Lauren Allyn Olson
Software now mediates virtually every facet of daily life, yet each release continues to introduce ethical dilemmas such as addictive design, discrimination, privacy erosion, and manipulation. This dissertation maps the ways in which end‑users articulate these ethical concerns, develops automated methods for their detection and prioritisation, investigates the obstacles that impede ethical action during software development, and proposes conversational‑agent interventions designed to embed ethical reflection within the software‑engineering process. By combining empirical analysis of large-scale user feedback with organizational and technological interventions, this work advances the understanding of how ethical awareness can be operationalized in modern software development.