[Robin Berjon]

This is somewhere between a call to action and a wake-up call:

"If you wish to be moral, you have to also pay attention to whether what you're doing actually works. And the best way to do that is to set up a forcing function for it: that's what checks and balances do."

"[...] Imagination isn't just a trite word to make your heart glow in pulp-class young-adult dystopia — imagination is the ability to depict justice, to see what we ought to aspire to. It is not a gift but rather a skill to hone."

There is an inherent question here about how you can create binding systems that enforce ethical standards - but also, how you can determine which ethical standards actually lead to the outcomes you want to establish.

I think there's a lot here that can be addressed through more distributed equity. As Robin says, "anywhere a powerful entity operates it is at risk of unethical behavior and therefore must be held in check by a control mechanism". One system of control - insufficient in itself but I think still necessary - is to ensure that power is spread among more people who are more connected to the effects of that power.

Distributing equity literally means handing over the means of production not just to workers but to those impacted by the work, reconnecting the decisions to their consequences. I don't know that you can have ethical tech that is motivated by centralized power. As Robin implies: so far, it hasn't worked.

#Technology

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