From one angle, the pandemic looks like a vindication of “techno-solutionism”. From the more everyday developments of teleconferencing to systems exploiting advanced artificial intelligence, platitudes to the power of innovation abound.
Such optimism smacks of short-termism. Desperate times often call for swift and sweeping solutions, but implementing technologies without regard for their impact is risky and increasingly unacceptable to wider society. The business leaders of the future who purchase and deploy such systems face costly repercussions, both financial and reputational.
Tech ethics, while a relatively new field, has suffered from perceptions that it is either the domain of philosophers or PR people. This could not be further from the truth — as the pandemic continues, so the importance grows of mapping out potential harms from technologies.
Take, for example, biometrics such as facial-recognition…