Should companies treat DNA data differently from credit card numbers? Should police be able to find criminals by sending push notifications to Ring Doorbells? Should TikTok be banned for children under 13? These are just a few examples of the complex ethical dilemmas embedded within the technology we have come to embrace. In a world increasingly shaped by AI and pervasive digital products, navigating this intricate landscape has become paramount for today's leaders.
Recognizing this urgent need, Columbia Business School has launched a new course designed by Professors Chris LaSala and Jeremy Ney that offers students the critical frameworks and real-world insights needed to lead with integrity in an era defined by big data and AI-based innovation.
Their inaugural course, Tech Ethics, builds on foundational business principles, immersing students in the practical, high-stakes world of responsible decision-making for emerging technology. It specifically addresses how data is gathered, accessed, and deployed when building products, exploring prominent issues such as user privacy, AI-based algorithms, and how data can be used to shape individual and collective behavior.
Its direct engagement with real-world ethical dilemmas through a case study and debate-centric structure sets the course apart.
A Timely Response to Tech's Impact
According to Ney, the significant rise in AI-based innovation made the course feel particularly pressing, as new cutting-edge technologies raised questions about management, misinformation, and threats.
"There was this new push of technology into the public sphere that we had not seen before or seen as big impacts of," Ney said. He pointed to examples like community safety discussions involving Amazon's Ring doorbells and police partnerships, the use of Twitter in the Arab Spring and politics, and how driverless cars are changing urban dynamics, noting that all these developments create new challenges.
By utilizing high-quality case studies in class, students are given the tools to develop a framework that can be used as leaders and managers when they need to make difficult ethical decisions beyond maximizing profits.
"If they're going to become leaders, they will be put in situations where they'll have to make these decisions. It's easier to look at the decisions that other executives are making now to make examples come to life and to understand the trade-offs," LaSala said.
Structuring the Course
The first class is dedicated to understanding ethics within a business context and exploring frameworks for making ethical decisions. LaSala emphasized the importance of this initial phase, stating that creating an environment in the classroom conducive to robust conversations was crucial, ensuring students felt comfortable sharing their opinions.
Students are introduced to four classic ethical frameworks: utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, and social justice. They then apply these frameworks to a modified Trevino & Nelson framework for ethical decision-making. This comprehensive framework involves gathering facts, pinpointing the ethical issue, identifying stakeholders, evaluating the situation against the four ethical frameworks, and creating recommendations.
At the core of the course are five distinct modules, each centered around a real-world case study developed by LaSala and Ney. The cases cover key areas of ethical consideration in technology products: privacy, misinformation, wearables, Internet of things, child safety and social media, and AI. Students apply the learned ethical framework to each of these cases; while the framework remains constant, the core of the cases varies.
"The class discussion is much better when you're talking about something current and real," LaSala said.
A significant component of the course is debate. For each class, a team presents their analysis of an ethical issue through a specific lens, proposing a solution. Another team then prepares a rebuttal, fostering a dynamic and often diametrically opposed discussion. Finally, at the end of class, students vote on which path they would take if put in that position.
Ney noted that this structure highlights that there is no single right answer to an ethical dilemma and that people can arrive at very well-reasoned yet often opposing positions.
"You can see arguments develop, people convince each other of these things, and these giant shifts occur in people's opinions. People come in with certain ideas about what they think a company ought to do, and then, when working through the issues, you realize that perhaps that approach is practically infeasible or that a utilitarian would never adopt it. The debate structure of the class created that group learning," Ney said.
Defining Success
Success in the course means students leave with a strong understanding of the biggest ethical issues in the five key tech areas and a "toolkit"—the ethical framework—that they can apply to issues they will face in their careers.
For future course iterations, LaSala and Ney are considering incorporating non-Western ethical frameworks that open up the course discussion. They also aim to keep case examples as current as possible; for instance, a case on 23andMe became highly relevant when it coincided with the company's bankruptcy declaration.
However, the most impactful element of the course's success was the integration of guest speakers. Each class included a lecture, a case discussion, and a guest speaker, often someone actively involved in the case being discussed. For example, during a debate about restricting TikTok for child users, the professors invited a TikTok's trust and safety team member to discuss child safety. Similarly, during a discussion about the ethics of Amazon's Ring product collaborating with police departments, the professors invited a retired New York City police detective and hostage negotiator to speak to the class about how he used Ring to solve cases.
These speakers provided invaluable real-world context, grounding theoretical debates in practical realities.
LaSala and Ney hope the Tech Ethics course can continue proactively empowering the next generation of business leaders to shape a more responsible technological future.
"I believe that universities should provide executives with tools to make ethical decisions as they grapple with these gnarly topics, in hopes that they can lead industries to self-regulate in a way where they collectively forego some profit to do things that are – on margin – beneficial for humanity. And Jeremy and I are doing our small part to ensure that is the case at Columbia Business School." LaSala said.
He explained that while a single firm would unlikely make a decision that puts them at a competitive disadvantage, collective action is possible, so that we don’t have to rely on a patchwork of global regulations to protect consumers from the downsides of technology. Given the speed at which AI is re-shaping humanity, the need for courses like this has never been more relevant.
