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."
Showing posts with label Google's Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google's Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC). Show all posts
Monday, April 8, 2019
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Hey Google, sorry you lost your ethics council, so we made one for you; MIT Technology Review, April 6, 2019
Bobbie Johnson
and
Gideon Lichfield, MIT Technology Review; Hey Google, sorry you lost your ethics council, so we made one for you
"Well, that didn’t take long. After little more than a week, Google backtracked on creating its Advanced Technology External Advisory Council, or ATEAC—a committee meant to give the company guidance on how to ethically develop new technologies such as AI. The inclusion of the Heritage Foundation's president, Kay Coles James, on the council caused an outcry over her anti-environmentalist, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-immigrant views, and led nearly 2,500 Google employees to sign a petition for her removal. Instead, the internet giant simply decided to shut down the whole thing.
How did things go so wrong? And can Google put them right? We got a dozen experts in AI, technology, and ethics to tell us where the company lost its way and what it might do next. If these people had been on ATEAC, the story might have had a different outcome."
"Well, that didn’t take long. After little more than a week, Google backtracked on creating its Advanced Technology External Advisory Council, or ATEAC—a committee meant to give the company guidance on how to ethically develop new technologies such as AI. The inclusion of the Heritage Foundation's president, Kay Coles James, on the council caused an outcry over her anti-environmentalist, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-immigrant views, and led nearly 2,500 Google employees to sign a petition for her removal. Instead, the internet giant simply decided to shut down the whole thing.
How did things go so wrong? And can Google put them right? We got a dozen experts in AI, technology, and ethics to tell us where the company lost its way and what it might do next. If these people had been on ATEAC, the story might have had a different outcome."
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