The latest news about the scandals carried out by the famous Facebook platform have placed the limits of computing in the crosshairs of society and experts.
It was recently revealed that the most powerful social network in the world had leaked massive information from some 50 million users to the Cambridge Analytica company. This data allegedly would have been used to disseminate and manipulate electoral content during the candidacy of Donald Trump as president of the United States in 2016, and even in the Brexit of the United Kingdom.
According to Yonatan Zunger, a former security and privacy engineer at Google, “Computing is a field that has not yet had consequences.” And it is that, from cases like that of Mark Zuckerberg’s company, is when the true power of the internet is demonstrated.
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Aspects such as ‘ethics’ and ‘security’ have become an elective , and not a fundamental, requirement for software design. Similar crises have already been experienced in other fields, such as the creation of chemical weapons, for which a series of professional conduct and institutional approvals had to be drawn up for their use. However, in the computer field it seems that there is a legal and moral vacuum.
The price of free
By registering on a social network like Facebook, we are not aware of the price we are paying for that simple gesture. These free platforms use personal information to know absolutely everything possible about us and to be able to offer us other products and services that are very tempting and related to our tastes.
Experts like Tristan Harris, founder of the Center for Humane Technology , point out that if this line continues, technology will soon measure all aspects of our lives . In fact, some algorithms are already capable of detecting the faces of millions of people, as well as finding out their gender, their personality or feelings and even their income.
Currently, the Algorithmic Justice League is working so that these moral and legal reassessments are applied in computing and can ensure the interests, as they claim, for the good of humanity.
