John Naughton, The Guardian; Are big tech’s efforts to show it cares about data ethics another diversion?
"No less a source than Gartner, the technology analysis company, for
example, has also sussed it and indeed has logged “data ethics” as one
of its top 10 strategic trends for 2019...
Google’s half-baked “ethical” initiative is par for the tech course
at the moment. Which is only to be expected, given that it’s not really
about morality at all. What’s going on here is ethics theatre modelled
on airport-security theatre – ie security measures that make people feel more secure without doing anything to actually improve their security.
The
tech companies see their newfound piety about ethics as a way of
persuading governments that they don’t really need the legal regulation
that is coming their way. Nice try, boys (and they’re still mostly
boys), but it won’t wash.
Postscript: Since this column was written, Google
has announced that it is disbanding its ethics advisory council – the
likely explanation is that the body collapsed under the weight of its
own manifest absurdity."
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