded in STS Hardware Software Physical Surroundings People, Groups, Roles Procedures Laws Data and Data Structures Integrity Justice Respect Responsibility for Safety Free Speech Privacy Intellectual Property

Media File Uplinks This module consists of two attached Media Files. The first file provides background information on STSs. The second file provides two sample STS grids or tables. These grids will help you to develop specific STSs to analyze cases in engineering, business, and computer ethics without having to construct a completely new STS for each case. Instead, using the two tables as templates, you will be able to zero in on the STS that is unique to the situation posed by the case. This module also presents background constraints to problem-solving in engineering, business, and computer ethics. These constraints do not differ absolutely from the constituents of STSs. However, they pose underlying constraints that outline the feasibility of an ethical decision and help us to identify obstacles that may arise when we attempt to implement ethical decisions.

Socio-Technical Systems Socio-Technical Systems: Constituents, Values, Problems, and Constraints.

STS Templates Two STSs, Power Engineering and the Puerto Rican Context of Engineering Practice.

References Brincat, Cynthia A. and Wike, Victoria S. (2000) Morality and the Professional Life: Values at Work. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Huff, Chuck and Jawer, Bruce, "Toward a Design Ethics for Computing Professionals in Social Issues in Computing: Putting Computing in its Place, Huff, Chuck and Finholt, Thomas Eds. (1994) New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. Solomon, Robert C. (1999) A Better Way to Think About Business: How Personal INtgrity Leads to Corporate Success. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Wike, Victoria S. (2001) "Professional Engineering Ethics Bahavior: A Values-based Approach," Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition, Session 2461.Bibliographical Information on Power STS Acceptable Evidence: Science and Values in Risk Management, edited by Deborah G. Mayo and Rachelle D. Hollander. London, UK: Oxford University Press, 1991. K. S. Shrader-Frechette. “Ethics and Energy” in Earthbound: New Introductory Essays in Environmental Ethics, 1st Edition, edited by Tom Regan. NY, NY: Random House, 1984. Nancy G. Leveson. Safeware: System Safety and Computers. NY, NY: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995. Charles Perrow. Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies. North America, Basic Books, 1984. Malcolm Gladwell. “Blowup” in The New Yorker, January 22, 1996: 32-36. James Reason. Human Error. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 1990. Mark Sagoff. The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law, and the Environment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.