The Ethical Mirror

The Ethical Mirror brings to clarity the fundamental ethical dilemmas that shape how we make decisions and the complexities of who we are.

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Inspiration

Every decision that we make, as simple as choosing to return a lost object, or as complex as deciding which patient receives medical treatment, stem from our internal ethical framework. We built The Ethical Mirror to help individuals understand the way they operate in order to further enhance their critical thinking capabilities.

What it does

Our website has a set of comprehensive questions that the user can answer. From these answers, an analysis is made and generalized into a category with information that allows for deeper understanding. Additionally, an AI chat agent is present once the quiz is completed and is ready to answer any further questions that the user may have.

How we built it

We used HTML, CSS, and Javascript to create the frontend pages and a python flask framework for the backend of the website. After researching a various famous ethical questions, we selected the ten that resonated with us the most and incorporated them into the website. To integrate AI into our project, we used the Google Gemini API and created a chatbot that the user could converse with to gain deeper understanding on any philosophical concept.

Challenges we ran into

The most difficult challenge that we encountered was making our project accessible to all users. Getting the Gemini chatbot working so that all users could receive one on one help was the most technically difficult aspect of the project. Issues with API key security and billing were especially challenging. Hosting the website also posed complications. Multiple platforms were considered including Github Pages and running a local server before we decided on using Render because of the complexity of the python backend.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are most proud of creating a website that can help others strengthen critical thinking skills by interacting with the most famous philosophical questions ever posed. While these questions may seem abstract and hypothetical, they have implications on every decision that we make in life. By exposing the general public to these ideas, we hope to inspire reflection and critical thinking when people tackle these ethical dilemmas. We are also proud of the incorporation of AI in our project. Platforms like ChatGPT and Google Gemini are increasingly used in school and work to explain different subjects and ideas which made it the perfect addition to this project.

What we learned

Through the creation of this project, we learned about various ethical frameworks and the necessity of creating a user friendly experience. During the testing of the website, users were often unfamiliar with the philosophical concepts that the website discussed which led to the development of an AI chatbot that could assist the user with any questions they may have. We learned about the complexities of using an AI API within our code and factors that a developer had to consider when using a third party service like token quotas, secret environment variables, and usage restrictions.

What's next for The Ethical Mirror

The next steps for The Ethical Mirror would be to expand our project into other philosophical disciplines like epistemology, metaphysics, logic, or aesthetics. Another addition to our project would be collecting and storing users responses so that people can see where they align ethically relative to the rest of society. This would also provide interesting data about how people generally tend to make decisions once the dataset becomes sufficiently large.

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