The Top 3 Tech Stories of 2018 (60-Second Video) Here are three stories BIZ Experiencess should know about.
By Hayden Field
- This year, Facebook was hit with a seemingly ever-growing list of user data controversies. There's been almost one per month -- including December -- since news of the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in March. Essentially, Facebook's policy allowed developers to access and save the data of tens of millions of users without their consent.
- In 2018, more and more tech workers dissented when their creations were used for things that didn't align with their beliefs -- and they used their voices to shape company policies on weapons, surveillance and more. In June, Amazon employees wrote an internal letter to CEO Jeff Bezos -- in protest of facial recognition software that could be used to target marginalized groups.
- In May, Google introduced its new Duplex AI software, a tool for booking reservations and appointments on behalf of users. The software sparked controversy because, by way of verbal tics such as "um" and "uh," consumers found it difficult to separate from a human voice. That raised the question: What happens when AI is, in some cases, so similar to humans that we can't recognize it?
