Event Description
For eighty years, digital technology visionaries have imagined and created systems to support human knowledge, learning, creativity, medicine, health, communications, community, commerce, power, and convenience. Yet these advances have been subverted by ill-advised uses and by bad actors creating hate speech, disinformation, job loss and industry disruption, monopolistic abuse of market dominance, helplessness, mental distress, injustice, loss of privacy, and poor security and safety. These nightmares seem overwhelming, but there is much that we can do, much that we must do.
As digital technology professionals, we can focus on computer science applications in the service of good. We can anticipate how our creations may be subverted by poor design or bad actors and adjust our plans accordingly. Throughout our careers, we can be guided by our conscience and by ethics. Looking outwards, we can educate people to better understand digital technologies and their uses and misuses. We can aid citizens seeking to avoid adverse consequences of tech deployment. As professionals, we can seek systems and standards of effective education and accountability. Finally, we can work with governments to ensure appropriate legislation and enforcement.
Event Speaker
Ronald Baecker, Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto
Event Information
Free and open to the public. For more information, please visit the event webpage or email Steven Feiner at [email protected].
Hosted by the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University.
