Introduction to the special issue - software and society: ethics, equity, and sustainability in software

Abstract

Software facilitates the vast majority of social, commercial, and governmental interactions in our society, for a majority of people, even if it also reinforces exclusion for a non-negligible part of the population. The rules that were once implicit in person-to-person interactions or processed manually by civil servants are now codified into a set of instructions that govern how people can interact with organizations or with each other online. This has reinforced the power of those who control this system of imposing the rules, the framework of this interaction. Information and disinformation, citizenship control are also facilitated by the automation of information processing. At the same time, software grassroots in the form of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and civic technology initiatives are creating new ideas and alternatives, providing the citizens, especially in democratic countries, with new capacities of empowerment. All these changes have introduced challenges, especially from the perspectives of ethics, equity, and sustainability. This introduction to the Special Issue "Software and Society: Ethics, Equity, and Sustainability in Software" reflects on the changing relationship between software systems and the societies they serve. The twelve contributions to this special issue address critical themes, including software diversity, equitable cybersecurity, gender-based cognitive bias, sustainability in software, AI systems’ social impact, and accessibility. Ultimately, we argue that understanding and addressing the societal dimensions of software, including ethical implications, its role in perpetuating or mitigating inequity, and its environmental footprint, is essential for informing the responsible development and deployment of information and software technology.