The man against the car: a new cybersecurity ethic

In the blog of one of the science fiction writers, I peeped interesting, I want to share.

Global manifesto of "ethics in technology":

1. The right to remain natural , that is, a biological being. This means that we can get a job, use public services and operate in society without the requirement to place any technology on our body or inside it.
2. The right to be ineffective where it concerns our basic human qualities. We should be able to be slower than technical systems, and not put efficiency above humanity.
3. The right to disconnect from the network . We should have the right to go offline and block communications, as well as monitoring and tracking.
4. The right to anonymity . We should be able to prohibit the identification of our identity when it does not pose a danger to ourselves or others.
5. The right to hire people instead of cars . We must support companies that choose people instead of cars, even if it’s less efficient and more costly.

Under the cut - the translation of the article about the new book by Futurist Gerd Leonhard “The Transition to the Digital Era”.



What is the role of ethics in technology? When you, as a senior executive or board member, approve technology investments or ask your team to create a technology-based business service, do you think about ethical considerations of what you are doing?

If you are like most business leaders, these types of considerations are not at the top of your list. You are probably thinking about growth, income, risk, results, etc. Even if you wanted to think about the ethics of using a particular technology, you may not even know what questions to ask.

This must change. According to futurist Gerd Leonhard, the author of the book “Technologies against Humanity”, we are moving into a new era of technological development. Over the next five to ten years, important questions will not concern whether we can do something; rather, they will focus on why we are doing it and who is doing it.

This change in emphasis from science to ethics is due to the growth of exponential technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as the combination of traditionally unrelated industries. As an example of convergent technology, Leonard points to Spotify, which was able to create its business model only thanks to the emergence of cheap and powerful smartphones connected to fast mobile networks.

The impact of these exponential and convergent technologies will have a profound impact on cybersecurity - not only in terms of technology, but also from a moral and ethical point of view.

“Technological security can be as good as the moral, ethical and political frameworks that surround and define it,” says Leonard. “The most advanced security technologies will be useless if those at the helm and those who use it act unethically, with malicious intent or with negligence. In fact, the very technology that is used to protect consumers and users can be used to spy on them. ”

Issues related to ethics are becoming increasingly relevant, says Leonard, as machines become smarter and become more common - to the extent that technology is no longer just around us, but actually inside of us. For example, he points to the idea of ​​having nanobots in our blood circulation monitoring and even regulating cholesterol levels or the ability to directly connect our brain with the Internet in order to turn thoughts into actions.

This may seem overwhelming, but Leonard says these scenarios are not only real; they are on the horizon. In the new book The Transition to the Digital Era, Second Edition , published by Palo Alto Networks, Leonard says the next 20 years will bring more changes than the previous 300.

Ethical manifesto

What types of ethical considerations should we consider when examining the impact of digital technology and cybersecurity on our future?

Leonard offers a framework for what he calls the global manifesto of “technology ethics”. He says that when creating this model, it is important to focus on human rights in an era when machines will acquire more human-like characteristics.

The manifesto proposed by Leonhard focuses on five specific human rights that, in his opinion, could be put at risk if we do not have an ethical basis that could guide us. It:

1. The right to remain natural, that is, a biological being. This means that we can get a job, use public services and operate in society without the requirement to place any technology on our body or inside it.
2. The right to be ineffective where it concerns our basic human qualities. We should be able to be slower than technical systems, and not put efficiency above humanity.
3. The right to disconnect from the network. We should have the right to go offline and block communications, as well as monitoring and tracking.
4. The right to anonymity. We should be able to prohibit the identification of our identity when it does not pose a danger to ourselves or others.
5. The right to hire people instead of cars. We must support companies that choose people instead of cars, even if it’s less efficient and more costly.

Conclusion

When you look at the role that technology plays today, many of these “rights” may seem obvious or unnecessary. This is because technologies are not yet widely available to take them for granted or, more importantly, to get rid of them.

What happens, however, when technology is available? This is the meaning of Leonhard: we must look at the possibilities of tomorrow, before it is too late. So he says in one of the chapters of the “Transition to the digital era” in the second edition.

“Technologies have no ethics, but society depends on them. Recall that civilizations are guided by their technology and are determined by their humanity. Technology is not what we are looking for, but how we are looking. ”

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