Computers, mobile phones, artificial intelligence and communication networks provide many benefits, but they have also raised social and ethical concerns, from Facebook and Cambridge Analytica to the growing impact of automation on people’s jobs and lives.
Ethics and technology is the topic of discussion at the next Brattleboro Area Tech meeting to be held on Thursday, June 14 at 6:00 pm in the Hooker Dunham building at 139 Main Street in Brattleboro. The discussion will be led by Karina Assiter, a professor of computer science at Landmark College.
The evening, which will begin with a reception in Suite 603, is being hosted by Peak Coworking, Brattleboro’s new coworking space (www.peakcoworking.com).
As part of the meeting, which is open to the public, there will be a discussion of some of the big issues surrounding ethics in the IT field. The presentation will include videos and case studies to generate discussion.
Among the topics to be discussed will be:
- Automation and its expected impact on workers (such as large-scale automation of the transportation industry).
- Robots providing human/social services (think elder-care, child care, therapist).
- Automated decision-making based on data that may be biased or on deduced from information that may otherwise be private (such as mental health records or pregnancy).
Karina Assiter, who will lead the evening’s discussion, received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Tufts University and until 2017, taught at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. In 2017 Karina started at Landmark College in Putney. The inspiration for this discussion was an ethics course that she developed for the college’s new Bachelors program in computer science.
For more information, contact Bob Lawson at bob@sustainabledigital.com.
