Planned obsolescence is the intentional act of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing. This can be achieved by making frequent, unnecessary changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, not allowing for forward compatibility or the use of nondurable materials. There are a number of familiar products that can be characterized as desgined according to the standard of planned obsolescence. One specific example is ink cartridges. Some cartridges are designed with smart chips that prevent them from being used after a certain threshold of usage, even if the cartridge still contains usable ink or could be easily refilled. Some consider Apple’s product development strategy to embody the concept of planned obsolescence. The iPod Nano, for example, like other Apple products typically receives an update every 18 months or so. This in itself does not embody planned obsolescence, but rather the actual updates that are made meet this characteristic. The design of the iPod Nano has oscillated, over seven generations, between a square and rectangular form factor. It is highly improbable that the designers at Apple were continuously changing their minds as to which design was superior; rather, they were motivated to create a product that was significantly different in appearance. This leaves the previous version looking more obsolete than it would have had they maintained a similar appearance. And thus consumers are driven to more frequently purchase the newer generation of the product, even if the one they own is in perfect working condition. Another, perhaps more insidious claim of planned obsolescence at Apple is their release of software updates that both slow non-current generation devices and decrease their battery life. But is this intentional, or just a side-effect of developing software for the better hardware and battery of the iPhone 5S?

Even if this is a deliberate attempt to push people to purchase new iPhones, there is nothing illegal about this design philosophy; however, the ethics of planned obsolescence can be openly debated.

Is it ethical to engineer a product that is intentionally designed to have a life span that is shorter than maximally possible with minimally more engineering effort? Is it ethical to introduce product updates with the principle purpose of making previous versions obsolete and encouraging people to purchase new versions of the product? Those that would argue planned obsolescence is indeed ethical may make the argument that it promotes innovation and provides an incentive for corporations to innovate at a quicker rate. If Apple knew that a product they engineered could be used by consumers for 10 years without failure, then they would have a smaller potential return on the product, and thus invest a smaller sum of money into its development. This could lead to a decreased rate of innovation. If they engineered the product with a shorter lifespan, then they could anticipate a greater aggregate revenue because consumers would be purchasing more goods over time. Because the company would see an increased revenue as a result, they could invest more money back into technological development and innovation of their product.

It should be noted that the above argument for planned obsolescence assumes the product in question is something that can technologically benefit from a greater research and development budget. This argument would not support the planned obsolescence of something like kitchen gadgets, for example. Take the arbitrary example of a can opener; if it is intentionally constructed to be brittle and break after some period of use, there is no benefit to the customer in purchasing a new can opener. There will have been no technological advances made in the field of can openers since the last one was purchased.

While planned obsolescence may increase waste and environmental damage, it can be a force that drives the ever improving production of technological goods and services.

Peer Review, Hurricane Katrine: Addressing the Issue of Conflict of Interest

Posted on October 21, 2013 by cameronsm7

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the investigation to assess the failure of the levees protecting New Orleans was called into question. Some believed there to be severe conflict of interest due to the fact that the Army Corps of Engineers – the agency that built and maintained the levees – paid the American Society of Civil Engineers $2 million to conduct the investigation. Could the American Society of Civil Engineers conduct a thorough and reputable investigation and report truthfully on the entirety of any flaws in the construction of the levees even though they were bankrolled by the same organization they would be potentially lambasting? This question lies at the heart of this ethical case study.

Those who question the Army Corps of Engineers and the American Society of Civil Engineers integrity in the investigation have justifiable concerns. Can an organization be expected to thoroughly and honestly report on any malfeasance present in the organization that is paying them to conduct the investigation? What kind of oversight did the Army Corps of Engineers have in the investigation? How were they involved in the investigation? Answers to these questions would help to elucidate whether or not there was a legitimate conflict of interest. And even if both the Army Corps of Engineers and the American Society of Civil Engineers were impeccably thorough and truthful in their investigation, the mere fact that there are legitimate concerns regarding a conflict of interest undermines their investigation and findings. The solution, then, must be to utilize a different model for conducting investigations. The problem is not exclusively whether or not there was any malfeasance in the investigation due to the conflict of interest, but rather that there exists a valid claim to a conflict of interest.

The conflict of interest that exists between these two organizations can be solved in several different ways by establishing different relations between the Army Corps of Engineers and the American Society of Civil Engineers. One possible solution would be to have multiple, concurrent investigations; these investigations could still be funded by the Army Corps of Engineers. These investigations would operate independently from one another and their findings would be compared as a means of validation. Another possible solution would be to have the federal government fine the Army Corps of Engineers and then the government could manage the selection of an outside organization to conduct the investigation. By doing this, there is no direct connection between the organization that is being investigated and the organization that is doing the investigating.

Interview: Underutilization of Workplace Ethical Resources

Posted on October 21, 2013 by cameronsm7

I conducted an interview with my uncle, Jamshid Katabein, a Validation Engineer at Morphotrack, a company that builds biometric systems for governments. They contract will all levels of government – local, state, federal, and international – to develop the systems that are used by the TSA, local police, border control, and others to collect and manage biometric information such as finger prints and retina scans. In his role as a Validation Engineer, he works to ensure that the system works correctly 100% of the time. Because the systems Morphotrack builds are safety critical – a glitch in the system that allows a known terrorist through security, for example would have large ramifications – they put a great degree of effort into validating the software’s correctness. His day-to-day responsibilities include taking code from the software engineers and stress testing them with corner cases that are engineered to test for potential flaws. He will then communicate any problems to the software engineers and suggest potential solutions.

Jamshid decided to pursue a career in engineering, not because he was attracted to the field, but because of cultural norms. Coming from Iran to the United States, it was accepted that you would go to college and either become an engineer or a doctor. He essentially became an engineer because he did not want to be a doctor; that said, Jamshid is very satisfied with his career.

When I began asking Jamshid about any ethical challenges he has faced in his career, he was very prepared with an answer. Jamshid began to tell me about several instances when established time constrains on a project hindered him from doing a thorough job with testing and validating the software they were shipping to a client. He made his concerns clear to his manager, but his manager never did anything to address Jamshid’s concerns and Jamshid did not make any further effort to address the problem.

One of the most valuable insights into Jamshid’s comments when probed about ethics in the workplace was how eager he was to speak about it. He spoke as if he had never had an outlet with which to profess his frustrations over ethical issues. Interestingly, however, Morphotrack does have an established ethics hotline and does a decent job of promoting it in the workplace. They have signs posted in the break room and hanging scattered around the office. The interesting question then becomes, why has Jamshid, who knows about these hotlines and clearly has the desire to discuss ethical issues, never actually utilized this resource? When asked specifically why he had never used the hotlines, Jamshid’s response was that nothing would ever come from phoning the hotline. But Jamshid also acknowledged that he had never heard of anyone calling the hotline and having nothing come from it; in fact, he had never heard of anyone calling the hotline at all. So we then must analyze Jamshid’s baseless claim. What is the real reason he has refused to utilize the ethics hotline? Upon additional probing it became clear that it simply was not normative to utilize this resource. This is a cultural problem. The culture of ethics in the workplace is not conducive to utilization of established ethics resources such as the hotline. There is a negative stigma associated with using something like the ethics hotline.

There are two possible solutions to this problem. The first is to begin a campaign in the workplace that will utilize a modified discourse to alter the culture of ethics in the workplace. The second solution is to develop different outlets for ethical discussions that will themselves modify the culture of discourse. One example of an improved outlet would be a once monthly meeting of members on a team to discuss ethical issues openly and proactively. For this to be a success, it is critical that the managers and project leaders be present and participating in the discussion.

For Jamshid, both ethical issues and outlets for these issues are present in the workplace; however, these resources are not being utilized due to negative cultural stigma. This can be solved be either initiating a campaign to directly modify the discourse surrounding ethics in the workplace or by instituting new outlets for ethical issues that would indirectly modify the discourse and increase usage.

Effective Communication

Posted on October 2, 2013 by cameronsm7

Cameron Baradar, Mark Iskurous, Kevin Cochrane, Andrea Melendez

Question 11.

How do we encourage workers to feel comfortable speaking freely about ethical, safety, and legal issues and see such discussions as an obligation?

Create an anonymous system to report such concerns
Create a very easy system with which to report concerns; remove the red tape
Make any reported concerns visible to the company at large and allow for a forum with which to discuss these concerns
Have the management emphasize that there will be no negative ramifications for raising valid concerns
Create a culture that emphasizes the importance of product quality and not profit, because this will reduce the risk of creating a dangerous product

Question 12

What do you think you would do to promote trust and respect among your colleagues and other professionals in other departments?

Hold regular social events to promote interdisciplinary engagement among employees
Emphasize the importance of working on collaborative projects (e.g., computer scientists working with the marketing/sales team, etc.)
Create unified goals as opposed to divisive ones (e.g., the engineering team’s focus will be to create a seamless product. if the sales team works off of commission they may want to push the product to market as soon as possible)
Emphasizing the hiring of employees that have integrity
Establish a policy wherein employee comments are regularly valued and reviewed
Establish a corporate code of conduct that emphasizes the importance community among the employees

Making Ethics Meaningful

Author Archives: cameronsm7

Planned Obsolescence – A Driving Force of Innovation or a Wasteful Tool of the Greedy Corporation?

Peer Review, Hurricane Katrine: Addressing the Issue of Conflict of Interest

Interview: Underutilization of Workplace Ethical Resources

Effective Communication