Week 3_Tech for Social Good - A Complexity Perspective.pdf
Transcript
CMPS 200 USING TECHNOLOGY FOR SOCIAL GOOD: A COMPLEXITY PERSPECTIVE Week 3 ↑ JUNAID QADIR FALL 2024 Talk’s agenda: 1 Why human social systems are complex? 2 Code of ethics for Autonomous and Intelligent Systems (A/IS)...
CMPS 200 USING TECHNOLOGY FOR SOCIAL GOOD: A COMPLEXITY PERSPECTIVE Week 3 ↑ JUNAID QADIR FALL 2024 Talk’s agenda: 1 Why human social systems are complex? 2 Code of ethics for Autonomous and Intelligent Systems (A/IS) - 1 Why are human social systems complex? Cause and effect are not Loading… - necessarily closely related in time and space. This often means that today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions. Wicked Problems Most economic, environment, and political issues. Unlike technical problems, which are comparatively called tame problems. Examples: Global Climate Change. Sustainable Development Terrorism Social Injustice Poverty Drug Trafficking Cheating How our mental models work? Loading… Humanities: what use? Isn’t it all obvious? Sociologists concluded on the basis of a large expensive study (comprising 600,000 WW2 servicemen) that “Men from rural backgrounds were usually in better spirits during their Army life than soldiers from city backgrounds”. Most people reacted as: “Aha, that Once told, the people could still intuitively makes perfect sense. Rural men are understand it. “Aha, City men are more accustomed to harsher living standards used to working in crowded conditions and more physical labor than city men, and in corporations, with chains of so naturally they had an easier time command, strict standards of clothing adjusting.” and social etiquette, and so on.” Even this is obvious! But actually, the When every answer and its opposite finding was the appears equally obvious, then “something is wrong with the entire opposite. argument of ‘obviousness.’ d Fitting the reality to fit the model i A man after trying a made-to-order suit said to the tailor, Ed “The sleeve is two inches too long!” The tailor says, “No, just bend your elbow like this. See, it pulls up the sleeve.” The man says, “but look now at the collar! When I bend my elbow, the collar goes halfway up the back of my head.” The tailor says,“Raise your head up and back. Perfect.” The man leaves the store wearing the suit, his right elbow crooked and sticking out. The only way he can walk is with a herky-jerky, spastic gait. Just then, two passersby notice him. the first: “Look at that poor crippled guy. My heart goes out to him.” the second: “Yeah, but his tailor must be a genius! The suit is a perfect fit!” The law of the unintended consequences Social systems act as “an enigma within a riddle within a mystery” During the British Raj, a bounty system was devised to counter the rise of venomous cobras. The system worked really well; a lot of cobras were killed and Except that, entrepreneurs The Cobra Effect figured out they could make (unintended consequences) money by farming cobras and refers to the way killing more of them. that measures taken After the government scrapped to improve a the system, there were more cobras than before. situation can directly make it worse. Campbell’s Law “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” Goodhart’s Law “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good Loading… measure.” Mahbub Ul Haq “GNP can increase while human lives shrivel”— Mahbub ul Haq 2 Preventing technology from becoming harmful Code of Ethics IEEE Ethically Aligned Design Autonomous and Intelligent Systems (A/IS) Code of Ethics for AI [Companies] EU Commission Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI Conclusions. A thinking person realizes that technology does not automatically solve all problems—and solving some wicked problems through technology may be elusive. We need technology that is designed ethically (i.e., fair, transparent, and generally beneficial).
