The following is my personal opinion on Uber and it’s ethics. Feel free to reach out to me directly if you will like to further this discussion.
Although businesses exist to earn a profit, they also have fundamental responsibilities to the community. They must make decisions that are for the greater good of the community and for their businesses. They must avoid unfavorable publicity. This is because the public reputation of a company strongly influences the value of the stock, how customers regard its products and services, the degree of oversight it receives from government agencies, and the amount of support and cooperation it receives from its business partners. This is worth mentioning because recently Uber has been featured in the news with negative connotations.
Here are a couple headlines that appear if you google Uber:
- Pittsburgh Welcomed Uber’s Driverless Car Experiment. Not Anymore.
- Uber is looking for a new general counsel amid increasingly dicey legal issues.
- Texas Is Close to Overturning Austin’s Uber Rules.
- Uber is charging some riders more for high demand routes.
There are plenty more where those came from. As you can tell, headlines like these are not winning any customers over. A lot of these headlines are surrounding the ethics behind decisions that Uber has made. Taking a closer look into the first article regarding self driving cars, Tim Smith, a pastor and leader of a neighborhood group in Pittsburgh, stated that “jobs that were promised for the neighborhood have not materialized.” (Kang, 2017) Making empty promises like that can cause serious damage to a company’s reputation and how people view them ethically. For instance, people are beginning to think that Uber has more interest in raising a profit than caring for their customers base in Pittsburgh. To highlight how bad it has gotten, campaigns are being held to instigate and encourage users to delete the Uber app. This is promoted throughout the internet as #deleteUber.
Self Driving Car Ethics
In general there are many ethical questions that need to be answered when developing a self-driving car. For instance, a popular ethics topic of discussion is deciding how cars should act when placed in certain situations. When place in a situation where a crash is inevitable, how does the car decide what to do? Would you have the car hit an old lady or a school bus full of children? This is similar to the age old question asked in most ethics classes in regards to a human driver having to make a similar decision. Most of the time people make a spur of the moment decision by picking the path that causes less damage. However, unlike humans, robots are not driven by ethical thoughts. It is something that would have to be programmed into their functionality. As our technology is developing further and our products are getting smarter we will have to start considering ethics in their creation. As technology is replacing a lot of our everyday activities, it is scary to think that there is no ethical guidelines around their functionality.
This scenario also highlights other ethical challenges that are raised by the IoT movement. Self Driving cars will have to make use of the internet in order to be effective. This means that there is going to be yet another device or product that will require some of our information to run properly. This will also raise questions about privacy in the future. For instance, is it ethical for people to have to give up their privacy in order to use applications? Soon every device we use in our lives will be connected to the internet. It will be very hard for us to live off the grid. As devices are becoming more invasive it will be difficult to control what information of ours is being spread around. As well, it will be problematic for us to protect the same information as it will not be in our hands entirely.
Common Good Approach
Uber attempts to pass a “Common Good Approach” as their ethical stance. As the textbook states, this type of approach is based on a vision of society as a community whose members work together to achieve a common set of values and goals. This type of approach does suit Uber as their products reflect this. Uber is a ride-sharing app that pick up passengers and take them to their destinations by a tap on their phones. Uber’s goal was to create a safe and efficient transportation system. It is a great example of a company that attempts to implement a social system that everybody depends on and can benefit all people . To do so they created a network of drivers that are larger than the biggest taxi networks in the world. However, as the textbook also states, this type of ethical decision-making has its problems. People often have differing opinions on what should be done. As well, not all parties will bear the same cost. Sometimes one group will have to contribute more to benefit the whole group. One would argue that the negative press release is changing the way people view Uber’s ethical decision-making. Speaking for myself, I personally do not associate Uber with the “Common Good Approach” after reading some of the headlines recently.
Suggestions
In terms of suggestions, in general Uber needs to work on maintaining a good public image as it has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. More specially it needs to work on improving its corporate ethics as it has also been in the news for how the company treats its employees. In terms of the self-driving car situation, Uber needs to become transparent on how it will like to implement this innovation and the effects it will actually have on a customer base to maintain them. As well, to aid in development, it needs to work on the actual ethics of the self- driving car. This means picking an ethical stance and being prepared to defend it when the time comes. When selecting an ethical stance, the company must do so in a way that causes least resistance to its employees and users. As the textbook states, people tend to resists changes and expect adequate communication to all relevant decision making. To aide in this process Uber may need to answer the following questions:
- Why are we doing this?
- What is wrong with the current way we do things?
- What are the benefits of the new way for you? (Reynolds, 2015)
Conclusion
The launching of Uber has been rather disruptive, but it made transportation very affordable for both drivers and passengers. Passengers can call a taxi with just a tap on their phone and a Uber driver will be there to pick them up and take them to their destinations without the exchange of cash. With the increasing growth of modern technology, there is no wonder that the innovation of the self-driving car emerged. While it is a revolutionary form of futuristic transportation, it raises many question and concerns. For Uber, this means faster cars, great profit and increasing revenue, but for many faster is not always better because it raises the question of ethics. A major question is how do one go about instructing a self-driving cars on how to make quick, ethical decision if a crash is inevitable. Uber’s products do a good job of emphasizing a Common Good approach style of decision-making. However, the abundance of negative press has steered the community against Uber and continues to cloud its ethical efforts. A suggestion for Uber would be to work on its public image while continuing to stay innovative. Under the right leadership, Uber can be both disruptive and ethical if desired.