Napster
Napster was originally a file sharing platform that allowed users to share audio with other peers. These audio files were free and easily accessible and downloadable. This provided a platform for people to upload audio and music files which were often copyrighted to Napster where others could then download this copyrighted content for free. While Napster was revolutionary in peer to peer file sharing it was also unethical as it allowed for the distribution of copyrighted contents for free where the artist would lose out on their royalties and other payments that they would otherwise get from sales. In the case of Napster, the problem is the core function of the software with the whole software being around the idea of peer to peer sharing audio files. The main function of the software is what enabled Napster to be misused and unethical.
Google Photos
In 2015, Google Photos was created by Google as a website and app to allow users to share and store their photos on the cloud. One feature of Google Photos was that it identified and classified the subjects of different photos like people, animals, plants, etc. for organization and so users could search through their images based on these classifications. One major issue occurred when Google Photos misidentified a picture of a black male as a Gorilla. This was a major ethical issue as the AI algorithm used was involuntarily racist and therefore didn’t allow for equal use of the software. In this case, the problem is one not only by the software’s functions but due to engineer negligence too. The software’s functions were part of the problem as this could be blamed on the AI misclassifying some images which led to this. On the other hand, blame should also be blamed on the engineers who created the AI as they failed to train it to be more inclusive and also failed to test the software enough to avoid such mistakes. Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33347866
Crypto mining game
In July of 2018, a game called Abstractism was released to the Steam gaming storefront. The game was marketed as an indie 2D platformer. However, something was immediately suspicious for some users of the game. When downloading the game, some users reported that their antivirus software flagged one of the game’s executables as a threat. Other users noticed that the game used up massive amounts of CPU and GPU resources, which is uncharacteristic for a 2D platformer game with simple graphics. From this, many people investigated the situation, and discovered that Abstractism was infiltrating the computers of players of the game, and installing cryptocurrency software. This software was being used without the player’s consent, mining Monero coins for the developers of the game using the hardware of the game’s victims. After this was discovered, the game was quickly delisted from Steam, and the developer was banned from the platform. This is unethical due to the lack of consent received by the game’s developers. The fact that the game would be used to mine crypto was not disclosed. Instead, the game hijacked the machines of unwitting players of the game, performing malicious acts without their knowledge. The ethical problem (beyond the questions of energy consumption and other elements of cryptocurrency not unique to this situation) would not exist in a hypothetical scenario where the game developer clearly disclosed that their game would be mining cryptocurrency. Although this would likely make for a significantly less attractive product, this would sidestep the ethical problem here, as the player would have the choice to consent to whether or not their system would be used in this way. Because of this, this is a problem of the software engineer’s behavior, performing malicious actions for their own personal self gain without considering the consent of those that they were preying upon.