Computation has become an ubiquitous structural force that shapes societies and the planet. When we engage with information and communication technologies, they become part of our praxis, which in return shapes them.
When human agency shapes material structures and is shaped by them, these processes originate in intentional interventions by actual people and materio-semiotic artifacts, the systems. The context in which these activities happen is embedded into everyday needs and leads to more-or-less intentional decisions.
These decisions come with an ethical dimension, as they are often directed towards an intent to change the context or the materialised structures, embodied in actual ICT system. The directionality of such interactions is not without values, as it situates the agent in the contingent flows of time.
The process of ethical computation, or ethical compute, involves not only technical expertise and technical assessment, but also the human factors in organising the procedures. These dynamics happen within a community of practice and often also within an economic flow of value, accounting for the ecological impacts and (im-)material demands.
Ethical compute is the praxis of maintaining a stable level of moral reflection and decision-making in our everyday interventions in the computational realm.
Continue with ethical computational praxis.