Browsing by Author "Matei, Corina Sorana"

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Ethics management and social responsibility in Romanian IT industry (I) - Possible improvements of working conditions
(National Institute for Research & Development in Informatics – ICI Bucharest, 2020) Cernat, Manuela; Borțun, Dumitru; Matei, Corina Sorana
The main purpose of this article was to investigate, using the tools of qualitative research, the working conditions for Romanians working in the IT industry, and to assess their level of professional and social responsibility. According to recent research, jobs tend to be more and more polarized. We now have what we might call “bad jobs” and “good jobs” (Kalleberg, 2012). The Romanian IT sector was considered – from the perspective of public policy – a revolutionary sector where intelligence and innovation would lead to social progress. The public discourse framing this sector, the policies regulating this sector, and the relatively high wages would lead to the conclusion that these are “good jobs”. Our goal is to analyze, with scientific rigor, the working conditions in this sector by using the characteristics that are currently used at the level of the European Union to assess the quality of working life. The conclusions of our study would require further interpretations and suggestions in order to to bring about an improvement of the working conditions in this sector, as well as to address the lack of labour unions and of ethics management in Romanian IT industry.
Remote Controlled Individuals? The Future of Neuralink: Ethical Perspectives on the Human-Computer Interactions
(SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, 2022) Cernat, Manuela; Borțun, Dumitru; Matei, Corina Sorana
In an experiment presented to the public, a monkey with a Neuralink inserted in its brain is able interact directly with the computer. The Neuralink experiment opens the door to an extremely complex debate with questions ranging from ontology to epistemology. We explore the political economy of these cutting-edge technologies. What we aim to investigate are ethical questions, namely: is it ethical to install such a device in someone's brain and connect it to a computer? And who controls the computer, since it is plausible to assume that the communication could be bidirectional? We argue that this is in fact the key question we, as social scientists, IT specialists, and computer science specialists, have to ask and attempt to find answers to. Oftentimes, scientific discoveries could lead to disasters and in the era of "surveillance capitalism" we could easily imagine a scenario where companies are competing to gain access to our consciousness, and where our decisions are being marketed and sold to the higher bidder. Scientific discoveries do not occur in a purely rational society and questions of power, access, and control are vital for a future where technology and society are not at odds.
The Unbearable Lightness of Financed Research
(Scholars Junction, 2024) Matei, Corina Sorana; Borțun, Dumitru
This paper aims at drawing the attention of national and international academic communities on an ethical issue which seems to have become systematic: the propensity of forging the scientific research process and its results, in various lines of activity. The manipulation of knowledge and the falsification of knowledge are directly connected to the current conditions and procedures of scholarships granting, of financing research projects, of publishing the results of the research and of promoting research and higher education staff. In order to highlight the manner in which these processes are linked and mutually amplified, we shall make use of the investigations results that the Italian researcher Enrico Bucci presents in his book The Bastard Scientists. Scientific Research Frauds (2015).