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Archive / INF Seminars / INF_2024_11_07_CesarePautasso

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	Unethical Software Engineering in 8 Easy Dark Patterns

Thursday

07.11

USI East Campus, Room D1.13, Sector D

16:30 - 17:30


	Cesare Pautasso Università della Svizzera italiana

Abstract:

Trigger Warning: This talk includes discussions of unethical practices in software engineering that may be distressing to those sensitive to issues of ethical misconduct in technology.

Software engineering has transitioned from a craft importing metaphors from the real world to a discipline exporting digitalization and sometimes disruption into the real world. While design patterns provide a net benefit when applying them to solve problems in a given context, dark patterns intentionally manipulate, mislead or harm users, often serving business interests over users welfare. This talk explores a small number of dark patterns widely used by unethical software engineers to commit digital frauds, violate users privacy, pursue monetization at all costs, manipulate search rankings, and engage in unethical artificial intelligence practices. As we describe how each dark pattern works and examine its ethical implications, we will learn to recognize them, advocate for their avoidance, and contribute to a more ethical software engineering ecosystem.

Biography:

Cesare Pautasso is a full professor at the USI Software Institute. He leads the Architecture, Design and Web Information Systems Engineering research group. He is the general chair of the 19th European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA) and recently served as the program chair of the 28th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs (EuroPLoP 2023). He has co-authored books on ‘Patterns for API Design’ (2022) and on ‘SOA with REST’ (2017). You can follow him on @pautasso@scholar.social and on www.pautasso.org

Chair: Nargiz Humbatova

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In February 2019, the Software Institute started its SI Seminar Series. Every Thursday afternoon, a researcher of the Institute will publicly give a short talk on a software engineering argument of their choice. Examples include, but are not limited to novel interesting papers, seminal papers, personal research overview, discussion of preliminary research ideas, tutorials, and small experiments.
On our YouTube playlist you can watch some of the past seminars. On the SI website you can find more details on the next seminar, the upcoming seminars, and an archive of the past speakers.