Meeting MIT’s Social Responsibilities
The Public Interest Technologist is a new online publication aimed at helping the MIT community think together about the social responsibilities of students, faculty, staff and alumni who design and implement technologies of various kinds.
At MIT, I think our goal should be to identify how technology can serve the interests of these various groups – and persuade organizations making investments in new technologies that pushing toward a “positive-sum” approach is beneficial for them.
As researchers, we must take the first step of always remaining critical of the degree to which our data represents the ‘public’ and being aware of the conscious or unconscious decisions that have gone into generating the datasets our work relies upon.
MIT can pursue public interest technology when we encourage interdepartmental initiatives that prioritize justice and equity and the continuous evaluation of the societal impact of technological advancements.
