The ghost in the algorithm: how to define and to apply digital ethics for the common good

As every epistemologist knows, even the most unbiased scientist brings
their own metaphysics. Values, prejudices, ideologies: everything the
neutrality of science desperately tries to remove by pushing it through
the door, it comes back through the window. The same applies to
developers and data scientists, in the computer science applied to
decision making and to catching human attention. For this reason no
algorithm -be it inside an self-driving car, an intelligent chatbot, a
smart device or Facebook news feed- is perfectly neutral. It reveals the
beliefs of the author. I'll try to describe the ways and real cases
happening in every day life, influencing the shopping behaviors, the
opinions and the political discourse, and the personal relationships of
the billions connected across the globe. A digital and connected world
haunted by a ghost: the ghost of an ethics we can't identify, recognise
and direct toward a common good.