This is an excerpt from AI Ethics Weekly issue dated April 29, 2022. Sign up here to get more insights and opportunities delivered to your inbox every Friday.
This week’s issue is sponsored by IBM.
Join us at Think 2022 on May 10-11 where IBM’s community of thinkers, makers, doers and creators come together to solve the most complex challenges facing businesses today.
Musk’s proposed plan to open source the Twitter algorithm won’t solve anything according to many experts. One of whom pointed out, “Twitter is a socio-technical system. It is responsive to human behavior.” Last year, a study analyzed algorithmic amplification of politics on Twitter, and found that “the political right enjoys higher amplification compared to the political left.” Twitter admitted there was bias but couldn’t tell if it was the algorithm or user behavior that was causing it.
In other dystopian news, working from home may not provide much respite from your micromanaging boss. The Guardian reports, ’Bossware” is coming for almost every worker as “computer monitoring software is helping companies spy on their employees to measure their productivity – often without their consent.” And in case you’re still on the privacy-challenged site, leaked documents show that Facebook doesn’t know what it does with your data, or where it goes. But that didn’t stop it from tracking people across the internet as Surya Mattu’s Pixel Hunt project learned, “For millions of prospective college students, applying online for federal financial aid has also meant sharing personal data with Facebook, unbeknownst to them or their parents.”
Sign up here to get more insights and opportunities delivered to your inbox every Friday.