Making Digital Ethics a Priority for Organizations
An interesting article detailing some of the work being explored around Digital Ethics in India. Their conclusion coincides with our own observations that: ”The problem is, leaders seldom develop an overall approach to the ethical impacts of technology use and more so, companies fail to consider technology to be their core business, even as they increasingly rely on advanced digital and physical technologies to run their day-to-day operations.”
Indeed, we urge boards and their executive teams to begin putting in place frameworks that take into account their activities in designing and implementing technologies, and how such technologies impact their stakeholders.
At CFU, we continue to work with investors and their boards in developing such self-governing frameworks.
Intelligence Squared Debate: We Must Stop Big Data’s Pandemic Power Grab
A telling debate highlighting the trade-offs between privacy and certain aspects of public health improvement.
The key takeaways points are: who actually gets access to which data? How is it anonymised? Are there any sunset provisions on access to the data? Is wide-ranging data sharing justified for niche health outcomes? How are various health outcomes attributed to data, versus for instance lab testing, in order to justify and finesse its use?
These are questions that companies providing such services will increasingly need to address with stakeholders, in order to have a social license to operate.
Robots May Soon Be Able to Reproduce – Will This Change How We Think About Evolution?
Even as AI is starting to code itself, there appears to be a growing corollary with robots soon able to reproduce. This raises a host of questions regarding human utility, interaction with – and interdependence on – technology, as well as societies’ psychological and cultural acceptance of technologies’ growing role within them.
It also highlights the fact that while most of the attention is on digital aspects of tech, there is also physical technological progress contributing to an emerging body of artificial ‘life.’
These developments will require governance frameworks that ensure they serve equitable human advancement and prosperity.
Amazon Faces MPs’ Scrutiny After Destroying Laptops, Tablets and Books
Product recycling for tech businesses is the next bastion of environmental focus. Some tech firms are starting to make inroads, while others are lagging.
Investigations highlighting failures such as this one underline the need for industry-wide frameworks and collaboration, aimed at creating economies of scale around optimal solutions.
Blaston Reverses Facebook’s VR Ad Testing After Backlash
Quite interesting to see how backlash from consumers can drive modifications to the business models of both apps (Blaston) and their platforms (Facebook), especially in the emerging world of Virtual Reality.
In this instance, the customers provided strident feedback regarding advertising in paid-for apps: the quid pro quo being that it has become increasingly acceptable to be marketed at – if something is for free, but not in a paid-for service.
The question remains whether grabbing attention and eyeballs, and the advertising model they play to, is viable societally. This is particularly of significance where the well-to-do can buy their way out of tracking, profiling and marketing, while those with less economic wherewithal are left having to pay by being bombarded (in increasingly subtle ways) with adverts for potentially addictive products and services.