talk on conference website
The last years, we all have felt the impact of applying technologies like machine learning, social networks and data-driven decision making on a massive scale to our societies. Yet all that technology has been developed by engineers like us. It's become clear that we have to do more than chase the ever evolving technological challenges and start to assume responsibility for our creations - or we too will wake up one day to the realization that technology we helped develop has done more harm than good.
We want to present practical, every day guidelines and principles that can help engineers and organizations to build technology that not only serves the application and business purpose, but also minimizes negative long-term effects on society and the people that use it.
The Good Technology Collective was founded in December of 2017 in Berlin by a diverse group of experts from academia, government & the private sector with the goal to bring fresh wind into the discussions everybody seemed to have about the impact of modern technology in the wake of the full impact of fake news, algorithmic biases, filter bubbles & massive data breaches - without ever resulting in tangible action.
The GTC hosts and supports regular events to educate engineers, publishes articles to educate society through media partnerships, holds internal round tables and aims to work with policy makers long-term. As part of this years effort, we are releasing "Ethical Engineering Guidelines" that offer a practical way for engineers and organizations to responsibly develop new technology that takes ethics & societal impact more into account and can easily be applied to small and large projects alike. These guidelines have been developed throughout the year a parts of them presented at various events as they progressed, to collect feedback and further improve them.
Members of GTC range from (former) whistle blowers, activist MPs, Oxford professors in ethics, authors to entrepreneurs and technology makers in various areas. The GTC is fully independent and only accepts public donations that are not tied to a specific project.