The Ethics of Prediction Markets
The growth of prediction markets begs the question, is it wrong to benefit from someone else’s misfortune? Ethics Center staff and faculty interrogate the moral and ethical issues associated with prediction markets.
The Intersection of Data Center Development, Water Availability, and Environmental Justice In California
A new report by Next 10, led by researchers Iris Stewart-Frey and Irina Raicu at Santa Clara University, finds that data centers are expanding into water-stressed, vulnerable communities across California.
California has the opportunity to align data center growth with its climate, water, and environmental justice goals — but it requires stronger transparency and integrated planning.
Access the Full Report from Next 10
AI Ethics Literacy
A list of AI ethics issues and relevant materials (articles and video recordings) from the Center’s website.
Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies: An Operational Roadmap
By José Roger Flahaux, Brian Patrick Green, and Ann Skeet
"Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies: An Operational Roadmap,” or, more briefly, the “ITEC Handbook,” offers organizations a strategic plan to enhance ethical management practices, empowering them to navigate the complex landscape of disruptive technologies such as AI, machine learning, encryption, tracking, and others while upholding strong ethical standards.
Seeking Participants for Venture Ethics AI Risk Research Study
The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University is conducting a research study to understand which AI risks matter most to decision-makers during mergers and acquisitions, and how those risks are identified, assessed, and managed in practice through confidential interviews with senior deal professionals.
All About Ethics: Perspectives From Across the Center
When information scarcity and water scarcity meet, oversimplifications are likely to lead to worse outcomes for both opponents and proponents of data center development.
Rebranded as “prediction markets”—platforms where people trade on the likelihood of future events—this form of betting has moved beyond sports into elections, climate disasters, and geopolitical conflicts.
The goal is to ensure that as AI accelerates the machine of drug development, we have deliberate mechanisms for human accountability.
Featured Ethics Spotlights
This Ethics Spotlight explores the impact AI is having on human dignity, part of the Markkula Center’s work in the international project New Humanism in the time of Neurosciences and Artificial Intelligence (NHNAI).
This Ethics Spotlight explores the ethical dimensions of immigration enforcement and detention in the United States—particularly the role of ICE under the current administration.
Governing, as defined by Oxford Languages, is having authority to conduct the policy, actions, and affairs of a state, organization, or people. But how one goes about governing is another matter. In this Spotlight, Markkula Center staff and scholars analyze the role of compassion in the approaches used by people in power.
Center News
In a new report from Next 10 mapped every known operating and planned data center in California through a water access and environmental justice lens.
2025-26 Hackworth Fellow Annie Schloss ’27, and Rebecca An ’27, a 2025-26 Health Care Ethics Intern, Earn National Research Awards
Alumni from Ethics Center Hackworth Fellowship and Ethics Bowl programs returned to SCU as featured panelists at World Philosophy Day hosted by the Philosophy Department in the SCU College of Arts and Sciences.
Teaching Note: Interview of Theranos Whistleblower, Tyler Shultz
This teaching module for business ethics, leadership and management courses includes two videos, homework assignments, and class discussion, all designed to spark conversation about ethical issues associated with whistleblowers and corporate governance.
Evaluating Culture for Ethics
Our Culture Self-Assessment Practice recommends approaches to evaluating culture for ethics within companies and other types of organizations. The materials are primarily for members of an organization’s leadership team, including human resources and legal, but designed to engage a cross-section of leaders from various disciplines.
Media Commentary
Brian Green, director, technology ethics, quoted by Union of Catholic Asian News.
Davina Hurt, director, government ethics, quoted by the Los Angeles Times.
Brian Green, director, technology ethics, quoted by National Catholic Register.
Davina Hurt, director, government ethics, quoted by The Oaklandside.