Ideas for A BETTER TECH
Brilliant Ideas from public interest technologists working at the Ford Foundation, Snapchat, Government agencies, universities, and the private sector. Watch Ideas on YouTube or in the video embedded below.
Here are a few highlights from the Ideas sessions:
Snapchat and Civic Tech: Sofia Gross
Snapchat is changing the way we view the government and our role within it. We can start to see ourselves as people who can, should, and are eligible to run for office; since Snapchat as a platform of friends and people you trust (“best friends”) you have support from people you actually know and trust and can get influenced by.
Design Refusal as Public Interest Technology: Erhardt Graeff + Shreya Chowdhary
Tech workers in refusal means solidarity with activists. Tech workers are not just loyal to the companies they work for, but rather those refusing to build and actively reducing harm. When choosing to build or not build something, it’s important to define the professional responsibility of that work, and gauge how design can help or harm. Sometimes the best way forward is choosing not to design at all.
Giving Voice to Values: Dr. Mary Gentile, PhD
Defining ethical values isn’t just a framework in which to make decisions. Problem solving should be purely cognitive. The cognitive framework is not enough; it does not help people act. Our reactions and decisions are usually emotional and we need to rewire how we think about these conflicts. It’s “habit formation, positive deviance, new neural pathways... [We need to] give people the opportunity to rehearse moral muscle memory.” If you know the right thing to do, how do you go about getting it done? We can learn from those who have been successful now and in the past.
Libraries: Public Ambassadors of Technology: Callan Bignoli
Libraries are democratic and free spaces for all, and are fundamentally anti-surveillance. They have always participated in social impact, “community place-making”, and have been makerspaces for tech. They run programs such as participatory science projects at public libraries, traveling bus hotspots, “wifi porches.” Libraries aren’t just physical repositories for books, but rather build social infrastructure that fosters equitable space and digital world by being an oasis for free information in all types.
The Dangers of Good Intentions: Albert Fox Cahn:
Tech is built on frameworks of inequity and is based on age-old biases that are made into something shiny and new. Police technology made an individual, free, and anonymous city (NYC) into a “corridor of control.” Everything is now being recorded, rewound, judged. Surveillance is directly involved in making people targets for deportation, and surveillance is skilled at knowing how to weaponize information. We must actively interrogate everything we work on, understand how to locate potential purchasers of tech, how monetizing products are strategized, and what these technologies are being paired and combined with. Surveillance tech is popular; we just have to say “no.”
Addressing Bias Caused by Pre-trained Models with Responsibility Card: Sandaraparipurnan Narayanan
Model cards and biometrics are incomplete. Rather, responsibility cards look at these model cards to get perspectives of the model before applying them to the process; it is not a compliance tool, but protects and promotes human values and ambitions.
The Human Cost of Green Recovery: Cobalt Mining in the DRC: Serra Cremer, Dorothee Baumann-Pauly
Cobalt is growing in demand and will continue to grow in demand while they remain absolutely essential for batteries. Cobalt is always directly or indirectly sourced though The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Bypassing the DRC is impossible given the scale of cobalt, and relatedly mining is the only decent job and salary in DRC. Given the growing demand, we cannot avoid DRC and therefore cannot avoid posing multiple human rights risks. Some solutions include formalizing artisanal, small-scale mining sites, monitoring and setting standards, or ensuring as a collective that standards are mainstream beyond individual companies (Global Battery Alliances etc.).
Ford Foundation Tech Fellows: Cynthia Conti-Cook, Matt Mitchell, Michelle Shevin
An array of issues can be tackled at non-profits. Working in the non-profit sector doesn't mean losing out on professional development and prestige, but rather getting those in large-scale and much needed amounts. There are people doing amazing work because of the Ford Foundation, and that doesn’t necessarily mean working in big tech. It’s defined by where the most impact is. These topics can include ending mass incarceration, immigration issues, participating in justice translation, and also exploring and prosecuting the technology that is inherent in police brutality. It doesn't matter where you start, but centering PIT values is key and needed everywhere.