Critical Perspectives on Ethics in Technology

Last year, the Journal of Social Computing published a Special Issue on the subject of Technology Ethics in Action. The special issue was the product of the Ethical Tech Working Group at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, which was cofounded by Mary Gray and Kathy Pham. The ideas in the special issue span a range of critical and interdisciplinary perspectives, with essay titles ranging from “Creating Technology Worthy of the Human Spirit” to “Connecting Race to Ethics Related to Technology” to “The Promise and Limits of Lawfulness: Inequality, Law, and the Techlash.” 

To learn more about the ideas in it, I spoke to its editor, Ben Green. Ben is a postdoctoral scholar in the Michigan Society of Fellows and an assistant professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. His Harvard PhD is in applied mathematics, with a secondary field in science, technology, and society. He studies the social and political impacts of government algorithms, focusing on algorithmic fairness, smart cities, and the criminal justice system. In 2019 MIT Press published his book, The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future. Ben is also an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard.