Revisiting after nearly a Decade:
Ethics Test Results Before and After Ethics Training: A Disturbing Experience

Daniel M. Berry

Cheriton School of Computer Science
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, ON, Canada

Abstract:

About one decade ago, Brian Berenbach and I did a study and wrote a paper titled, "Ethics Test Results Before and After Ethics Training: A Disturbing Experience". Its abstract was as given below. When I was asked to reprise this talk in 2017, I realized that things have changed completely. This talk reviews the previous work and then leads a discussion on how things have changed since then.

Old Abstract:

Students in a computers-and-society course learning ethics were given a test to measure the test taker's ethicality both before and after learning ethics. The data show that learning ethics had no effect on the student's ethicality. In some ways, the students were actually slightly more expedient after learning ethics.

Joint work with Brian Berenbach