It-ethical Issues in Sci-fi Film within the Lifespan of Ethicomp

This paper explores human technology relations through the lens of sci-fi movies within the lifecycle of the ETHICOMP conference series. Here, different perspectives on intelligent systems, primarily in the shape of robots, but also including intelligent decision support systems, are cast and discussed. Hence, It-ethical topics of human robot interaction (HRI) are illustrated with reference to: (a) Proyas’ I, Robot, Cameroun’s Terminator and the Wachowski brothers’ Matrix in highlighting issues of autonomy (the suppressor perspective) (b) Stanton’s Wall-E in shaping a discussion of robots and the possibility for human flourishing (the rescuer perspective) (c) Spielberg’s A.I, which allows for a discussion of the possibility for trust formation (the substitute perspective) (d) Spielberg’s Minority Report, which gives rise to a discussion of knowledge discovering technology and the possibility for balancing data utility and data privacy (the surveillance perspective).