The Ethics of Technology

An organization that I’ve been connected with over the past year is called the Information and Communication Technology Council. Their mandate is to “Strengthen Canada’s digital advantage in a global economy.” Essentially, they make it so that our understanding of technology is heightened, and the ways that we interact and use our technology are as effective and efficient as possible. Essentially, they also want to help you Organize your Digital Life 🙂. I was contacted by the person in the ICTC with whom I’ve had some exciting conversations. He mentioned that they were having a conference about two people who wrote a paper called “Responsible innovation in Canada and Beyond; Understanding and Improving the Social Impacts of Technology.” He said that two of the authors of the report were going to be there to answer questions and talk about their paper. He then asked me if I would like to join…I mean, how could I say no?

I was given a copy of the report and was told that it was embargoed until the conference date (which made me feel so cool….like I’m a spy with top-secret material on my hands….cue the bond theme). I went to the conference (which was a Microsoft Teams meeting, to be clear), and it was great. The two authors that were there, Faun Rice and Mairead Mathews, did a great job talking about their paper, and when I asked a question, they did a great job of explaining their point of view. In reading the article, I was able to take a few points that they raised and formulate my own opinion.

1) Private vs. Public Regulation – It should be no surprise that there needs to be some regulation level in the Tech Industry. The question becomes where should it come from? One of the arguments that the study makes is that if it comes from the tech industry itself, it’s entirely possible that there could be some level of “ethics-washing” where the regulation could only be made to benefit the companies themselves. Even if the regulations that the Tech industry forces itself to follow are for the benefit of the end-users, there will be those who believe that they would not be. On the other side of the regulations are done by those in public office; you need to consider those in power’s political leanings. The other aspect of allowing politics to regulate the tech industry is that they cannot regulate beyond their borders. Any country’s policy would have to be accepted by all (or have a similar law ratified by all). Without united ratification by all nations, then there will always be loopholes to any policies made to limit what the Tech industry could do. What I think needs to happen is that there needs to be a combination of both Government AND tech industry leaders who are willing to allow regulations in their industry. Luckily for me, the authors of the paper agree with me.

2) Diversity – Before all this Pandemic stuff happened, I remember going to a cybersecurity conference where many different (and techie) things were discussed. One of the things that struck me was that there were only about two women in the audience in a room of about 50 or so people. This struck me quite particularly because I’d listened to one of my tech podcasts the day before where the podcasters (one man, one woman, I should specify) were discussing how less than 10% of tech workers are female. I think the tech industry must have all kinds of people with all sorts of backgrounds. Gender, ethnicity, nationality; it’s all-important to make sure that the programs we have and the written code are done by multiple people. There are loads of articles written about cultural bias, so to counter it, we need to include as many different people as possible.

3) Technological anticipation – I like many of you, see the ads on Facebook. Sometimes the ads that I see are for things that I would never use. Sometimes, I talked about it with my wife that afternoon, which even I admit, is a little creepy. This is because an algorithm was put into place which was supposed to learn your preferences, The problem that the engineers who built it didn’t anticipate is that no one ever told it to stop. This once simple bit of code has morphed into something that I don’t believe even the designers could have anticipated. It’s essential for those designing software and all of the updates that we take into account what overall effect (as much as humanly possible) will be on the end-users who will be using their products.

Similarly, It’s important for tech developers to come up with some stop measures for commands that are a bit vague, like “learn the user’s preferences.” I watched a documentary on Netflix called “The Social Dilemma,” which talks about this in much better detail than I can. It’s an interesting thing to watch, and I’d recommend checking it out.

4) Tech Education – There is no greater weapon against ignorance than education. It’s important that staying informed and knowing how to use the technology you have access to correctly. From an end-user standpoint, there are loads of things that you can do in order to ensure that your technology is up to date and usable. Ensuring that you do the updates pushed out to you by App developers, updating your anti-virus software, making sure that your passwords are complex enough that they are not easily guessed; these are all things that will make your tech safer and easy to use. The article is also talking about standardizing certifications within the tech industry. There must be a series of recognized credentials and certifications that anyone in the industry can recognize. This will make it so that we know who knows what.

Technology is everywhere. It’s all around us, it’s in our hands, in our ears, and everywhere we go. It’s important, therefore, to discuss how to make technology ethically sound and equally usable for all. While I know that nearly everyone can gain access to a smartphone, tablet or computer, the use of such devices can, in many cases, be regulated to just the one device in your house. I personally believe that we are on the cusp of a smart home/smart city advancement, which will be a quantum leap in how we live our lives with technology. This could mean that the technology around us could help us advance our lives even more than we can imagine now. This is great because many of the things that we do now will become easier, but that’s only if they are programmed properly by qualified people who are looking out for all of us. The discussion about the Ethics of Technology has never been more important.

What do you think?

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