Ethics in Technology

Even before the recent election-hacking indictments of Russian individuals and companies were delivered,  folks inside and outside the tech world were worrying about the market power of Google and Facebook. Their outsized presence shaped our social lives, politics, travel plans, and entertainment choices.

Lest we forget, Google and Facebook are advertising companies that rely on their sophisticated services (search, connections with friends, and cat videos) to capture our attention. A recent market analysis showed that the two accounted for two-thirds of digital advertising and 25 percent of all advertising worldwide.

Others are starting to catch on. George Soros, multi-billionaire investor and activist, regards Google and Facebook with the same alarm and disdain that he gives to coal companies: "Companies earn their profits by exploiting their environment. Mining and oil companies exploit the physical environment; social media companies exploit the social environment."

Can these companies redeem themselves? Soros thinks not, at least not without concerted govenment action. That action is most likely to come from the European Union, not from the US. The European Union has long regarded Google as a monopoly, just had it done with Microsoft years before. The EU perspective differs from the legal standard in the States. In the US, you have to demonstrate that a company used its market share unfairly; in the EU, being that big is cause for concern in and of itself.

It might be too late to fix the current crop of apps and services, not when Facebook's best avenue for verifying political advertisers is a postcard. Educators are hoping that the next generation of developers can do better. Harvard and MIT are offering a course, titled The Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence, that challenges students to think about the long-term legal, ethical, and human consequences of advanced systems. Similar courses at Stanford, Cornell, and NYU address the ethical issues in data science, autonomous vehicles, and crime prediction.

Whether we use these services or not, Google and Facebook are shaping our world in ways that even the very smart people at those companies didn't fully realize. We have a familiar conundrum: wealth and power versus ethics and policy. History shows us who tends to win.

What's New in the News Business?

I'm out walking the dog at seven in the morning. The guy delivering newspapers drives past. He makes one stop on our street, to one customer in our condo complex (not us).

My wife and I read the newspaper but read it online. I imagine that many of our neighbors do as well. I can also see the televisions that are on in the early morning and again around supper time. These are homes and condos with older people, though. 

According to the researchers at the Pew Research Lab, the decline in print readership is pretty much what you'd expect. There are, though, some noteworthy changes showing up.

Overall, people over 65 get the largest percentage of news from multiple sources: local, network, and cable television as well as newspapers. 

As more older people have access to online sources of news, they're using them. 

These are dramatic increases in a single year. We might fear or be angry about the increased amount of fake news that's coming at us by way of social media, but that doesn't appear to have stopped us from using those services. 

Augmented Reality Meets Art

I've been a fan of George Booth's New Yorker cartoons for a very long time. His sharp angles and sharper words make me smile. It would be nice to have some of his work hanging in my home office. 

Yep, there's an app for that.

Using the iPhone app from art.com, I can search for Booth's cartoons, as well as hundreds of other classic, kitschy, or cartoonish prints and see what they'd look like on my wall.

The app is free to use. You can then purchase the print with your choice of frame. 

Further, the product reviews and commentary reflect the opinion of yours truly and not necessarily of WISE, the Communications Committee, or others. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary. Semper ubi sub ubi. C₈H₁₀N₄O₂;.