Responsible Tech Online Mixer - March 16 Summary
All Tech Is Human’s March 16th Responsible Tech Online Mixer was summarized and written by Andy McAdams, who has been involved with All Tech Is Human as a volunteer. Andy is a Senior Product Leader and Tech Ethicist at VMware Carbon Black in the Security Business Unit. He also writes a legal and business column for a video game website, MassivelyOP.com.
If you are interested in learning more about volunteer opportunities with All Tech Is Human please reach out at hello@alltechishuman.org!
On March 16th, All Tech is Human held a virtual, online mixer that brought together organizational leaders and public interest technologists from many different companies to have a quick 45 minute discussion about some of the most pressing issues facing technology today. Over 130 attendees came together to discuss 7 different topics ranging from surveillance tech to healthcare.
The mixer opened with a brief welcome from the All Tech Is Human founder, David Ryan Polgar, who welcomed everyone and set the stage for our discussions before diving into the breakout rooms. At the end of the event, everyone joined back into the main room for a brief final message from David.
The first group discussed Surveillance Tech, Predictive Tech, and Criminal Justice. The conversation covered negative impacts of surveillance, particularly on historically marginalized communities. The group dove into how these negative consequences result in reinforcing historical inequities instead of solving them – such as how predictive tech often ends up over-policing historically marginalized communities. The group wrapped up with a brief discussion about how AI could enable and empower authoritarian regimes to further oppress their people.
The next group tackled Autonomous Weapons and Cybersecurity. The discussion opened with the amount of data cybersecurity companies have on people, and the potential for abusing that data. The group then dove into current events and the war in Ukraine. They discussed the use of autonomous weapons and what happens when there are biases in the algorithms used to train these weapons. The discussion closed with a philosophical discussion of what exactly AI could turn into and how much agency people have to influence that transformation.
The third group discussed Automated Decision-Making systems and Civil Rights, such as Financial access and credit scores, recruitment and hiring, educational assessments, and risk scoring. The group started with a discussion on external versus internal auditing for automated-decision making. The group then went deeper on the topic of automated recruitment and hiring decisions, and focused around the core topic of the issue being about optimization. They wrapped up with discussing some potential solutions, like opting out of automated systems as a step to mitigate the harm of these automated systems.
Next up, the topic was Deepfakes and Democracy. The discussion opened with a light discussion on the nature of spirituality and truth and how deepfakes can challenge our ideology and morals by shaking our understanding of what is true. The group used this as a jumping point to explore what types of solutions the community should explore, and broadly - who should be responsible for these mitigations and solutions? The group closed with questions about “distributed identity” and what the metaverse means for deepfakes, democracy and our understanding of truth.
Another group discussed Content Moderation in responsible tech. The group asked the question, “Who gets to decide what is legitimate use and why? How does accountability and oversight work?” The group came up with ideas about a participatory model for moderation. Then, the discussion upleveled to ask the question of, “Should people even be connected at this scale?” The group discussed the challenges with who to ‘trust’ in content moderation, as people distrust most authority institutions. The group ended the discussion with questions about the balance between manual and automated moderation, and how to ensure policymakers understand the impacts of their decisions.
Healthcare was another topic of conversation for another group of attendees, with focuses on well-being and mental health, ethical frameworks, and privacy. They tackled themes of teenagers and mental health, as well as ‘digital addiction’ across all ages – from phone addiction among teams to Zoom fatigue. The group discussed the misunderstanding some folks have between limits, rules and regulations and the false equivalency of creating limits as a dynamic between censorship and free speech. The group ended with the acknowledgement that it’s difficult to have conversations that move us forward because there are so many people involved with so many different goals and backgrounds.
Finally, a group came together to discuss Pressing Human Rights issues in AI. This group covered a whole series of topics, most informed by the single question of “How can AI be used for good and for ill.” The group floated use cases like using AI to identify minors to help police sex trafficking, how age verification systems on websites and apps are ineffective to the need for a “digitized way of storing identities.” The group proposed a set of solutions to help make use of the benefits of the AI in some of these issues, while mitigating the harm.
All Tech Is Human is a non-profit organization committed to building the Responsible Tech pipeline; making it more diverse, multidisciplinary, and aligned with the public interest. We specialize in uniting a broad range of stakeholders focused on co-creating a better tech future. We have a range of activities, including a large Slack group for the community, mentorship program, job board, university ambassadors program, regular summits and livestreams, and a bi-monthly newsletter. Our flagship resource is our Responsible Tech Guide (pdf | site).
All Tech Is Human’s next livestream will happen on Wed, April 13th at 1pm for a frank discussion about breaking into the Responsible Tech ecosystem. Join us for Responsible Tech & Imposter Syndrome: Why All Backgrounds Need to be Involved. Sign up here.