Responsible AI: Bridging From Ethics to Practice
These recommendations are meant to increase reliability, safety, and trustworthiness while increasing the benefits of AI technologies.
Responsible AI: Bridging From Ethics to Practice Read MoreComputing & Technology
Generally covering the broad topics of computing and related technology.
The Unionization of Technology Companies
Tech unions represent a new twist on an existing form of worker organization, and they’re looking to disrupt the status quo of major tech companies like Google.
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‘Real’ Programming Is an Elitist Myth
When people build a database to manage reading lists or feed their neighbors, that’s coding—and culture.
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Americans and Digital Knowledge
A majority of U.S. adults can answer fewer than half the questions correctly on a digital knowledge quiz, and many struggle with certain cybersecurity and privacy questions.
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A Spreadsheet Way of Knowledge
A generation ago, a tool unleashed the power of business modeling—and created an entrepreneurial boom.
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Electronic Life: How to Think About Computers
Electronic Life was created as a layman’s guide to computers. It explained simply, concisely and without jargon what computers really are, how to choose them, how to use them, how to think about them, how to live with them, how to get them to help you, how to keep them in their place, how to enjoy them. It described step-by-step instructions on what to do when you first approach a new computer to sound advice on how to stop your computer from causing trouble in the family. His message: Don’t be afraid of them, they’re only machines, they’re here to make your life easier, and, what’s more, they can be a lot of fun.
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The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
The true, behind-the-scenes history of the people who built Silicon Valley and shaped Big Tech in America.
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She risked everything to expose Facebook. Now she’s telling her story.
Sophie Zhang, a former data scientist at Facebook, revealed that it enables global political manipulation and has done little to stop it.
She risked everything to expose Facebook. Now she’s telling her story. Read More
How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation
The company’s AI algorithms gave it an insatiable habit for lies and hate speech. Now the man who built them can’t fix the problem. [Not because he doesn’t want to, but because he is not allowed to as it would get in the way of profits.]
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What happens when you type a URL in the browser and press enter?
Although this seems like a very tedious prolonged process, we know that it takes less than seconds for a web page to render after we hit enter on our keyboard. All of these steps happen within milliseconds before we could even notice.
What happens when you type a URL in the browser and press enter? Read More
Life Without the Tech Giants
Maybe you’re in the camp of people who worry that these companies have too much access to our purchases, our movements, our social networks—and perhaps even our thoughts. Maybe you’re disturbed by the concentration of so much economic power in a handful of companies built on the West Coast’s fault lines. Or maybe you want them to have less insight into your life so they have less sway over our society. But how? How do you reduce their power? Is it even possible?
The common retort to these concerns is that you should “just stop using their services.” So I decided to try.
I Cut the ‘Big Five’ Tech Giants From My Life. It Was Hell
Over the course of five weeks, I blocked Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple one at a time, to find out how to live in the modern age without each one. To end my experiment, I’m going to see if I can survive blocking all five at once.
I Cut the ‘Big Five’ Tech Giants From My Life. It Was Hell Read More
Want to Really Block the Tech Giants? Here’s How
As consumers, we are afforded only a few avenues of acceptable dissent—the most reasonable of which is that, if you don’t like what a company is doing, you can move your money and data elsewhere. But increasingly this option is unavailable to us.
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China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works
“After two decades of Internet development under the Communist Party’s firm leadership, [China’s Internet czar, Lu Wei] said, his country had struck the correct balance between ‘freedom and order’ and between ‘openness and autonomy.’” – BEHIND THE FIREWALL: How China tamed the Internet | This is part 1 of 6 of a series examining the impact of China’s Great Firewall, a mechanism of Internet censorship and surveillance that affects nearly 700 million users.
China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works Read More
Internet activists are finding ways around China’s Great Firewall
“I hope one day I’ll live in a country where I have the freedom to write any code I like without fearing.” – BEHIND THE FIREWALL: How China tamed the Internet | This is part 2 of 6 of a series examining the impact of China’s Great Firewall, a mechanism of Internet censorship and surveillance that affects nearly 700 million users.
Internet activists are finding ways around China’s Great Firewall Read More
The Internet was supposed to foster democracy. China has different ideas.
“I just want freedom of speech without fear.” – BEHIND THE FIREWALL: How China tamed the Internet | This is part 3 of 6 of a series examining the impact of China’s Great Firewall, a mechanism of Internet censorship and surveillance that affects nearly 700 million users.
The Internet was supposed to foster democracy. China has different ideas. Read More
America wants to believe China can’t innovate. Tech tells a different story.
“The truth is that behind the Great Firewall — the system of censorship designed to block content that could challenge the Chinese Communist Party — China’s tech scene is flourishing in a parallel universe.” – BEHIND THE FIREWALL: How China tamed the Internet | This is part 4 of 6 of a series examining the impact of China’s Great Firewall, a mechanism of Internet censorship and surveillance that affects nearly 700 million users.
America wants to believe China can’t innovate. Tech tells a different story. Read More
China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone
“This is what China calls “Internet Plus,” but critics call a 21st-century police state.” – BEHIND THE FIREWALL: How China tamed the Internet | This is part 5 of 6 of a series examining the impact of China’s Great Firewall, a mechanism of Internet censorship and surveillance that affects nearly 700 million users.
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U.S. companies want to play China’s game. They just can’t win it.
“For some highflying U.S. Internet businesses, the China dream is fading; for others, it looks radically different from what they had hoped.” – BEHIND THE FIREWALL: How China tamed the Internet | This is part 6 of 6 of a series examining the impact of China’s Great Firewall, a mechanism of Internet censorship and surveillance that affects nearly 700 million users.
U.S. companies want to play China’s game. They just can’t win it. Read More
China’s vast Internet prison
In law and in practice, China is creating the world’s largest online thought prison. It turns the idea of the Internet as a force for freedom on its head, and as China goes, so go other tyrants. From Vietnam to Saudi Arabia, from Russia to Turkey, the age of Internet repression has blossomed.
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