Like technical debt, #EthicalDebt is the unpaid cost of future "bugs" that aren't fixed during technology design--but those bugs are harms to individuals or society. @LifeofNoods and I wrote about this concept for @WIRED, with zoombombing as a case study. https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-ethical-tech-starts-with-addressing-ethical-debt/

Since we couldn't go into more detail in the piece, I thought I would add a few things here about what I've been thinking about in terms of specific solutions to this problem beyond diversity in design teams and adversarial personas:

(1) Integrated ethics in CS education. I know you've seen me on this soapbox before, but ethics integration helps to enforce that ethical consideration is PART OF technical practice and therefore should not be an afterthought or an add-on. #ResponsibleCS https://howwegettonext.com/what-our-tech-ethics-crisis-says-about-the-state-of-computer-science-education-a6a5544e1da6

(2) Creative speculation in the design process. How can we scaffold thinking about (and therefore designing to mitigate) potential harms or impacts early on? What does this look like both in education and in practice? Let's build tools to help people do this!

And towards (2), the research that @LifeofNoods has in progress right now is essentially analyzing tech ethics controversies of the past in order to see patterns that could help identify and avoid pitfalls in the future.

Anyway, I basically just described my CAREER grant proposal, so I guess if you think this is work that should be done, wish me luck. :)