Big Debates

Same four questions, any technology

This topic looks impossible to revise, because the technology keeps changing and nobody can tell you which one will come up. That is the wrong way to see it. The technology changes, but the questions asked about it never do. There are four: is it ethical, is it legal, what does it cost the environment, and what happens to privacy. The specification names eight areas you might be given: cyber security, mobile technologies, wireless networking, cloud storage, hacking, wearable technologies, computer-based implants, and autonomous vehicles. Learn the four questions and you can answer on any of the eight.

The four issue types

Four questions and two words that carry the extended answer.

Concern to category

Which issue is this?

A company stores its customer files on cloud servers located in another country, where different rules apply to who may inspect them. Which issue does this most directly raise?

• A privacy issue, because who may see the data now depends on where it is held
• An environmental issue, because servers in another country still consume power
• An ethical issue, because storing files abroad is not the right thing to do
• No issue at all, because the company is free to store its files anywhere

Who is actually affected?

You are writing about autonomous vehicles. Select the TWO answers that name a stakeholder usefully.

• Insurers, who must decide who is liable when a vehicle causes damage
• Professional drivers, whose work could be done by the vehicles instead
• Society, which will be affected in many different ways by the change
• People, because everybody uses roads at some point in their lives

A technology people disagree about

Autonomous vehicles are one of the eight named areas, and a real disagreement rather than a settled question. Both cases below are made seriously by people who know the field. An answer that gives only one of them cannot reach the top marks.

Naming a stakeholder properly

Which sentence would earn a stakeholder mark in an extended answer about wearable technologies?

• Employers could use activity data to make decisions about individual staff
• Wearable technologies have a significant impact on society as a whole
• Wearable technologies are a worrying development that should be limited
• Wearable technologies collect data continuously using a range of sensors

Vague costs no marks

The single most common way to lose marks here is to write true sentences that are about nobody. It affects society. There are advantages and disadvantages. It raises ethical concerns. Every one of those is true of every technology ever invented, so none of them can be credited. Replace each with a named group and a specific consequence: hospital patients, delivery drivers, small businesses, people whose first language is not English. Then say what actually happens to them. Naming who and what is the difference between a mid-band answer and a top-band one.

Counting the energy cost

The environmental question is about more than running costs. Making a device uses raw _____, some of them difficult to extract. Running large data centres consumes a great deal of _____, and much of that goes on keeping the machines _____. When a device is replaced, what is thrown away becomes electronic _____, which is hard to deal with safely. A strong answer treats the whole life of the device rather than only the moment it is being _____.

Technology to its sharpest issue

Plan it in ninety seconds

You have an 8-mark question on one of the eight areas. Put the steps of a ninety-second plan into the order you would do them.

• Decide which two of the four issue types the question is really about
• Write down two named stakeholders and what changes for each of them
• Jot one point in favour and one against, so both sides are covered
• Decide the conclusion you will reach and the reason you will give for it
• Write the answer, ending with that conclusion and its reason

An 8-mark answer, marked

Question: discuss the impacts of wearable technologies. Model answer: wearable devices raise a privacy issue first. They collect data about a person continuously, and that data can reach parties the wearer has not thought about. Employers offering wellbeing schemes gain a view of individual activity, which may affect how staff are treated; insurers could in principle use the same data when setting a price. Against that, wearers gain information about their own health that they would not otherwise have, and clinicians can monitor a patient at home rather than in hospital, which may be both cheaper and better for the patient. There is also an environmental cost, since the devices are small, numerous and replaced often, and the materials in them are hard to recover. On balance the technology is likely to be defensible where the wearer controls who sees the data, and hard to defend where they do not, so the important question is not whether the devices exist but who holds the data they produce. Notice what earns the marks. Two issue types. Named stakeholders, each with a specific consequence. Both sides. And a conclusion that turns on a reason rather than on a preference.

Arguing or just asserting?

On this paper an answer that asserts a verdict instead of arguing for it loses marks. Select the ONE sentence below that asserts rather than argues.

• Supporters argue that removing human error would prevent many collisions.
• Anyone who defends this technology has clearly not thought about the risks.
• Critics point out that responsibility becomes unclear when nobody was driving.
• The environmental cost depends on how often the devices are replaced.

Where the issues collide

The hardest questions are the ones where two of the four issue types pull against each other. Work through these as an analyst would, identifying the tension rather than settling it.

• A city proposes scanning every network connection in its public buildings to detect attacks earlier. Which two issue types are in tension?
• A manufacturer stops issuing security updates for an older wearable device. What makes this more than a technical decision?
• A hospital wants patient data held in the cloud so specialists elsewhere can read it quickly. What should an answer identify?
• The question asks you to reach a conclusion. What does a top-band conclusion do?

Write the extended answer

Discuss the impacts of computer-based implants. Use the plan you practised: two issue types, named stakeholders, both sides, and a conclusion with a reason.

• Name the two issue types you are going to discuss, and say why those two
• Name a stakeholder and state the specific thing that changes for them
• Name a second stakeholder, from a different group, and do the same
• Give one point in favour, in the form the people who hold it would state it
• Give one point against, in the same form and at the same length
• Reach a conclusion and give the reason that decided it, without asserting that one side is simply wrong