Talk by Mrs
Steve Shirley OBE. Talk by Mrs
Steve Shirley OBE. for WCIT Colloquium on the Ethical and Spiritual Implications of the new IT and Telecoms Environment - 10 February, 1997
When first invited to speak at this important meeting, there was a wave of apathy as far as I was concerned, because so much of the discussion on ethics is riddled with wishful thinking triumphant over reality.
Take the Interfaith Declaration, 'A Code of Ethics on International Business for Christians, Muslims and Jews'. With high powered signatories like the Crown Prince of Jordan, Lord Rothschild and inevitably, the Prince of Wales, we have to take note.
Yet what does it contain in the way of insights towards the practical achievement of higher standards? Pages of statements that people should treat each other fairly, show love and consideration to those with whom they deal, be honest. They should see themselves as stewards of their organisations, always speak the truth to the staff who must be given safe and healthy working conditions.
I could go on.
Of course we in business support such aspirations. The problem is how to enforce them.
Having started on what may seem a negative note, let me say that once we clear away this type of intellectual undergrowth, which does little service to anyone trying to set standards of morality, these are areas which merit serious discussion.
When our industrial society was more strongly Christian, God-fearing and concerned at what might happen to individuals if they anger their local priest, the sanctions for wrongdoing were obvious.
Today, in what is predominantly a secular environment we have to use the more direct sanction of the law. For this reason I prefer the word 'standards' - which imply a legal framework - rather than the vaguer 'ethics' (which you can agree in principle but ignore whenever convenient!)
I'm not being unkind to business people. They are the same, and indeed very much the mirror image of the society from which they are drawn. No better and no worse.
With Cadbury and Greenbury and later this year Sir Ronnie Hampel's report, important standards on corporate governance are being set and , through usage becoming the business norm. And if the speed of acceptance is too slow, legislation will probably enforce these recommendations as different political parties attempt to prove: they are holier than thou.
But let us move on to the new world. Our so-called technological revolution.
Immediately we face a dilemma. We have to consider, is it a new world at all?
Here's a quick resume of the arguments.
Technology as just more of the same is summed up in the phrase "The wheel was once high tech." The only difference being that now we can do things more quickly. The danger with this argument is that the speed of change is reaching a pace that is likely to become psychologically dysfunctional. Human Beings can only change at a certain pace. Or as TS Eliot said "humankind can only stand so much reality."
Personally I have my doubts about this argument that technology is just more of the same. Humankind is nothing if not flexible and just as people thought the human body couldn't travel faster the 25mph so I believe that our mental and spiritual capabilities are nowhere near stretched to the ultimate.
But I do believe that we have a situation where the speed of technological change is greater than the speed of institutional change, especially in government. The effect is not only that government now moves legislatively five years behind reality, what is worse is that we have too little time to devise the right legislative responses to new technology.
Issues such as pornography on the Internet, changes in bio-genetics, or the replacement boundaries for human organs require careful thought. We do not want, nor should we accept, over-fast, over-reactive responses panicked by an agenda set through the media.
The second argument runs that technology is neutral. This view is widely held in the business world. Technological change is normally explained to executives in the language of accounting and finance. If technology X costs Y to do Z then Y plus profit is the payback. The technology itself is seen as basically content free. How it will solve the particular problem is largely ignored.
This argument (that technology is neither good nor bad it all depends what it's used for) sounds fine but there's a second, deeper order of concern. The complexities of technology and the organisational supporting structure that's grown up around it are usually ignored in the executive decision-making process.
So what happens is that a technology-fix mentality grows up, by which technological responses to social problems are developed and designed without regard to secondary, often psychological implications.
Then, there's the argument that says technology is really synonymous with "progress"? More technology means a better life for everyone?
Every human era throughout history has argued they have progressed over those who went before.
Technology is becoming today's ideology. A technical view of reality in the end leads to a technical view of people. Are we all to become no more that technicians?
The great strength of human nature is that we have the intellectual ability to make decisions about how we want to act. That's why we're at this Colloquium.
I regard technology as a mirror of our culture, reflecting a thousandfold the desires and hidden priorities we all have. It's stupid to get angry when its reflection doesn't please all of us; or shows such desires up for what they are.
Society gets the technology it deserves, indeed, to bring in a hard headed business approach, technology is too costly to impose anything on a society which doesn't want it, even latently.
That's why I've always treated ethics and the role of technology so seriously. I now believe that there's a moral duty for government to take a look at these problems.
I'd like to see a cross party Commission set up. That Commission should report to Parliament within a relatively short timespan. It doesn't need 3 years to produce a report that produces no action (and gathers dust in the House of Commons library).
I think I speak for the IT industry and those who work on its fringe: that we're ready to give evidence to such a commission providing the time frame is tight, 9 months. A year at most.
What would happen if we broadened the arguments internationally?
The Internet is one area where we cannot say it is more of the same. If the Iranian government, for example, wants to control the flow of ideas to its population then it can ban certain books and journals.
It cannot, if it wants to remain in contact with the outside world, stop its population reading material on the Internet's web sites and bulletin boards in other countries.
The ethical issue therefore is that a potential for supplying pornography, manifestos on women's rights, defamation or any other behaviour socially unacceptable to certain governments, the potential exists on a free and open line. To those who oppose censorship in any form, dedicated to a belief in total freedom of thought and action, this is no bad thing.
Do we have the right to push our particular point of view on those whose beliefs are contrary to our own? Going back to Interfaith Declaration, the reason that it's couched in such bland terms is precisely because the detailed implementation of much of the declaration will be blocked by some countries, even those which supported the principles in general terms.
Remember too that under modern legislation most of the great pioneers of the industrial past would, if they behaved today as they did then, end up in prison or bankrupts or both.
So what, Chairman are the questions we ought to discuss? For a start can I throw these morsels to you, the lions:
Over to you!
(c)1997 Mrs Steve Shirley OBE.
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