Why Business Leaders Need to Understand Their Algorithms; Harvard Business Review, November 19, 2019

Mike Walsh, Harvard Business Review; Why Business Leaders Need to Understand Their Algorithms

"Leaders will be challenged by shareholders, customers, and regulators on what they optimize for. There will be lawsuits that require you to reveal the human decisions behind the design of your AI systems, what ethical and social concerns you took into account, the origins and methods by which you procured your training data, and how well you monitored the results of those systems for traces of bias or discrimination. Document your decisions carefully and make sure you understand, or at the very least trust, the algorithmic processes at the heart of your business.

Simply arguing that your AI platform was a black box that no one understood is unlikely to be a successful legal defense in the 21st century. It will be about as convincing as “the algorithm made me do it.”"

Congress and Trump Agreed They Want a National Privacy Law. It Is Nowhere in Sight.; The New York Times, October 1, 2019

David McCabe, The New York Times;

Congress and Trump Agreed They Want a National Privacy Law. It Is Nowhere in Sight.

"But after months of talks, a national privacy law is nowhere in sight...

The struggle to regulate consumer data shows how lawmakers have largely been unable to turn rage at Silicon Valley’s practices into concrete action... 

But the fervor to crack down on Silicon Valley has produced only a single new law, a bill to prevent sex trafficking online...

The United States has some laws that protect consumers’ privacy, like medical information collected by a doctor. But Congress has never set an overarching national standard for how most companies gather and use data. Regulators in Europe, in contrast, put strict new privacy rules into effect last year. 

Many tech companies built lucrative businesses off their users’ personal information, often by offering a “free” product in return.”

Home Addresses Are Up for Sale. Time to Take Back Your Privacy.; The New York Times, December 16, 2018

The Editorial Board, The New York Times;Home Addresses Are Up for Sale. Time to Take Back Your Privacy.

"There are laws around the dissemination of personal information like home addresses, but they’re stuck in the era of phone booths and yellow pages. Home address privacy is governed mainly by 1990s legislation like the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (regarding the collection and release of information gathered by states to issue licenses for driving) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (which partly regulates how banks handle personal information). It’s time for legislators — at both the federal and state levels — to update protections for home addresses and to allow regulators to rein in the personal data industry."

Microsoft Courts Rural America, And Politicians, With High-Speed Internet; NPR, All Tech Considered, July 11, 2017

Aarti Shahani, NPR, All Tech Considered; Microsoft Courts Rural America, And Politicians, With High-Speed Internet

"Millions of people in rural America don't have the Internet connectivity that those in cities take for granted. Microsoft is pledging to get 2 million rural Americans online, in a five-year plan; and the company is going to push phone companies and regulators to help get the whole 23.4 million connected."