Digital Ethics

To my fellow Googlers, I want to start by saying that my nearly five years at Google have been the happiest years of my life.

We cannot allow politicians to politicize medical treatments that are necessary to save lives.

The first public details of the secret voice analysis project emerged in a job advert seeking a £20-an-hour intelligence officer to work on the scheme at the NCA's headquarters in Vauxhall, South London.

Brad Smith says governments need to step in and set rules for the Internet giants. "Almost no technology has gone so entirely unregulated, for so long, as digital technology," he says.

Streaming services like Spotify offer up family plans which allows multiple users to enjoy a subscription at the same time at a cheaper rate. This is...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals shot down LinkedIn's claim that a company that was using its public facing data was violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

The @babylonhealth Chatbot has descended to a whole new level of incompetence, with #DeathByChatbot #GenderBias.Classic #HeartAttack symptoms in a FEMALE, results in a diagnosis of #PanicAttack or #Depression.The Chatbot ONLY suggests the possibility of a #HeartAttack in MEN! pic.twitter.com/M8ohPDx0LX— Dr Murphy (@DrMurphy11) September 8, 2019

A shockingly simple workaround allows your followers to share private photos and videos posted to both Facebook and Instagram.

Regulators are growing more concerned about company’s impact on smaller companies striving to compete in Google’s markets

A new report from Apple contractors reveals that, allegedly, Apple deliberately set out to make Siri as neutral as possible with regards to recent events like MeToo — in spite of her being a focal point in the conversation about the gender politics in voice assistants. The Guardian reports Apple had an internal project to rewrite […]

Exclusive: voice assistant’s responses were rewritten so it never says word ‘feminism’

By harnessing these technologies in tandem, the study's authors could mine over 120,000 public legal records and then use an algorithm to identify connections between them.

The information was stored in an online server that was not password protected, according to a report from TechCrunch

In case you haven't heard, #ZAO is a Chinese app which completely blew up since Friday. Best application of 'Deepfake'-style AI facial replacement I've ever seen. Here's an example of me as DiCaprio (generated in under 8 secs from that one photo in the thumbnail) 🤯 pic.twitter.com/1RpnJJ3wgT— Allan Xia (@AllanXia) September 1, 2019

When Google puts 4 paid ads ahead of the first organic result for your own brand name, you’re forced to pay up if you want to be found. It’s a shakedown. It’s ransom. But at least we can have fun with it. Search for Basecamp and you may see this attached ad. pic.twitter.com/c0oYaBuahL— Jason Fried (@jasonfried) September 3, 2019

Critics say face-swap app could spread misinformation on a massive scale

The dirty little secret is out about artificial intelligence. No, not the one about machines taking over the world. That’s an old one. This one is more insidious. Data scientists, AI experts and others have long suspected it would be a problem. But it’s only within the last couple of years, as AI or some …

This article is based on Rachel Thomas’s keynote presentation, “Analyzing & Preventing Unconscious Bias in Machine Learning” at QCon.ai 2018. Thomas talks about the pitfalls and risk the bias in machine learning brings to the decision-making process. She discusses three use cases of machine learning bias.

Filtering content is often done with good intent, but filtering can also create equity and privacy issues.

🗑 I’d rather not have the trash bin know me personally @jblefevre60 #facialrecognition #ai #ml #recycling pic.twitter.com/QrUKxGXOCZ— Evan Kirstel (@evankirstel) September 1, 2019

just learned with horror that deleting any of the "family" emojis in google slides does not remove the emoji, but rather kills off each individual family member one by one, starting with the children pic.twitter.com/0v2s8Bx91n— Brooke Watson (@brookLYNevery1) August 29, 2019

In the aftermath of yet another mass shooting in America, loved ones grieve, gun control advocates call for common-sense reforms, and politicians suggest new “solutions” that won’t do anything about guns. These proposals frequently focus on mental health, but a new plan before the White House to monitor “neurobehavioral” predictors of violence isn’t just misguided, it’s terrifyingly dystopian.

What a mischievous technique to trick people into giving in all the data by accidentally clicking the wrong click of action. / cc: @harrybrhttps://t.co/oJUKIOiP09 pic.twitter.com/y3sGqtGpZt— Smashing Magazine (@smashingmag) August 30, 2019

[Update 08/20/2019: This project has 2 open positions for UROPs/visiting students or interns. One position focuses around electrical engineering, another one...

Developing a sector-specific ethics framework without being overwhelmed by the AI ethics explosion

Ring has disclosed that it has inked deals with 405 agencies to "facilitate conversations around crime and safety among all members of the community."

Law enforcement agencies are increasingly using predictive policing systems to forecast criminal activity and allocate police resources. Yet in numerous jurisdi

New normal — At least twice a month I have clients denied entry because of something in their WhatsApp. Most of the time its pictures or videos forwarded to them in a WhatsApp Group. Many tools being used to stop immigrants from legally entering. pic.twitter.com/ewIUswSCsy— Abed A. Ayoub (@aayoub) August 22, 2019

As smart speaker makers such as Amazon improve emotion-detecting AI, researchers are coming up with ways to protect our privacy.