What is techno-optimism and moral character in today’s world? It’s an unbridled sense that technologies, and their application, will benefit the world. It’s also about how we can be ethical and moral in how we build these systems.
Recently, I watched an interview from TechCrunch disrupt on algorithmic bias as a new face of an old problem rooted in income disparity and racism. Timnit Gebru from Google AI, Ken Goldberg from UC Berkeley and Chris Ategeka from UCOT that outlined steps to build more objective algorithms in the future. I urge you to watch this below.

The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work?

Gebru highlighted a paper that is essential reading in this area – ‘The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work?’ by Phillip Rogaway. After reading i think it’s one of the most important papers I’ve read recently. As a techno-optimist it has helped me galvanize my ideas.
You can read and download that here – http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/moral-fn.pdf
Abstract.
Cryptography rearranges power: it configures who can do what, from what. This makes cryptography an inherently political tool, and it confers on the field an intrinsically moral dimension. The Snowden revelations motivate a reassessment of the political and moral positioning of cryptography. They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. I plead for a reinvention of our disciplinary culture to attend not only to puzzles and math, but, also, to the societal implications of our work.

Bertrand Russell reads the Russell-Einstein Manifesto at Caxton Hall, London, 9 July 1955

Nikolas is a world-leading Futurist Speaker that drives leaders to take action in creating a better world for humanity. He promotes exponential thinking along with a critical, honest, and optimistic view that empowers you with knowledge to plan for today, tomorrow, and for the future.
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