Technology Needs a Trust Makeover

Public accountability is today a pivotal issue for the high-tech sector that it discounts at its own peril. We see this play out in the media seemingly every day as certain high-profile tech companies are castigated for the undesirable societal effects of their products and services. Most vividly, we have witnessed how social media platforms can spread dangerous falsehoods about COVID. For some providers, these impacts are unintentional. For others, they result from prioritizing growth goals over everything else. Regardless, the potentially profound effects of emerging technologies' machine-learning algorithms, complex AI models and data biases must always command our attention.