Invited Talk

How AI Designers will Dictate Our Civic Future

Latanya Sweeney

2017 Invited Talk

[ Video]

Abstract

Technology designers are the new policymakers. No one elected them, and most people do not know their names, but the decisions they make when producing the latest gadgets and online innovations dictate the code by which we conduct our daily lives and govern our country. Challenges to the privacy and security of our personal data are part of the first wave of this change; as technology progresses, says Latanya Sweeney, every demographic value and every law comes up for grabs and will likely be redefined by what technology does or does not enable. How will it all fit together or fall apart? Join Sweeney, who after serving as chief technology officer at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, has been helping others unearth unforeseen consequences and brainstorm on how to engineer the way forward.

Speaker

Latanya Sweeney

Latanya Sweeney is a Professor at Harvard University; Faculty Dean at Harvard's Currier House; Editor-in-Chief of Technology Science; Director and Founder of Harvard’s Data Privacy Lab; the former Chief Technology Officer at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission; and Commissioner in the U.S. Commission on Evidence-based Policy Making. Dr. Sweeney holds four patents and is credited with more than 100 academic publications. She is a recipient of the prestigious American Psychiatric Association’s Privacy Advocacy Award, an elected fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics, and has testified before government bodies worldwide. Dr. Sweeney became the first African American woman to earn a PhD in computer science from MIT in 2001. More information about her is available at latanyasweeney.org.

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