Isabel Brieler, Author at Viterbi Conversations in Ethics

Fall 2020 Weekly News Profile

The Blurred Line Between Corporate and Governmental Interests

9/8/2020 Amazon’s Ring home security company is no stranger to controversy. In 2018, it was revealed that footage, both from outside and inside customer’s homes,…

Summer 2020 Weekly News Profile

Prioritizing Profit in a Pandemic

Isabel Brieler July 6, 2020 COVID-19 Pharmaceutical Remdesivir

7/6/2020 The race to develop a legitimate medication or vaccine for COVID-19 has dominated the pharmaceutical industry for the past several months as the virus…

Spring 2020 Weekly News Profile

Catching Up as the World Moves Online

Isabel Brieler April 7, 2020 Cybersecurity Data Privacy Privacy

4/7/2020 The current COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating for many companies across the globe, but one app has seen its business explode: video conferencing platform…

Spring 2020 Weekly News Profile

How an App Developer Broke the 2020 Iowa Caucuses

Isabel Brieler February 17, 2020 Apps Caucuses Computer Science Elections

2/17/2020 On February 3rd, the first primary of the 2020 election cycle took place in Iowa, where the process has always been a little different.…

Featured Spring 2023 VCE Podcast

Electric Vehicles: Climate Saver?

VCE January 31, 2023

Hosts Maya and Josh discuss the ethics of lithium battery mining and electric vehicle use with a panel of engineering essayists.

Fall 2022 VCE Podcast

Predictive Policing

VCE October 31, 2022

In this episode, the Viterbi Conversations in Ethics team explores the ethics behind predictive policing.

Fall 2022 VCE Podcast

Clean Energy

VCE October 31, 2022

In this episode, the Viterbi Conversations in Ethics team explores the ethics behind clean energy.

Fall 2022 Featured VCE Podcast

Cryptocurrency

VCE October 24, 2022

In this episode, the Viterbi Conversations in Ethics team explores the ethics behind cryptocurrency.

Fall 2022 VCE Podcast

Autonomous Vehicles

VCE October 24, 2022

In this episode, the Viterbi Conversations in Ethics team explores the ethics behind autonomous vehicles.

Spring 2022 Volume 6 Issue 1

The Costs of Megaprojects: An Analysis of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge

Helen Situ May 4, 2022

Megaprojects are large scale investment projects, many of which are internationally famous, such as Australia’s Sydney Opera House, SpaceX’s program to colonize Mars, and the Panama Canal. Megaprojects garner a high level of excitement — and justly so, as they hold cultural, economic, and social significance. However, the questionable ethics of megaprojects needs to be examined as they increasingly become the dominant mode of infrastructure construction.

Spring 2022 Volume 6 Issue 1

A Credit Card a Week: The Environmental Ethics of Plastics

Kaylee Tseng May 4, 2022

In an industrialized world, it seems impossible to live without plastics. From food storage to aircrafts, plastics provide benefits that make them an irreplaceable material. However, a consistent increase in plastic production and use has led to a massive plastic pollution crisis. Plastics are produced from non-renewable resources and can never fully decompose. They end up in our oceans, our environment, and even our stomachs (a credit card’s worth per week). Additionally, the massive amount of plastic waste has created a global plastic trade that unfairly places the burden of waste processing on less developed countries that may not be able to support even their own waste. The effects of plastic pollution are reaching a critical stage, and engineers must find solutions to relieve the growing pressure.

Spring 2022 Volume 6 Issue 1

The Ethics of Stockpiling Zero-Day Vulnerabilities

Matthew Wilson May 4, 2022

The development of new technology has allowed the evolution of new methods of warfare. The use of zero-days has propelled this exploration and empowered governments to remotely attack the software systems of their adversaries. Despite the potential military benefits of this weapon, government officials are still questioning whether they should stockpile zero-days, especially when the vulnerability is found in software that everyday citizens use. Analyses of previous zero-day attacks and the US government’s overpowering national security stance reveals that the consequences of stockpiling zero-days outweigh the benefits and are a clear violation of the rights of citizens.

Featured Spring 2023 Weekly News Profile

Reviving Extinct Species: Science Fact or Fiction?

Jennah Saqib January 30, 2023

The extinction of any species causes irreversible damage to the ecosystems they once inhabited. Now, scientists are seeking ways of reversing that damage by bringing back extinct species through genetic engineering. This has sparked a debate on whether these efforts are genuine attempts at wildlife conservation, or a naïve business venture that pulls resources from the species that need help in the present.

Spring 2023 Weekly News Profile

New Research May Lead to the Reversal of Aging

Jackie Finnemeyer January 23, 2023

What scientists thought they knew about aging may not be the whole picture. Recent findings tell a new story about how and why aging occurs by discovering a way to reverse the biological clock in lab mice.

Spring 2023 Weekly News Profile

New AI, New Problems: ChatGPT in the Classroom

Kaylee Tseng January 17, 2023

The introduction of OpenAI’s AI text generator ChatGPT late last year has amplified the conversation surrounding AI use in classrooms. Aside from issues of dataset bias, OpenAI must also contend with critics who question whether ChatGPT is being used for academic assignments. Plagiarism software must now accelerate development in order to identify ChatGPT’s human-like responses.

Spring 2023 Weekly News Profile

Streaming Services Continue to Raise Prices

Sabrina Sy January 9, 2023

Since the development of streaming services, people have been able to watch their favorite movies and television shows on their own time and within the comfort of their own homes. However, with the ever-increasing price that comes with subscriptions to services like Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, and others, consumers are debating whether streaming giants are truly as accessible as they were meant to be.

Fall 2022 Weekly News Profile

The Pressure to Publish for Ph.D. Students

Jennah Saqib January 2, 2023

In the world of academia, there has always been an intense pressure to publish papers in the hopes of improving one’s curriculum vitae (CV) or career aspirations. However, in the case of most top journals, publishers do not pay authors for their work, and their papers are subsequently hidden behind a paid subscription to the journal. In open-source publication, authors must pay thousands of dollars for their work to be available for free for others. Though this standard creates significant financial barriers in academia, it has been slow to change.