Artificial intelligence is powerful. We can use it to generate artistic images with a short prompt in DALL-E, or to negotiate our daily lives via smart assistants like Siri or Alexa. But as ever, the arrival of transformative technology raises doubt and fear: will it be made to do our bidding in ways that improve […]
Tag: #Technology
Big Tech Is Quaking, And We Are Here For It!
Big Tech is in a crazed frenzy like we have never seen before —and there is not much they can do about it. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Open App Markets Act, marking the first piece of legislation and the latest attempt to limit the power of big tech companies. Not only is it a […]
Misinformation: A Catch-22 For Facebook And Big Tech? Hint: The Future Is Not Meta
In today’s world, information is a valuable currency. While the age of social media has inarguably broadened our horizons and our accessibility to information, our society is facing a massive crisis of counterfeiting due to the flood of misinformation. Social media sites and big technology companies continue to grace headlines for their oversight or lack […]
Algorithmic Injustice
Algorithms in the justice system started off as a noble solution to a serious problem: the bias of judges. There are two distinct ways that judges can be biased — targeted bias, such as sexist and racist beliefs, and cognitive bias, ways in which our mental circuitry fails to work logically (such as how judges […]
Technology as a Masculinist Institution
On August 10, 2019, prison guards found a man dead in a jail cell in Manhattan. The way he died stood in sharp contrast with the power and vanity he once wielded in the city, fraught with both splendor and squalor. Jeffrey Epstein, a prominent financier with a keen interest in obtaining immortality through eugenics […]
Why The H-1B Visa Program Needs Reform
Silicon Valley is an innovation hub of great ethnic diversity today. However, the complexity behind hiring foreign talent is rarely well explained. The Immigration Act of 1990, signed by the H.W. Bush Administration, launched visa programs to help American companies overcome shortages of talents in burgeoning sectors by hiring foreigners as temporary workers. First Lady […]
Technology with Chinese Characteristics: China’s Strategic Vision in 2019
Standing before the 17th General Assembly of the Chinese Academy of Sciences just over a year after his election to office, Xi Jinping opined, “we cannot always decorate our tomorrows with others’ yesterdays.” Five years later on October 1st, 2019, President Xi echoed that sentiment while addressing a crowd of thousands in Tiananmen Square, declaring, […]
There are Eyes Everywhere: The Dangers of Policing and Surveilling Black and Muslim Communities
As the technological revolution sweeps countries and cities all over the world, more and more daily activities are being mechanized. From iPhones being unlocked by faces, to online stores knowing exactly what you want when you want it, we are at a time of innovation. New high-tech security cameras and alarm systems are making homes, […]
The Politics of Code: An Exploration of Technological Activism
“Slacktivism” has become a common term to reference individual efforts to use social media platforms as a means of political activism. This is often further characterized by inaction other than sharing political opinions on social media. As a result, people have stopped viewing technology as something with innate political utility but instead see it as […]
Mobile Voting: The Next Step in Expanding Democracy
On July 4th, 1776, the Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia to draft the Declaration of Independence, separating the colonies from the oppressive British monarchy on the principle that a government that didn’t represent the interests of the people had no right to govern. Upon later establishing a representative democracy, the power of voting and the […]