Today’s Topic Is About Shared Data to the Tech Companies
When we use an app or browse a website, there are always requests for better experience, to agree on the terms and let tech companies collect our data. So here comes a question, whether we should be concerned about this? Big data or artificial intelligence can help us make decisions or provide some hidden characteristics of ourselves, for example, after we listen to a lot of music via music applications, they can help us understand our hidden music preferences and recommend similar songs. However, based on the premises of legal and moral use of technology, can technology play a more positive role in our lives? Algorithms might form biases about us and others like insurance companies, employees and police may adopt those biases. Algorithms may make mistakes and make wrong judgements about us because technology nowadays is not robust enough. The truth is that we cannot avoid using digital equipment and those apps and websites developers will definitely acquire our information. This is unavoidable with the development of IT. Government and the public should be aware that it’s our right to make sure our data is used properly, legally and morally. So those tech companies should be monitored by the government or some critical data should be preserved only by the government. From the view of history, through the information collected by tech companies, they can provide more suitable service for each individual and make more profits. So it is unrealistic to totally ban trades about information. The solution is to inform all users that the company’s technology, to be specific, those algorithms, are not totally robust, they are not totally precise about prediction, recommendation and profiling for each user. Companies should tell their clients, for example, by showing this piece of information at the start of apps or websites. They even need to provide their testing results of their algorithms (the same as medical companies should provide results for tests on effectiveness of medicine), like how precise their algorithm is to predict clients’ behavior and predisposition. If the data is so critical for each individual, companies would be forced by laws to open their codes to the public. Besides, the government also should spread the idea to the public that algorithms, at least nowadays, are not omnipotent, and the government should try their best to make changes and requirements mentioned above happen.
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