Managing the Unintended Consequences of Technology

 Aaron Frank
 -
Nov 20, 2018
https://singularityhub.com/2018/11/20

Last month, I attended the first annual Unintended Consequences of Technology

(or UCOT) in San Francisco. I can’t say enough about the high quality of the content or the
importance and timeliness of the topics discussed. The attendees were a fascinating
collection of entrepreneurs, business executives, journalists, policy-thinkers, human rights
activists, artists and entertainers, students, and academics.
The goal of the event, as far as I could tell, was to facilitate a thoughtful conversation
about the role of advancing information technologies, the role of the internet in the 21st
century, and some of the (mainly negative) unintended consequences of emerging
technologies—even and especially those developed by well-intentioned technologists and
innovators. The event never entered a state of panicked dystopia, and most of the speakers
explicitly articulated that they are not “anti-technology.”
However, and as one speaker, John Powell, Director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and
Inclusive Society at Cal Berkeley put it, “technology will not save us.” This was a key
theme of the day.
Ultimately, it was stressed by many of the presenters that humanity is living through a
dangerous and precarious moment. As was pointed out many times, all of the technologies
discussed (AI, data science, social media, etc.) have the potential to (and do often) provide
great benefit, but they are not without their risks to society.
Partially as a result of developments in technology, we’re living through a rise in global
instability and an increase in threats stemming from issues like rampant misinformation
online, biased and discriminatory algorithms, unemployment due to technological
advancements, a lack of effective government structures, wealth inequality, a rise in
authoritarianism and surveillance capabilities, and recommendation engines that nudge
users in the direction of extreme content.
And yet, through all of these emergencies, there are real and practical ways to address
these issues. A significant portion of many of the speakers’ talks focused on the ways in
which society might address the problems described.
Here are some insights and solutions from the conference.
#1. Hire a more diverse workforce, especially in the field of technology
Currently, there is a lack of diversity in the hiring of AI and data science practitioners. Not
unrelated, we’re seeing an issue with the development of biased algorithms that
discriminate (largely against people of color and especially women of color).
Tess Posner, CEO of AI 4 All, spoke on these issues and recommended that companies
increase their focus on diversity and inclusion in their hiring. She argued that there really
isn’t an excuse anymore—for example, the excuse that the talent pipeline doesn’t exist—
since several organizations (including her own) are developing these talent pipelines for
women and minorities.
#2. De-bias your data sets
There was a focus on the issue of biased and discriminatory data sets, which yield biased
and discriminatory algorithms. These algorithms can (and have) caused real harm in the
world. If we live in a world where society has inherent biases, then data sets will often
reflect those biases. Machine learning algorithms trained with those data sets will then
reproduce the same biases found in society.
Kathy Baxter, a researcher at Salesforce focused on ethical AI, gave a great presentation on
the topic, and delivered practical insights for what to do about it. You can read her work on
medium here (and especially this article).
#3. Consider dropping four-year degree requirements and use competency-based
hiring frameworks instead
Yscaira Jimenez, CEO of LaborX, explained that two-thirds (a significant majority) of the
US workforce does not have a four-year degree. That’s a massive opportunity and a large
talent pool that many companies are failing to use in seeking out highly creative and
effective employee candidates. Tools like LaborX are looking to address the challenges
companies have in finding talented candidates from non-traditional backgrounds.
#4. Make education and workforce retraining as addictive as Facebook
And speaking of finding qualified candidates for unfilled roles, “We are headed for an
education and workforce re-training nightmare,” said Bryan Talebi, CEO and Co-Founder
of AhuraAI. He shared that in 12 years, some estimates expect that upwards of 38 percent
of today’s existing jobs could be lost to automation.
AhuraAI is working to leverage AI to personalize education and workforce re-training to
make learning as appealing and stimulating as social media. If we’re going to retrain a
workforce at the speed of automated job loss going forward, we’ll need to use these tools
to make education addictive.
#5. Become better, more responsible, and media-literate sharers of information online
Dan Gillmor, a professor of journalism at Arizona State University, argued that while it’s
certainly important for businesses like Google, Facebook, and Twitter to recognize the role
they play in the spreading of misinformation and targeted propaganda online, we the
people should not look to these organizations to, alone, solve these issues for us.
As consumers and sharers of information on the internet, we need to develop integrity and
media literacy in how we operate online. This is about upgrading us, he said, and not
looking to the platform companies to upgrade themselves (though they should do that too).
Gillmor has written about these issues on his medium page, (and specifically here, here,
and here).
One thing he noted: if you get caught posting or sharing something you learn is a spoof,
acknowledge it publicly. (I guess I’ll start—I shared the fake shark on the highway
image during Hurricane Harvey. I’m not proud of that—but here we are).
And it’s probably worth mentioning that these issues are poised to worsen with the
development of new technologies like the so-called Deepfakes, a technology first reported
by journalist Samantha Cole at Motherboard.
Another speaker who emphasized the seriousness of the issues ahead was Aviv Ovadya,
the former chief technologist at the Center for Social Media Responsibility. I highly
recommend this Buzzfeed profile by Charlie Warzel. It’s a sobering read.
#6. Companies should develop a product impact advisory board
Ovadya’s presentation was one of the most eye-opening of the day, but he also left the
audience with what seemed like a very tangible, reasonable, and practical solution—that
companies should employ something like a product impact advisory board. This panel of
external experts would have the job of exploring and advising a product development team
on the unintended harms of the products they are building. This external board would not
have the ability to make product changes themselves, but would be there to inform.
Ovadya made the point that, ultimately, companies should elevate the negative
consequences of their technologies to the same level of urgency that legal and security
issues are afforded today.
By the end of the day, the audience had heard from a wide variety of speakers on a range
of topics (and I forgot to mention Roderick Jones’s fascinating question about whether the
second amendment applies to cyberspace—should citizens be able to own their own cyber-
weapons online?) and explored many of the unintended consequences of new technologies.
It was fascinating to note how many of the suggested solutions are reliant on the same
technologies that are creating the issues and threats in the first place. It’s often pointed out
(as was true of this event) that technologies aren’t themselves good or bad—it’s how we
use them.
The problem then seems to be that we don’t need better technologies, but rather first we
need to become better humans. So let’s just do that…