EPISODE

Ethics, Oaths, and Orwell in Technological Society As the Silicon Valley maxim goes: “move fast and break things.” Should that still be the mantra today? This ethic, and its ramifications, are baked into the global technological landscape, so it is a timely motif for this interview. In this original July 2022 discussion on Hearsay Culture Network’s Uneven Distribution, host Denise Howell brings her 20 years of experience in technology and podcasting to the topic. Discussing the role of ethics in technology with fellow podcaster Prof. Deb Donig, the discussion winds from how schools can teach technology ethics to data privacy and how Russian aggression in Ukraine sheds a light on our power to protect human rights. With her special acumen, Denise and Deb expose fault lines in whether technology can advance ethically, or not, in the 2020s.

“I’m not sure that I’m just worried about a data breach [at Google]. Frankly, I’m worried about the data that’s held about me currently that is unbreached and what a company is doing with that data [to] manipulate my behavior.” – Deb Donig

“The ethical debates are like stones in a stream. The water runs around them. You haven’t seen any biological technologies held up for one week by any of these debates.” – Ray Kurzweil