Ethics & dilemmas · Lesson 4 of 5

Responsibility for side effects

Our choices affect people we never meant to affect. Taking responsibility means considering those side effects before acting, not only afterwards.

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Most harm is not intended. It comes as a side effect: a shortcut that makes someone else's job harder, a joke that excludes someone, a business decision that affects a neighbourhood, a post shared without checking whether it is true. The person acting often never sees the effect.

As your influence grows, through a job, a business, a platform, or technology like AI, your side effects grow with it. Something done at scale, even with good intentions, can have effects far larger than any individual act.

A simple habit helps: before a significant decision, ask who else will be affected, how, and whether they would agree to it if asked. You will not foresee everything. But asking the question catches many harms that would otherwise go unnoticed until too late.

See it happen

Raj builds a delivery route app for his company that saves drivers time by sending all trucks down a quiet residential street near a primary school.

The first reaction

The app works exactly as designed and saves the company money, so it is doing its job well.

With the idea

He asks who else is affected and realises the route puts heavy traffic past a school at pickup time. He adds a rule to avoid the street during school hours. The saving is slightly smaller, and the children are safer.

What changed

He looked beyond the intended goal to the people his decision affected.

Easy to take the wrong way

This does not mean refusing to act unless nothing could ever go wrong. Every choice has some effects. It means thinking about them seriously and adjusting where the harm is real.