Putting Ethics into the Machine (Part 1) - Netopia

We have seen how the internet of things and the growing phenomenon of'big data' will throw up major problems for consumers and citizens, problems that have as yet barely been grasped by most policy-makers. In this world of growing complexity, the potential for an unintended consequence becomes greater and greater from machines performing an action that was not anticipated. There are key issues, too, about our reliance on data at a time of massive data generation, data storing and data preservation which have the potential to both obscure results and generate injustices. Perhaps the greatest issue that we now face is caused by our blind faith in machines. We have invested them with certainty and – as we have pointed out – we trust them. Part of the reason for this is an odd confusion that has conflated the machines of the industrial age with the machines of the information age.