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A Pledge of Ethics for I School Graduates

By Robyn Perry, I School MIMS ’15 | Permalink

When you hear about Volkswagen engineers cheating emissions tests, or face recognition software that can’t “see” Black people, you start to wonder who is in charge here. Or more to the point, who is to blame?

Well, I just graduated from UC Berkeley’s School of Information Master of Information Management and Systems program (MIMS for short). My colleagues and I are the kind of people that are going to be making decisions about this stuff in all sorts of industries.

This post is about one way we might hold ourselves accountable to an ethical standard that we agree to by means of a pledge.

As you might imagine, we spend a significant part of our coursework thinking about how people think about technology, how people use technology, and how what we design can do a better job of not destroying the world.

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Participants from 26 departments and organizations attend #CTSPhackathon

By Galen Panger, CTSP | Permalink

On Saturday, we welcomed 42 participants from 26 departments and organizations to the CTSP Proposal Hackathon, the Center’s first official event and the kick-off for our annual request for proposals, which opened today for applications.

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A virtual/in-person reading group on garbage, hate and harassment

By Nick Doty, CTSP | Permalink

Key to maintaining free expression on the Internet is understanding and responding to the hate, harassment and abuse that the communications network also delivers. This challenge isn’t new, but it has become more apparent recently. Responses to descriptions of the problem or how to handle it often prove the need for this kind of work.

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Introducing Citizen Technologist, the Blog

By Nick Doty & Galen Panger, CTSP Co-Directors  |  Permalink

What is a Citizen Technologist?

Increasingly, we must accept that technology is not a neutral thing, not developed apart from cultural or political ideas and not deployed in a vacuum. Technology has effects—obvious and subtle, planned and unforeseen—on our daily routines, our well-being, our communities, our jobs, our love lives and our political activities. A citizen technologist is a person who works with the intersecting effects of technical architecture, social norms, and public policy.READ MORE

Announcing the Center for Technology, Society & Policy

Cross-posted from Berkeley News  |  Permalink

The UC Berkeley School of Information is launching the Center for Technology, Society and Policy, established with seed funding from Google, to focus on engineering ethics, technology and well-being, standards and governance, and digital citizenship.

The multidisciplinary center will solicit proposals in the four areas of concentration annually, beginning this fall, for projects of around six months in length with outcomes including, but not limited to, design or engineering solutions, academic publications, regulatory proposals and public events.READ MORE