Safety from Ethical Hazards: Prospects for a Contribution from Software Engineering

In this paper, I argue that while normative ethical concerns such as fairness and accountability must be addressed in the design of intelligent software, these concerns are far removed from traditional software engineering practice. After reviewing representative illustrations of such ethical hazards arising from the use of intelligent applications, I discuss current practices that might contribute to software engineering practices to assure that intelligent software is safe to use, i.e., free of ethical hazard.