The One Thing We Should Demand From Tech Companies To Save Humanity

Tech companies don't have to be the bad guys. The tools and platforms they create could help world changing ideas to spread and enable unparalleled global collaboration. Or they can promote screen addiction, enable more polarization and allow manipulators to spread lies unchecked. The difference between these two futures often comes down to a single thing: ethics.

There was a disturbing story about how Microsoft laid off an entire team whose job was to teach employees how to make AI tools responsibly. While the tech giant has kept their "Office of Responsible AI" intact (for now) the move is a dangerous precedent at a time when big tech needs to invest more time and resources into training teams to think about ethics. The only thing keeping us from a future where technologists build doomsday tech that will lose its humanity and destroy the world are those people who thoughtfully consider the ethical implications of the things they are creating.

So here's the one thing we should demand: that every tech firm retains a minimum number of people working in ethics and that EVERY employee is mandated to learn about ethical computing. A requirement this extreme would encourage investment, protect people working in ethics from being considered dispensable and (perhaps most importantly) spur a whole new economy of professionals who study and train in ethical computing because it's a prerequisite for any tech job.