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 […]
Wanted: Young, White, and Angry
My friend was killed by a neo-nazi. It’s a strange thing to type out, but it’s true. Even stranger, though, are the details: killed by a former classmate of ours. He picked my friend up in his car, drove to a local park, and then stabbed him. This is a boy who was once my […]
Trump’s Twitter Regime: Empowering the People, Killing the Press
The president and the press are entrenched in a strenuous game of cat and mouse. It’s a trial of wits in which each president seeks to promote their version of factual truths to the populace without interference from the press. This media avoidance has been practiced throughout history in notable ways: Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside […]
The Dangers of Techno-Optimism
It’s no secret that the internet age has given rise to a generation of clickbait articles, which aim to draw people in with eye-catching, irresistible headlines. Amongst these are ‘news’ posts documenting humanity’s technological progression, where sites like Futurism tease their audiences with topics on stopping aging or bionic eyesight. While this journalistic niche seems […]
Fake News is Real: The Rise of Computational Propaganda and Its Political Ramifications
“Fake News” — two words that have become synonymous with Donald Trump and his 2016 bid for the presidency. Some wholeheartedly believed it, some cast it aside as irrelevant, and others avidly denied it. Yet, President Trump was right. Fake news is real, but not necessarily in the way that most imagine. In the 2016 election, […]
AI (Part I): Anew Infrastructure
“Artificial intelligence” (AI) is sometimes jokingly used to label tasks that computers cannot yet do. Among these is possessing a sense of humor, which “requires self-awareness, spontaneity, linguistic sophistication, and empathy,” and extends beyond the wonky errors of Google Translate and auto-generated YouTube captions. However, in spite of its apparent shortcomings, AI has silently yet […]
Capitol Hill or Silicon Valley? Big Tech’s Growing Influence in Political Arena
Since its inception as the the hub of innovation, Silicon Valley has primarily been known as a bastion of promising startups, cutting-edge technology, and endless wealth. Lesser known, however, is the influence companies and their respective CEOs wield in the field of politics. Uber has both revolutionized the driving world, given the taxi industry steep […]
Trump vs. Tech
How the President has incited political action from Silicon Valley “This is truly an amazing group of people,” President Donald Trump said in a meeting with prominent executives during his presidential transition. “I’m here to help you folks do well.” The executives weren’t the Wall Street bankers or oil magnates Trump is often criticized of […]
Terminator in Transition: Should drones be able to think for themselves?
The metal body flies without effort against the sky – searching, synthesizing, processing data at an inhuman speed. A specific face has been imprinted on this machine. Once found, the machine can summarily end that person’s life. This drone responds to no ground operator. It is autonomous – and lethal. This weapon does not come […]
What Happens to the Workers?: The Economic Implications of the Technological Revolution
Drones delivering packages, self-driving vehicles, artificial intelligence answering phone calls, food being prepared at the touch of a screen – this may all seem like science-fiction, but in reality, the future is already here. Technological innovation and its use in the workplace is not a novel concept. Since the birth of modern American history, the […]
Digital Prisons
For some prisoners, being released from prison can be described as “going from the old ages to Star Wars.” One major issue that recently released prisoners have had to deal with now more than ever before is understanding how to adapt to life in a society dominated by rapid technological changes. An oft overlooked solution […]
A Symbiotic Relationship: Why Industry Should Increase Funding for University Research
Intellectual property has always been a controversial topic. However, this controversy is usually reserved for intellectual property in the form of books, movie, patents, etc. Some results from research are considered general knowledge, open for use by society. Thus, there is no particular protection of this information. In some ways, that’s a good thing, since […]
Sharing Is Not Always Caring: The Other Side Of The Sharing Economy
“Just Uber there. It’s faster and cheaper.” “I Airbnb-ed the place. It was pretty cheap.” Statements of this sort are becoming increasingly prevalent in the modern app-driven world. Transportation and housing, as well as lesser expected sectors like that of laundry and sailboats have become internet-based, and disruptive. Apps have expedited the process of securing […]
“There’s An App For That”
On a typical weekday from 4 to 8 p.m., the streets of San Francisco bustle with food delivery cars, each carrying a colorful trademark of an on-demand food delivery business. A red flag means Spoonrocket. A large M means Munchery. A green leaf means Sprig. These cars carry chef-prepared gourmet food, delivered on-demand to the […]
The High Cost of Threats: Sino-Israeli Relations
Say “economic sanctions” and three countries come to mind: Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Sanctions are usually reserved for historically hostile regimes, not long-time allies. Yet Obama administration and other Western European nations are threatening to impose sanctions on Israel, with the assumption that Israel is so dependent on Western markets that it will have […]
e-Estonia: A Model for Success
At the outset of World War II, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin approved the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the famous non-aggression pact that divided Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. The treaty was predicated on the assumption that the two great powers would achieve preeminence on the European continent, and following the war, the Soviet […]