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Welcome back! Now that our unannounced hiatus is over, let's dig into this week's issue. 2021 seems to provide a never-ending stream of tech ethics news, and this issue is a bit of a potpourri of recent topics that have come across our desks.

This week: How social media is replacing local newspapers. Why the power structures created by mass surveillance are problematic. The New Californian Ideology, and why white supremacy is being baked into our technology. And the unintended side-effects of productivity technology.

As always, you can find back issues of The Ethical Technologist in the archives. And if you found this issue thought-provoking and informative, please share with your friends and colleagues!

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This week we're doing things a little differently. The big news of the last week is GameStop, or more specifically, the fact that large numbers of people engaged in a coordinated effort to artificially inflate the price of GameStop stock, with…difficult to comprehend consequences.

So, in lieu of our regular curated content, our own Chip Hollingsworth has stepped up to help us navigate this complex and multi-faceted situation with a detailed primer to the players and moves in this astonishing game.

If you have a recommendation for a theme, or an article you've seen recently that you think I ought to share, please do let me know. You can reply to this email, or hit me up on Twitter

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2021 is the year that keeps on giving. Between Redditors manipulating the stock market to kill off a hedge fund (expect an in-depth analysis from Chip next issue!), and the battle for the definition of "open source" heating up as Amazon Web Services and Elastic trade shots, we just can't catch a break.

This week: A new kind of open source; how open source was designed to discriminate; the myth of organic content; how social media has created a new concentration of power; and how Adobe single-handed shut down a Chinese railroad.

If you have a recommendation for a theme, or an article you've seen recently that you think I ought to share, please do let me know. You can reply to this email, or hit me up on Twitter

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Last week, white supremacists and nazis stormed the American capitol building; this week, everyone is wondering how we got to this point. It's safe to say that there has been a fair amount of enabling within the tech world. We should take advantage of this moment to reflect on what we can do with our own tech platforms. We have a lot to reckon with as creators of technology, and a responsibility to recognize that all code is political.

In this issue: Why de-platforming Parler is not enough, what free speech even is, the consequences of speaking out against actual nazis, and how identifying insurrectionists isn't enough to rehabilitate facial recognition's bad rap.

If you have a recommendation for a theme, or an article you've seen recently that you think I ought to share, please do let me know. You can reply to this email, or hit me up on Twitter

Welcome to 2021!

We've crossed over into the new year, yet barely one week in and it seems determined to best last year. As I write this, white supremacists empowered by algorithms that amplify their hate have stormed the American capitol building, with what appears to be the aid of the capitol police. I'm saddened and I'm angry, but I'm writing this and sending it out anyway. Because these events are a stark reminder that we in tech have a massive responsibility to think very carefully about the tools we create, and what those tools can be harnessed to accomplish.

In this issue: Is your product ripe for abuse?, 0-indexed arrays and the habits of the wealthy, Facebook silences it employees, The double-edged sword that is Section 230, how calling startups "cults" reinforces the status quo, and Google's homophobic advertising AI.

If you have a recommendation for a theme, or an article you've seen recently that you think I ought to share, please do let me know. You can reply to this email, or hit me up on Twitter

Welcome back!

This week, Chip and I take you on a tour of the hidden decisions that guide our lives in unseen ways. We rely on streaming TV, social media, and online banks, but we have so little insight into how these thing work and the influence they have over our lives. Computerized algorithms only obscure the influences even more, as decisions are taken out of human hands. It's not the algorithms themselves that are to blame, but the lack of transparency around how they work, and how they are deployed. This lack of transparency, as we'll see in today's issue, is unjust. This is why efforts to create transparency, like those by the cities of Amsterdam and Helsinki, are so important.

In this issue: Ethical smart phones, Facebook's doomsday machine, fighting the hidden oppression of automated credit scores, the concentration of power in media, and the hidden incentive structure driving QAnon.

If you have a recommendation for a theme, or an article you've seen recently that you think I ought to share, please do let me know. You can reply to this email, or hit me up on Twitter

Howdy again!

This week Chip and I delve deep into the world of bias and artificial intelligence, and how those who profit from this technology work to shape public discourse.

One of my first academic talks, so long ago when I was an undergraduate torn between AI work and philosophy, was a critique of Francis Bacon’s Instauratio magna. Bacon was one of the earliest proponents of this newfangled thing called "method", and he saw method (or what we might today recognize as "algorithm") as foundational to eliminating human bias from scientific judgments. His work formed the basis of what we now are taught as the "scientific method", but he was especially keen on issues of classification—something that biologists had recently started doing. Classification was seen as extracting objective, abstract truths about the universe from individual observations, and the scientists of the era believed the practice gave them unique and unbiased insight into God’s creation.

I was therefore struck during my studies by the first chapter of my undergraduate machine learning textbook, which emphasized that classification cannot proceed without bias. To decide when two things are different, or are the same, you need to first decide which features are important, how to measure those features, and what differences in measurement constitute "difference" vs merely "variation". There can be no classification without bias. Jorge Luis Borges touches on this same point, some forty years before that moment, in his short story "Fuñes the Memorious", about a boy who retains perfect memory of everything he encounters, and thus loses the ability to discern abstractions: He cannot create or understand classifications, because all he sees are an infinitude of differences.

Howdy, and welcome back.

The Ethical Technologist is back from a much-needed autumn holiday break. And as promised, we return with a newsletter full of reader submissions. We received quite a number of carefully considered reading material that we're excited to share with you this week.

And, on that note, I'm not using the royal "we" in the paragraph above. Starting with this issue, I'm proud to announce a new collaborator on the Ethical Technologist team, Chip Hollingsworth.

Allow me to introduce myself as your new co-editor. My name is Chip Hollingsworth. Like Don, I wear many hats: I hold Master's degrees in both Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence, I worked for several years as a software engineer, and I'm currently a data analyst. One thing that struck me in the move from the academic world to the tech world is how little introspection there is in the tech industry regarding their goals and methods. All too often, metrics like "clicks" or "engagement" are taken as self-evident goods, and virtually any methods of reaching those goals are given approval. When I saw that my friend Don had started a newsletter on ethics in technology, I was excited; when he asked me to help out, I was honored.

Howdy all,

Last week was a stressful time for many Americans like myself, and honestly, I just need some time to recover and catch my breath. I haven't been reading much as a result, so, this week's missive is going to be different.

Instead of the usual curated list, I want to discuss two items I recently ran across, two items that really grabbed my attention, and left me thinking about them long after I put them down. Two essays that ask difficult ethical questions, but that couldn't be more different in their approach to answering them.

As always, you can find back issues of The Ethical Technologist in the archives. And if you found this issue thought-provoking and informative, don't forget to share!

The US presidential election is coming up fast—it's tomorrow! In cycles past, I would stay glued to daily coverage, lapping up polls and analysis, watching each debate, and even hosting election night parties. It was exhilarating…but anxiety-inducing.

So this time, for my own mental health, I've tried not to let too much in. It's not clear the news and the polls and the analysis are useful to me in my day-to-day life, except to bring me anxiety. Even so, it's hard not to feel anxious at this late hour, with so much more at stake than before.

And this year, we've seen something only hinted at four years ago: The disinformation machine has really come out in force. If you've spent much time on social media (or dealt with relatives spending too much time on social media), you've encountered bots…whether you know it or not. We're entering a new era where bot networks are becoming more sophisticated, but out ability and our tools for spotting fakes have not really kept up. It's something we've never had to deal with before, and we're going to need technology at least as sophisticated to uncover disinformation to help us sort fake news and distracting narratives.

In this issue: A new era of disinformation, and how to fight it; what happens when critical open source packages are decommissioned without a good replacement; how hackers are increasingly relying on open source exploits; and a new reading list of open source critique.

Welcome back! Well, I suppose it's me that's been gone, not you so much. After my week off, I've got another selection of long-form reads from around the world of tech and ethics. This weeks topics range from how our appetite for electronics has helped create a terrifying radioactive lake in China, to a surprise (and welcome) twist in the world of facial recognition technology.

In this issue:

• The radioactive lake
• Extinguishing the empathy response
• Just walk away
• Watching the watchers

If you have a recommendation for a theme, or an article you've seen recently that you think I ought to share, please do let me know. You can reply to this email, or hit me up on Twitter

Hello, and welcome back to The Ethical Technologist. I don’t know about you, but it really feels like things are coming to head, for better or worse. On one hand, we’re well into a second wave of COVID here in the Netherlands where I live. On the other, Election Day in America will soon be upon us, and it looks like maybe Trump has caused enough problems to cost him the election. And certainly the warm weather is very over: The change of season from summer to autumn is always welcome to me.

There’s no particular theme to this week’s issue; the topics range from surveillance capitalism to high-speed trains, from racist chatbots to colorzing the historical record. As always I hope you find them thought-provoking.

In this issue:

It's time for the next issue of The Ethical Technologist! Autumn is upon us. The leaves are turning, jackets and sweaters are being pulled from storage, and tired jokes about pumpkin spice are being dusted off. It's my favorite time of the year.

But it feels like this past week has been full of bad news in the tech world and beyond, doesn't it? So for this week, I've tried to search out some good news, or at least items that are not obviously bad news. I have to admit, it's not been easy. Some of this week's features are ugly. So it goes. If you have read some encouraging news relating to ethics in tech, I'd love to hear more, and feature it in the next issue!

In this issue:

• Transparency in AI Algorithms
• Disruption is a Distraction
• Building Consensus in Open Source
• Algorithmic Sexism
• Using Analog Technologies to Improve a Digital World

Hello and welcome back to The Ethical Technologist! As a software developer, I spend a lot of time thinking about open source software, and I've had the privilege to watch it grow from a small movement into a major economic force. Like many technologies, open source came with a promise of social change, of making the world a better place. But with that growth has come a decreased emphasis on social justice, and an increased focus on economic efficiency. So it goes.

Thus, this week's issue has a loose theme of change. Below you'll find a collection of articles that examine how how the social meanings of technologies change over time, and how the technologies we create often end up serving the status quo whether we intend them to or not. They ask that we examine the technologies we build, and ask ourselves: How will this be used in the future, independently of the narrative I attach to it?

In this issue:

• When Search Algorithms Make Finding Things Harder
• Architecture as a Political Act
• Personal Computers Were Supposed to Set Us Free
• The Evolving Political Meaning of Open Source Software

Hello again, and welcome back!

Last week, Apple announced the first of its fall line up. It's always exciting to get a peak at the newest iPhones and Apple Watches, but as we're looking forward to new gadgets and devices, it's worth reflecting on what happens to our old ones. Most of us dutifully send our electronics off to be recycled at the end of their life. But what does recycling old electronics actually mean? The answer to this question is unfortunately not very encouraging.

So, this week's theme: The hidden issues that lay in our technology. From the unrecognized cost to recycle them, to the assumptions built into the software that runs them, there's a lot more to the technology we use than is apparent at first glance.

In this issue:

Hello again! One aspect of the tech business that I really love is that we think about our customers and our users not just as individuals who give us money or attention, but as a community. This kind of thinking really helps us to focus our priorities not just on increasing sales, but on lifting people up. Building a thriving, healthy community, as we know, is not easy; but tearing one apart is dead simple.

Thus, this issue's loose theme: Protecting our communities from harm. Whether we are in the process of deliberately building a community, or we are only discovering that one exists after the fact, the technology we build has an impact on people, and sometimes that impact is harmful.

In this issue:

• Identifying toxic influencers who are tearing your community apart
• Valuing those who do the often invisible work of keeping things running
• How technology can be racist
• Don't let your fascination with technology distract you from how it impacts others
• How open source's implicit incentive structure encourages injustice

The Ethical Technologist

Howdy, and welcome back to the sophomore issue of The Ethical Technologist! In this issue I'm combining recent news along with insightful and influential pieces from as far back as 1995. The loose theme of this issue is the origins of techno-libertarianism and its influence on San Francisco/Silicon Valley tech culture. I'd consider some of these articles essential reading for understanding why so many influential tech leaders resist the idea that ethical thought has anything to offer. For them, injecting ethical reflection in the discourse is antithetical to progress. Where did that view come from? It's a complicated story, but well worth digging into.

So, this week! The history of chairs (yes, chairs) as a parable for a tech economy focused on apps designed to strip-mine us for our data. People are more susceptible to deepfakes than we knew, even bad ones. How counter-cultural San Francisco became the epicenter of techno-libertarianism. And how a catalog for organic farming (among other things) was the catalyst for that transformation. Finally, a new movement to rethink the way that tech startups can serve communities instead of VCs.

Howdy!

Welcome to the first ever issue of The Ethical Technologist! For this first issue, I selected several standout articles and Twitter threads that caught my attention this week; I didn't really intend on a theme, but one emerged nevertheless: That when we choose not to regulate our communities, powerful actors can easily game the system to their advantage—and to our disadvantage. The selections skew somewhat towards issues surrounding ethics and open source software, which is a particular passion of mine, but my overall aim for this newsletter is to create a conversation around ethics in tech more generally.

This week, explore: The history of a controversial new software license. How one economist's discovery explains why codes of conduct are not enough. What happens when you build a low-friction, anonymous chat platform. How extractive capitalism is destroying the very foundation of digital commons. And the shape of the coming post-open source revolution. Here, then, are five (five!) long-form reads, one for each day of the week.