Digital Ethics: Data is the new forklift; Internet of Business, December 17, 2018

Joanna Goodman, Internet of Business; Digital Ethics: Data is the new forklift

"Joanna Goodman reports from last week’s Digital ethics summit.

Governments, national and international institutions and businesses must join forces to make sure that AI and emerging technology are deployed successfully and responsibly. This was the central message from TechUK’s second Digital Ethics Summit in London.

Antony Walker, TechUK’s deputy CEO set out the purpose of the summit: “How to deliver on the promise of tech that can provide benefits for people and society in a way that minimises harm”.

This sentiment was echoed throughout the day. Kate Rosenshine, data architect at Microsoft reminded us that data is not unbiased and inclusivity and fairness are critical to data-driven decision-making. She quoted Cathy Bessant, CTO of Bank of America:

Technologists cannot lose sight of how algorithms affect real people."

Driverless cars raise so many ethical questions. Here are just a few of them.; San Diego Union-Tribune, March 23, 2018

Lawrence M. Hinman, San Diego Union-Tribune; Driverless cars raise so many ethical questions. Here are just a few of them.

"Even more troubling will be the algorithms themselves, even if the engineering works flawlessly. How are we going to program autonomous vehicles when they are faced with a choice among competing evils? Should they be programmed to harm or kill the smallest number of people, swerving to avoid hitting two people but unavoidably hitting one? (This is the famous “trolley problem” that has vexed philosophers and moral psychologists for over half a century.)

Should your car be programmed to avoid crashing into a group of schoolchildren, even if that means driving you off the side of a cliff? Most of us would opt for maximizing the number of lives saved, except when one of those lives belongs to us or our loved ones.

These are questions that take us to the heart of the moral life in a technological society. They are already part of a lively and nuanced discussion among philosophers, engineers, policy makers and technologists. It is a conversation to which the larger public should be invited.

The ethics of dealing with autonomous systems will be a central issue of the coming decades."

Rethinking Ethics Training in Silicon Valley; The Atlantic, May 26, 2017

Irina Raicu, The Atlantic; Rethinking Ethics Training in Silicon Valley

"I work at an ethics center in Silicon Valley.

I know, I know, “ethics” is not the first word that comes to mind when most people think of Silicon Valley or the tech industry. It’s probably not even in the top 10. But given the outsized role that tech companies now play, it’s time to focus on the ethical responsibilities of the technologists who help shape our lives.

In a recent talk, technologist Maciej Ceglowski argued that “[t]his year especially there’s an uncomfortable feeling in the tech industry that we did something wrong, that in following our credo of ‘move fast and break things,’ some of what we knocked down were the load-bearing walls of our democracy.”...

I work in an applied ethics center, and we do believe that technology can help democracy (we offer a free ethical-decision-making app, for example; we even offer a MOOC—a free online course—on ethical campaigning!). For it to do that, though, we need people who are ready to tackle the ethical questions—both within and outside of tech companies."