About six years ago, conversations with our alumni working in information and data companies surfaced a concern. They found their companies inventing solutions and new features of their platforms without a useful set of ethical frameworks. While they could envision the immediate use of a new feature, they reported feelings that too little time was spent on potential harmful effects.
Being people for others in the Georgetown tradition, they alerted us to the need for practical ethical guidance for their work. They reminded us of the role Georgetown played at an earlier moment in history, when medical advances raised new issues regarding ethical treatments of patients. At that time, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics was a prime mover to define and promulgate ethical frameworks. This led to laws, regulations, and practices in the field that we now know as bioethics.
Georgetown faculty responded to these concerns. About three years ago, the Georgetown Tech and Society initiative was formed. From multiple perspectives, the initiative is tackling the large mismatch between technology’s direction and velocity of change and behavioral norms, regulations, and laws that society supports. The initiative is a network of several existing centers across the university: Institute for Tech Law and Policy , Center for Privacy and Technology, Massive Data Institute , Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation , and Center for Security and Emerging Technology. A new group, the Center for Digital Ethics, is forming now. We still seek to create another unit, the Policy Lab.
The initiative is uniquely a Georgetown invention, transporting concepts and perspectives across fields to solve important problems that technological change brings. In essence, the faculty, staff, and students involved subordinate their allegiance to a single discipline to trying to assemble knowledge from multiple domains that might build a better world while technological change accelerates.
The network shares space in the 500 First St NW building, which is the first structure at Georgetown in which all three campuses have units, most working in interdisciplinary teams on important world problems. The COVID19 pandemic delayed the evolution of the network, but it has moved to a new level of coordination with a chair chosen from steering committee members, Paul Ohm, Professor of Law.
A manifestation of increasing collaboration and productivity of the Tech and Society network will its first Tech and Society week, to be held at Georgetown April 4-8. The goal of the week is to spotlight all of the incredible work happening across Georgetown at the nexus of Technology + Society. The events are open to the public. Some events will be held at 500 First NW; some, on the Hilltop campus; some, using Zoom for virtual presentations.
The week begins with a technical session on tensorflow, a user-friendly platform for exploring machine-learning approaches to data analysis. This is Monday at 4PM. A purely social event occurs next, a reception at 500 First NW at 5PM on Monday, April 4. It will be a great opportunity to meet the student research assistants, staff, and faculty who work together on Tech and Society.
Over the week, the events present a wide variety of topics–from technology innovation in state government services to artificial intelligence implementations in Japan. They’ll be a number of different formats–from book talks to coding workshops to a showcase for students highlighting a half dozen Georgetown courses.
This is a whole-of-Georgetown event, bringing together centers, faculty, and students from both the Hilltop and the Capitol campuses. It’s a great opportunity to attend at least one event on a campus you do not frequent. If you come to the Capitol Campus, where Tech & Society is located, you can check out the space and find out about opportunities to get involved.
These are great events every student should be aware of and should attend, while restoring the traditions of Georgetown is a must given the gap between technology, regulations and laws.
Looking forward to it!