About Sci-Fi Ethics Explorer
A teaching site for the ethics of technology, read through the science fiction that has been rehearsing these problems since Frankenstein.
What it is
The premise is simple: science fiction has been stress-testing the ethics of technology for two centuries. Reading it carefully is one of the better ways to learn how to think about the technology you actually use.
The site has three working parts:
- A twelve-chapter textbook on the ethics of technology, grounded in fiction from Shelley to Le Guin to Gibson.
- A library of branching dilemmas where your choices change the ending.
- A debate arena and a set of analysis tools, including an AI counselor trained on the textbook material.
The point is not to tell you what to think. It is to give you enough practice with the arguments that you know what you think, and why.
Branching dilemmas where the choices are yours and the consequences play out. Short fiction companions to every textbook chapter.
An AI counselor for talking through an argument, a framework explorer that maps your answers onto ethical traditions, and perspective comparisons that surface the ones you missed.
Submit your own dilemmas. Argue open positions in the debate arena. Other readers are working through the same questions, and their answers are part of the material.
Who it is for
Built for classrooms, but not limited to them. Undergrads, curious readers, anyone trying to think more clearly about the technology they use every day.
Read a dilemma