CategoryGlobal Technology
Does a Western Bias Affect Self-Driving Cars?
How a driver is expected to act varies by culture
In China, high-tech racial profiling is social policy
For an ethnic minority, a physical checkup includes blood samples, fingerprints, iris scans, and voice recordingsThe Chinese government seeks a database of everyone in the country, not only to track individuals but to determine the ethnicity of those who run up against the law.
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Can Computer Algorithms Be Free of Bias?
Bias is inevitable but it should be recognized and admittedGregory Coppola’s revelations about Google’s politically biased search engine shone a spotlight on how algorithms are written.
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When High Tech Must Be Kept Secret
Universities that do national defence research try to manage the tension between intellectual freedom and national securityA plasma physics professor who interpreted the “fundamental research exception” too loosely ended up in jail.
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George Gilder on the Real-Life Prospects — and Limits — of AI
Gilder, who is organizing the COSM conference in Bellevue, Washington, in October, clears the fog about “the cloud”The “cloud” of cloud computing, that Gilder predicted, is things, not ideas. Thus it is subject to the limits of things, as opposed to the limits of ideas. It’s reasonable to ask where that limit is. It is probably both a question and an answer that we can understand.
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Will Money Be “Real” in an Information Society?
Now that Facebook is proposing Libra, a cryptocurrency, this might be a good time to askMany of us know cryptocurrencies only from passing headline news. Yet thoughtful people argue that such currencies will help shape an information society. Why?
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Technology Only Works If People Use It
Introducing appropriate technology to an old culture includes careful listening, says engineering prof Brian Thomas"We cannot assume that because it works in our culture, it will work in another culture," he says.
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Haiti Calling … Reaching Out, Touching the World
Baylor Engineering prof Brian Thomas has been helping Haitians establish businesses to recharge cell phones, using solar panelsIn Haiti, 40% of the population (eleven million) still depends on subsistence agriculture. But cell phones allow them to leapfrog many traditional stages of technological development.
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Can the Newest Technology Liberate the Poorest Communities?
In Haiti, new technology bypasses many development pitfallsIn 2011, roughly 10% of Haitians had bank accounts. But by 2013, mobile digital banking via cell phones was starting to stand in for bricks-and-mortar banks.
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