Quiz Entry - updated: 2026.09.25
What ethical pattern do the navigation-app, e-scooter and voice-cloning cases share?
Each technology optimises for its users or its company and shifts costs onto people who had no say in its design: residents, pedestrians, or the potential victims of fraud and disinformation.
| Case | Benefit | Who bears the cost |
|---|---|---|
| Navigation apps (Waze) route drivers around jams through side streets | Drivers save time | Residents of narrow streets, who get stuck in their driveways and fear for emergency access; towns closed streets and residents faked crowd-sourced accident reports |
| E-scooters (Bird, Lime) appear in cities overnight without permits, as Uber did ("ask forgiveness later") | Cheap last-mile mobility | Pedestrians, especially people with disabilities and older people; cities left to regulate afterwards |
| Voice cloning (OpenAI Voice Engine) recreates a voice from a short recording | Audiobooks, voiced assistants, a voice for people who lost theirs | Victims of impersonation (e.g. voice authentication for banking) and of disinformation, especially in an election year; OpenAI held the tool back and considered watermarks |
All three are arguments for identifying indirect stakeholders early, which is what VSD and Value-based Engineering require.