Building More Ethical Tech by Reducing Ethical Debt

Zoombombing, Cambridge Analytica, AI bias, misinformation, hate speech…when tech companies and researchers come under fire, people wonder: why are they not thinking about potential harms? Unintended consequences of technology are a significant social issue, and when we “move fast and break things” it’s ethical considerations that often get pushed to the side. Like technical debt, the implied cost of future bug fixes when we rush to release technology, ethical debt is what we accumulate when we don’t consider ethical and social implications during the design process. How can we help technologists speculate about the future? Also how might we understand real impacts of technological harms on everyone, and give everyone the knowledge and tools to be more critical of technology? Join the Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity on March 1, 2022 as we welcome Casey Fiesler for a moderated discussion with Professor Yafit Lev-Aretz, Director of the Robert Zicklin Center’s Program on Tech Ethics.