The medical profession has an ethic: First, do no harm, Silicon Valley has an ethos: Build it first and ask for forgiveness later. We're increasingly seeing the consequences of that move-fast ethos: election interference, mass disinformation and the incitement of ethnic hatred. In this talk, Natasha will discuss the techniques journalists use to examine the consequences of emerging technologies on society -- reporting that often prompts reactive changes at tech companies. She'll also talk about a new movement -- "responsible computing" -- that aims to embed the analysis of societal consequences in computer science.
Brown alumna Natasha Singer is a reporter at The New York Times where she covers the intersection of technology, business and society, with a particular focus on data privacy, fairness and industry accountability. She was a member of a New York Times’ reporting team whose privacy coverage won a Polk Award in National Reporting in 2019 and was a finalist for a 2019 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting. Her recent series for the Times, called "Education Disrupted," uncovered how tech giants like Google and Microsoft are working to reshape public education. Her previous Times' series on the consumer data industry, called "You For Sale," helped prompt several congressional and federal investigations, as well as the enactment of student online data privacy laws in California and other states. Natasha also developed and teaches a course on responsible computing at The School Of The New York Times, the newspaper's pre-college summer program for high school students.
Sponsored by the Computer Science, Data Science Initiative and Science & Technology Studies
Reception in BERT Lobby to follow.
