Calvert analyzes every company in its socially screened portfolio for work place practices, environmental impact, community relations, product safety and benefit, and international human rights. Avoidance and positive screens are used on each issue. This paper reviews these screens with socially responsible high technology companies. It illustrates a host of emerging issues including distributed equity and social justice, community impact, and sustainability.

Artificial intelligence ethics requires a united approach from policymakers, AI companies, and individuals, in the development, deployment, and use of these technologies. However, sometimes discussions can become fragmented because of the different levels of governance or because of different values, stakeholders, and actors involved. Recently, these conflicts became very visible, with such examples as the dismissal of AI ethics researcher Dr. Timnit Gebru from Google and the resignation of whistle-blower Frances Haugen from Facebook. Underpinning each debacle was a conflict (...) between the organisation’s economic and business interests and the morals of their employees. This paper will examine tensions between the ethics of AI organisations and the values of their employees, by providing an exploration of the AI ethics literature in this area, and a qualitative analysis of three workshops with AI developers and practitioners. Common ethical and social tensions will be discussed, along with proposals on how to avoid or reduce these conflicts in practice. Altogether, we suggest the following steps to help reduce ethical issues within AI organisations: improved and diverse ethics education and training within businesses; internal and external ethics auditing; the establishment of AI ethics ombudsmen, AI ethics review committees and an AI ethics watchdog; as well as access to trustworthy AI ethics whistle-blower organisations. (shrink)

The paper discusses the Chinese policy environment as regards the experiences of foreign firms in China. In particular, the study focuses on the changes in China’s policies toward foreign-invested firms and the companies’ perceptions of protectionism of the Chinese regulatory environment. Theoretically, the paper reflects approaches in international political economy and business studies on the bargaining relations between host states and firms, and institutional perspective on business strategy that focuses on the dynamic interaction between organizations and their institutional environment. (...) Hence, the approach takes into account the formal and informal institutional constraints that firms face in a particular institutional framework. Drawing from international survey data, as well as interviews with China-based Finnish firms, the paper analyzes the different types of formal and informal protectionism that foreign companies face in China. It is found that foreign firms perceive the Chinese policy measures as increasingly protective, strict toward foreigners, and favoring of local companies. This is based on China’s strategy to remove the earlier preferences for inward foreign direct investment and to support, instead, the growth of indigenous companies. At the same time, the Chinese market presents such a potential that attracts foreign firms to increasingly invest in the country. China has a strong position in competing for investments: its aspiration for higher technology, together with its labor resources, gives China an unique advantage in bargaining with foreign firms over investments. (shrink)

The public’s trust in the technology sector is waning and, in response, technology companies and state governments have started to champion “tech ethics”. That is, they have pledged to design, develop, distribute, and employ new technologies in an ethical manner. In this paper, I observe that tech ethics is already subject to a widespread pathology in that technology companies, the primary executors of tech ethics, are incentivized to pursue it half-heartedly or even disingenuously. Next, I (...) highlight two emerging strategies which might be used to combat this problem, but argue that both are subject to practical limitations. In response, I suggest an additional way of augmenting the practice of tech ethics. This is to employ “trust audits,” a new form of public participation in the socio-technical environment. In the remainder of the paper, I offer a description of how trust audits work, what they might look like in practice, and how they can fit in alongside those other strategies for improving tech ethics. (shrink)

The past few years have seen the opening of several antitrust investigations against some of the most dominant and powerful companies in the world—e.g., the U.S. Department of Justice, numerous states, and the Federal Trade Commission have sued Google, Facebook, and Amazon, and the E.U. has launched additional proceedings against Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. This paper looks at the latest trends and developments in the E.U. and the USA and analyzes the different regulatory approaches taken from a distinct (...) business ethics, that is, ordoliberal perspective. The paper aims to derive ordoliberal-inspired antitrust principles and apply them to the current antitrust proceedings and investigations, thereby assessing their strengths and weaknesses. It also aims at developing ordoliberal-inspired reform proposals which might help to strengthen and “harden” modern-day antitrust regimes. (shrink)

Tech companies have eagerly utilised mindfulness techniques in order to increase both creativity and productivity among their managers and employees. However, while a growing number of studies within fields of clinical psychology and psychiatry suggest that mindfulness provides myriad health benefits, such literature does not critically evaluate the societal and affective influences of mindfulness and other wellness practices on working bodies. By focusing on discourses related to mindfulness training, this paper explores the conception of ‘being present’. Drawing on (...) the phenomenology of the body, affect theory, and critical mindfulness studies, we develop a new theoretical framework for analysing mindfulness as a somatic and social force in technology-driven business contexts. Using research material drawn from the online advertising of mindfulness programmes for managers, this paper describes ‘presence’ as a new labour concept associated with the cultivated performance skill of the managerial body in the era of late capitalism. We conclude that mindfulness training – transforming the somatic into an affective investment – has transformed Buddhist meditation into capital that can be bought and consumed. (shrink)

The debate surrounding ‘big tech’ and antitrust has dominated public policy discourses over the past few years in many parts of the world. Noteworthy is that several countries and regions, including China, the European Union, and the United States, have launched investigations into the allegedly anticompetitive and exclusionary business practices of companies such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google and their Chinese counterparts, Alibaba and Tencent. This paper builds on the renewed interest in the topic and discusses in (...) detail – and from an ordoliberal perspective – the key characteristics of the digital economy, the business conduct of tech platforms, and the corresponding antitrust concerns, as well as possible reform steps which could help to strengthen modern-day competition law and policy (and antitrust enforcement). (shrink)

Having been involved in a slew of recent scandals, many of the world’s largest technology companies embarked on devising numerous codes of ethics, intended to promote improved standards in the conduct of their business. These efforts have attracted largely critical interdisciplinary academic attention. The critics have identified the voluntary character of the industry ethics codes as among the main obstacles to their efficacy. This is because individual industry leaders and employees, flawed human beings that they are, cannot be relied (...) on voluntarily to conform with what justice demands, especially when faced with powerful incentives to pursue their own self-interest instead. Consequently, the critics have recommended a suite of laws and regulations to force the tech companies to better comply with the requirements of justice. At the same time, they have paid little attention to the possibility that individuals acting within the political context, e.g. as lawmakers and regulators, are also imperfect and need not be wholly compliant with what justice demands. This paper argues that such an omission is far from trivial. It creates a heavy argumentative burden on the part of the critics that they by and large fail to discharge. As a result, the case for Big Tech regulation that emerges from the recent literature has substantial lacunae and more work needs to be done before we can accept the critics’ calls for greater state involvement in the industry. (shrink)

Despite increasing attention to the sensors, drones, robots, and apps permeating agri-food systems, little attention has been paid to social media, perhaps the most ubiquitous digital technology in rural areas globally. This article draws on analysis of farming groups on Myanmar Facebook to posit social media as appropriated agritech: a generic technology incorporated into existing circuits of economic and social exchange that becomes a site of agrarian innovation. Through analysis of an original archive of popular posts collected from Myanmar-language Facebook (...) pages and groups related to agriculture, I explore the ways that farmers, traders, agronomists and agricultural companies use social media to further agrarian commerce and knowledge. These activities evidence that farmers use Facebook not only to exchange market or planting information, but also to interact in ways structured by existing social, political and economic relations. More broadly, my analysis builds on insights from STS and postcolonial computing to disrupt assumptions about the totalizing power of digital technologies and affirm the relevance of social media to agriculture, while inviting new research into the surprising, ambiguous relationships between small farmers and big tech. (shrink)

Nothing seems as certain as death. However, what if life continues digitally after death? Companies and initiatives such as Amazon, Storyfile, Here After AI, Forever Identity and LifeNaut are dedicated to precisely this objective: using avatars, records, and other digital content of the deceased, they strive to enable a digital continuation of life. The deceased live on digitally, and at times, these can even appear very much alive-perhaps too alive? This article explores the ethical implications of these technologies, commonly (...) known as Death Tech. With the advancement of artificial intelligence, Death Tech will inevitably transform mourning practices, our perception of death, and how we cope with its reality in the coming years. In this article, it is demonstrated that Death Tech can contribute to individual grief support, education, and a vibrant culture of remembrance. However, it is crucial to recognise that the Digital Afterlife is not a paradise but necessitates active designing and ethical deliberation. (shrink)

Having been involved in a slew of recent scandals, many of the world’s largest technology companies (“Big Tech,” “Digital Titans”) embarked on devising numerous codes of ethics, intended to promote improved standards in the conduct of their business. These efforts have attracted largely critical interdisciplinary academic attention. The critics have identified the voluntary character of the industry ethics codes as among the main obstacles to their efficacy. This is because individual industry leaders and employees, flawed human beings that (...) they are, cannot be relied on voluntarily to conform with what justice demands, especially when faced with powerful incentives to pursue their own self-interest instead. Consequently, the critics have recommended a suite of laws and regulations to force the tech companies to better comply with the requirements of justice. At the same time, they have paid little attention to the possibility that individuals acting within the political context, e.g. as lawmakers and regulators, are also imperfect and need not be wholly compliant with what justice demands. This paper argues that such an omission is far from trivial. It creates a heavy argumentative burden on the part of the critics that they by and large fail to discharge. As a result, the case for Big Tech regulation that emerges from the recent literature has substantial lacunae and more work needs to be done before we can accept the critics’ calls for greater state involvement in the industry. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how some of the information and communication practices of the Tech Media and specifically of Facebook, constitute media corruption. The paper will examine what the professional role of Facebook is regarding its information/communication practices and then demonstrate that Facebook is essentially a media company and not merely a “platform,” therefore liable to the same normative responsibilities as other media companies. Design/methodology/approach Applying the dual obligation information theory, a normative information (...) and communication theory that applies generally to all media companies that disseminate and share information, the paper demonstrates that Facebook’s role of mediating and curating the information of its users places upon it a normative editing responsibility, to ensure both the preventive detection and corrective editing of fake news, as well as other forms of misinformation disseminated on its platform. Finally, applying a philosophical model of media corruption the paper will demonstrate that Facebook’s role in the Cambridge Analytica case was not only unethical but moreover, constituted media corruption. Findings The paper concludes that Facebook’s media corruption illustrated in the Cambridge Analytica case is not a one-off case but the result of a systemic and inherent conflict of interest between its business model of selling users’ information to advertisers and its normative media role rendering the conflict of interest between those two roles conducive to media corruption. Originality/value The paper's originality is twofold. It demonstrates that Facebook is a media company normatively accountable on the basis of an original theory the DOIT and moreover, on the basis of an original media corruption theory its actions in the Cambridge Analytica case constituted media corruption. (shrink)

The emergence of urban tech economies calls attention to the multidimensional spatiality of ecosystems made up of people and organizations that produce new digital technology. Since the economic crisis of 2008, city governments have aggressively pursued economic growth by nurturing these ecosystems. Elected officials create public-private-nonprofit partnerships to build an “innovation complex” of discursive, organizational, and geographical spaces; they aim not only to jump-start economic growth but to remake the city for a new modernity. But it is difficult to (...) insert tech production space into the complicated urban matrix. Embedded industries and social communities want protection from expanding tech companies and the real estate developers who build for them. City council members, state legislators, and community organizations oppose the city government’s attempts to satisfy Big Tech companies. While the city’s density magnifies conflicts of interest over land-use and labor issues, the covid-19 pandemic raises serious questions about the city’s ability to both oppose Big Tech and keep creating tech jobs. (shrink)

What are networked organizations? The focus of discussions of the networked organization has been on the boundary-spanning nature of these new organizational structures. Yet, the role of the group in these networked organizations has remained unclear. Furthermore, little is known about how computer-mediated communication is used to bridge group and organizational boundaries. In particular, the role of new media in the context of existing communication patterns has received little attention. We examine how employees at a high-tech company, referred to (...) as KME, communicate with members of the work group, other colleagues in the organization, and colleagues outside the organization to better understand their boundary-spanning communications. (shrink)

At present, high-tech enterprises are mainly organizations engaged in the production, research, and development and service of high-tech products. The current development of high-tech industries in various countries in the world is of great significance to improving social productivity and overall national strength. This article mainly introduces the modeling and analysis of the complex system of human capital accumulation in high-tech enterprises based on big data. This paper proposes a theoretical analysis of corporate human capital data (...) and proposes regression analysis and analytic hierarchy process to calculate and analyze the process of corporate human capital accumulation and collect and analyze the data using questionnaire surveys and other methods. In addition, complex systems were modeled based on big data, and a cloud computing-based human capital big data analysis platform was established. The experimental results show that complex system modeling based on big data has a positive impact on the human capital accumulation of high-tech enterprises. For high-tech companies at different stages of development, the relationship between various types of human capital and corporate performance is inconsistent with the market economy. In contrast, the current salary system of some high-tech companies still has many drawbacks. The cost of using human resources controlled by the wage system accounts for more than 24%. (shrink)

This open access monograph argues established democratic norms for freedom of expression should be implemented on the internet. Moderating policies of tech companies as Facebook, Twitter and Google have resulted in posts being removed on an industrial scale. While this moderation is often encouraged by governments - on the pretext that terrorism, bullying, pornography, “hate speech” and “fake news” will slowly disappear from the internet - it enables tech companies to censure our society. It is the (...) social media companies who define what is blacklisted in their community standards. And given the dominance of social media in our information society, we run the risk of outsourcing the definition of our principles for discussion in the public domain to private companies. Instead of leaving it to social media companies only to take action, the authors argue democratic institutions should take an active role in moderating criminal content on the internet. To make this possible, tech companies should be analyzed whether they are approaching a monopoly. Antitrust legislation should be applied to bring those monopolies within democratic governmental oversight. Despite being in different stages in their lives, Anne Mette is in the startup phase of her research career, while Frederik is one of the most prolific philosophers in Denmark, the authors found each other in their concern about Free Speech on the internet. The book was originally published in Danish as Dit opslag er blevet fjernet - techgiganter & ytringsfrihed. Praise for 'Your Post has been Removed' "From my perspective both as a politician and as private book collector, this is the most important non-fiction book of the 21st Century. It should be disseminated to all European citizens. The learnings of this book and the use we make of them today are crucial for every man, woman and child on earth. Now and in the future.” Jens Rohde, member of the European Parliament for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe “This timely book compellingly presents an impressive array of information and analysis about the urgent threats the tech giants pose to the robust freedom of speech and access to information that are essential for individual liberty and democratic self-government. It constructively explores potential strategies for restoring individual control over information flows to and about us. Policymakers worldwide should take heed!” Nadine Strossen, Professor, New York Law School. Author, HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship. (shrink)

The book focuses on two pillars of China's economic success: industrial enterprises and the national system of innovation. The first part investigates the nature and evolution of productive enterprises, concentrating on the rounds of transformation of their ownership structure. The second part analyses the structure of China's national innovation systems. The analysis is based on a thorough study of statistical data provided by the China Statistical Yearbook, the World Bank and other sources. Alberto Gabriele emphasizes two key points, which constitute (...) a partly novel interpretation of two aspects of China's unique development. The first point is the crucial role of public ownership of the country's core means of production, in the framework of a harmonious market where different types of property coexist. China, the author argues, gradually abandoned old-fashioned administrative command tools and is relying more and more on indirect and value-based forms of strategic control of productive assets. The second point is China's strategic emphasis on technological progress and innovation, accompanied by an effort to develop national capacity and reduce its dependence on other countries. China's drive to become a first-class technological power revolves around the enhancement of its national innovation system, the author says. Big private high-tech companies play a crucial role; however, the main engines of progress are state-controlled enterprises, universities and research centres. (shrink)

Silicon Valley and its innovation center counterparts have come upon food and agriculture as the next frontier for their unique style of innovation and impact. But what exactly can the tech sector, with expertise in information and communication technologies, bring to a domain in which the biophysical materiality of soil, plants, animals and human bodies have most challenged farmers and food companies? Based on a detailed analysis of all of the companies that have pitched their products at (...) events sponsored by the Silicon Valley-based convener, Foodbytes!, we show that a large proportion of tech-driven solutions are digital technologies transferred from other domains. These technologies at best inform decision-making on the ecological processes of food and farming, but do not provide tools to treat them, and otherwise provide business solutions not even aimed at major challenges in food and farming. Drawing on a small set of interview data, we additionally suggest that tech entrepreneurs migrate to food and agriculture because it seems purposeful, exciting, or lucrative, but sometimes lack a clear understanding of the problems they might solve with their digital technologies. In making our case about the mismatch of problem and solution, we bring into conversation recent critiques of digital solutionism with abiding concerns in agrarian political economy and critical food studies regarding the role of the biological in both challenging food production and spurring technological intervention. (shrink)

This study is intended to provide in-depth insights into how design thinking and creativity issues are understood and possibly evolve in the course of design discussions in a company context. For that purpose, we use the seminar transcripts of the Design Thinking Research Symposium 12 (DTRS12) dataset “Tech-centred Design Thinking: Perspectives from a Rising Asia,” which are primarily concerned with how Korean companies implement design thinking and what role designers currently play. We employed a novel method of information (...) processing based on constructed dynamic semantic networks to investigate the seminar discussions according to company representatives and company size. We compared the quantitative dynamics in two seminars: the first involved managerial representatives of four companies, and the second involved specialized designers and management of a design center of single company. On the basis of dynamic semantic networks, we quantified the changes in four semantic measures—abstraction, polysemy, information content, and pairwise word similarity—in chronologically reconstructed individual design-thinking processes. Statistical analyses show that design thinking in the seminar with four companies, exhibits significant differences in the dynamics of abstraction, polysemy, and information content, compared to the seminar with the design center of single company. Both the decrease in polysemy and abstraction and the increase in information content in the individual design-thinking processes in the seminar with four companies indicate that design managers are focused on more concrete design issues, with more information and less ambiguous content to the final design product. By contrast, specialized designers manifest more abstract thinking and appear to exhibit a slightly higher level of divergence in their design processes. The results suggest that design thinking and creativity issues are articulated differently depending on designer roles and the company size. (shrink)

Gender scholars argued that gendered organizations theory needs updating as organizational logic has shifted amid neoliberal workplace transformations. This qualitative case study of a high-tech firm reveals how features of the traditional work logic remain resilient. I analyze the gendered implications of a high-tech startup restructuring and going public, finding the flexible organization to bureaucratize, implementing specialized jobs and a hierarchy with standardized career ladders. Going public creates conflicting gendered logics that place women at a structural disadvantage, relegating (...) them to low-status, narrow jobs while simultaneously demanding masculine ideal worker norms of visibility and self-promotion. Despite networking, women experience job insecurity and a glass ceiling, while men are assumed ideal workers and advance. By tracing one high-tech firm’s restructuring from a startup to public company, I demonstrate how the collision of new and traditional workplace logics perpetuates gender inequalities. (shrink)

The high-tech industry is the main force promoting the development of China’s national economy. As its industrial economic strength grows, China’s high-tech industry is increasingly using cross-border mergers and acquisitions as an important way to “go out.” To explore the rules governing the process and operation mechanism of reverse knowledge transfer through the CBM&A of China’s high-tech industry under government intervention, a tripartite evolutionary game model of the government, the parent company, and the subsidiary as the main (...) subjects is constructed in this paper. The strategies adopted by the three subjects in the RKT game process are analysed, and the factors influencing RKT through CBM&A under government intervention are simulated and analysed using Python 3.7 software. The results show that, under government intervention, the parent company and subsidiary have different degrees of influence on each other. Subsidiaries are highly sensitive to the compensation rate of RKT. Positive intervention by the government tends to foster stable cooperation between the parent company and the subsidiary. However, over time, the government gradually relaxes its intervention in the RKT and innovation of multinational companies. (shrink)

The education level and social participation of contemporary Chinese women have reached their historical peak; work is fast becoming the dominant theme of their lives. However, influenced by traditional attitudes, women are still expected to undertake the main family care tasks, thus, facing dual constraints of family and work, which seriously affect their life happiness. Based on the theory of subjective well-being and feminist geography, this study used the questionnaire survey and in-depth interview results of professional females in Dalian High- (...) class='Hi'>tech Industrial Zone as basic data to explore the life satisfaction and emotional cognition in intra- and extra-household life of professional females.). The following results were obtained: Most professional females reported higher life satisfaction in intra- rather than extra-household life, and it varied with individual attributes, reflecting the internal differences among them. The positive emotions of professional females came from the company of family and friends in intra-household life, and satisfaction with the working environment and treatment in extra-household life. The negative emotions came from the pressure of “marriage,” “birth,” and other traditional concepts in intra-household life. In extra-household life, it came from the health problems caused by working stress, interpersonal problems and gender inequality in the workplace, and the anxiety of age and future career development. Therefore, this study committed to revealing the living status and subjective feelings of contemporary professional females in China, hoping to improve women’s life quality and enhance their life happiness from a theoretical and realistic perspective. (shrink)

Using data of China’s listed companies from 2000 to 2016, we employ a staggered difference-in-difference approach to identify the causal effects of CEO turnover on corporate innovation. First, we find that listed companies with CEO turnover experienced an average increase of 9.5% in the quantity of innovation and 8.9% in innovation quality after the change. The dynamic effect test supports the parallel trend condition, and the placebo test rules out the nonrandom selection issue. Second, the heterogeneity tests show (...) that CEO turnover plays a more prominent role in promoting innovation for listed firms with CEO duality, high financial constraints, and in high-tech industries. Third, CEO turnover affects corporate innovation by driving top management team reorganization and promoting R&D input. This paper has important implications for the understanding of the role of CEO turnover in companies’ innovation, as well as for strategy formulation and implementation. (shrink)

Diet directly affects children’s physical and mental development. Nonetheless, how food insecurity and household food consumption impact the cognitive performance of children at risk of social exclusion remains poorly understood. In this regard, children in Guatemala face various hazards, mainly related to the socioeconomic difficulties that thousands of families have in the country. The main objective of this study was to analyze the differences in cognitive performance considering food insecurity and household food consumption in a sample of rural and urban (...) Guatemalan children and adolescents at risk of social exclusion. Child cognitive performance was assessed in 134 children and adolescents from rural and urban settings. Language, attention, and executive functions were assessed using neuropsychological tasks. Differences in cognitive performance in each level of food insecurity and household diet consumption were compared using the Mann–Whitney U test. A stepwise multivariate regression analysis was conducted to determine which factors may influence cognitive scores. The results showed that rural and urban groups did not differ in terms of food insecurity. However, considering just rural areas, differences were found between groups with food security and insecurity in attention and executive function tasks. Moreover, differences were found in food consumption for certain groups of food. Regarding regressions, protein food consumption, which is related to having a more balanced diet, was a relevant factor in executive performance. Contrary to what we expected, performance in attentional tasks was not related to the consumption of any food group. These findings could help politicians and decision-makers to select actions focused on improving diet balance and food security in families at risk of social exclusion. It is necessary to carry out more specific studies on the factors related to diet that affect the cognitive development of minors at risk of social exclusion. In addition, it is necessary to study the implementation of alternative interventions that include low-cost nutrients, thus ensuring that minors have access to a more balanced diet. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Rhetoric is widely regarded as the most important work of a theory of rhetoric produced in the 18th century. Campbell's work engages such themes in an attempt to formulate a universal theory of human communication. Campbell attempts to develop his theory by discovering deep principles in human nature that account for all instances and kinds of human communication. He seeks to derive all communication principles and processes empirically. In addition, all statements in discourse that have to do (...) with matters of fact and human affairs are likewise to be empirically derived. Thus, his theory of rhetoric is vastly wider than, and different from, such classical theories as those proposed by Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, whose theories focused on discourse related to civic affairs. By attempting to elaborate a general theory of rhetoric through empirical procedures, Campbell's project reveals the limitations of his method. He cannot ground all statements empirically and it is at this point that his theological position comes into play. Inspection of his religious views shows that God's design of human nature, and God's revelations to humankind, make moral and spiritual truths known and quite secure to human beings, although not empirically. (shrink)

"2009 realisierte [Jules Spinatsch] im Rahmen seiner "Surveillance Panorama Projects" während des Wiener Opernballs ein riesiges Panorama, das aus 10 008 Einzelbildern besteht. Zwei computergesteuerte Kameras nahmen diese vom Einlass der rund 7000 Gäste um 20:32 Uhr bis zum Ende des Balls um 05:17 Uhr auf. Das Sittengemälde aus chronologisch zusammengesetzten Fragmenten des umtriebigen Gesamtgeschehens zeigt eine ganze Reihe fotografischer Genres: Porträts, Stillleben, filmische Szenen und Paparazzi-Schnappschüsse.... Das Opernball-Panorama führt die Fotografie als Medium der Dokumentation, aber auch Überwachung vor Augen."--P.5 (...) of v.3. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that it is impossible to trust the Big Tech companies, in an ethically important sense of trust. The argument is not that these companies are untrustworthy. Rather, I argue that the power to hold the trustee accountable is a necessary component of this sense of trust, and, because these companies are so powerful, they are immune to our attempts, as individuals or nation-states, to hold them to account. It is, therefore, literally (...) impossible to trust Big Tech. After introducing the accounts of trust and power that I deploy, I argue that Big Tech companies have four kinds of power that render them unaccountable: fiscal power, political power, data power, and cognitive power. I conclude by reflecting on recent calls to break up the Big Tech firms, suggesting a new antitrust test in the light of my arguments. (shrink)

(Statement of Responsibility) by C.A. Stephens ; illustrated.

Digital innovations are rapidly changing the contemporary workplace. Big Tech companies marketing algorithmic management increasingly decide on the Future of Work. Political responses, however, often focus on managing the impact of these technologies on workers. They leave the question of how these technologies are designed or how workers can determine their own futures unanswered. This approach risks surrendering the Future of Work debate to techno-determinist imaginaries aligned with corporate interests. Using Cornelius Castoriadis’ early writings on worker struggles in (...) French Tayloristic factories and his later oeuvre on conflictual social imaginaries, I propose an agonistic approach to the Future of Work. Not merely companies implementing workplace technologies, but also workers themselves possess agency in determining the Future of Work. Workers’ frequent contestations against machinic surveillance and technologically mediated coordination of the labour process disclose an alternative Future of Work in which technologies are used to enhance worker autonomy rather than bureaucratic control. Worker struggles at Amazon Mechanical Turk illustrate this agonistic dynamic: Amazon mobilizes algorithmic management to fragment and control a workforce of globally dispersed remote workers, but the latter form online social communities and create counter-technologies to reappropriate control over the labour process. (shrink)

In recent years, AI research has become more and more computationally demanding. In natural language processing, this tendency is reflected in the emergence of large language models like GPT-3. These powerful neural network-based models can be used for a range of NLP tasks and their language generation capacities have become so sophisticated that it can be very difficult to distinguish their outputs from human language. LLMs have raised concerns over their demonstrable biases, heavy environmental footprints, and future social ramifications. In (...) December 2020, critical research on LLMs led Google to fire Timnit Gebru, co-lead of the company’s AI Ethics team, which sparked a major public controversy around LLMs and the growing corporate influence over AI research. This article explores the role LLMs play in the political economy of AI as infrastructural components for AI research and development. Retracing the technical developments that have led to the emergence of LLMs, we point out how they are intertwined with the business model of big tech companies and further shift power relations in their favour. This becomes visible through the Transformer, which is the underlying architecture of most LLMs today and started the race for ever bigger models when it was introduced by Google in 2017. Using the example of GPT-3, we shed light on recent corporate efforts to commodify LLMs through paid API access and exclusive licensing, raising questions around monopolization and dependency in a field that is increasingly divided by access to large-scale computing power. (shrink)

Mobile applications are increasingly regarded as important tools for an integrated strategy of infection containment in post-lockdown societies around the globe. This paper discusses a number of questions that should be addressed when assessing the ethical challenges of mobile applications for digital contact-tracing of COVID-19: Which safeguards should be designed in the technology? Who should access data? What is a legitimate role for “Big Tech” companies in the development and implementation of these systems? How should cultural and behavioural (...) issues be accounted for in the design of these apps? Should use of these apps be compulsory? What does transparency and ethical oversight mean in this context? We demonstrate that responses to these questions are complex and contingent and argue that if digital contract-tracing is used, then it should be clear that this is on a trial basis and its use should be subject to independent monitoring and evaluation. (shrink)

Building on literature in political CSR and corporate political activity (CPA) as well as responsible innovation and responsible lobbying, we introduce a framework to assess the legitimacy status of corporate political activity. We focus on the fact that companies frequently face sharp regulatory backlash after penetrating markets with their innovations. In response to regulatory backlash, big tech companies often employ an arsenal of corporate political activities to (re-)shape national and local regulatory environments, which raises the important questions (...) about the legitimacy of CPA tactics that we address. To develop and apply this framework, we briefly survey and then assess Uber’s corporate political activities in its 2015 New York City political campaign. (shrink)

This article asks how the application of digital technologies is changing the organization of the agri-food system in the context of the third food regime. The academic debate on digitalization and food largely focuses on the input and farm level. Yet, based on the analysis of 280 digital services and products, we show that digital technologies are now being used along the entire food commodity chain. We argue that digital technologies in the third food regime serve on the one hand (...) as a continuation of established information and communication technologies, thus deepening certain features of the existing food regime such as the retail sector’s control over global commodity chains. On the other hand, digital technologies also introduce new forms of control and value extraction based on the use of data and pave the way for large tech companies to take over market shares in the agri-food sector. Finally, we find that multinational agri-food companies are starting to take on the business models of leading digital tech companies, for instance by developing digital platforms throughout the agri-food system. We argue that this shows that the broader economic restructuring of neoliberal capitalism towards digital capitalism is also making its way into the agri-food system. (shrink)

This chapter explores the opportunities and limitations of the ideal of transparency in responsible innovation, by consulting the virtual case of "The Circle", a company which appears in Dave Eggers' novel The Circle. The Circle is a high-tech company with the main purpose of being responsive to societal needs. They want to eradicate unethical behaviour in society, enhance public health and make a positive impact on the environment. The ultimate goal of The Circle is to reach 100% full transparency (...) in the world, which is impossible without any societal desirability. In first instance, it is free choice of people to accept and embrace the products and services of The Circle, who invest resources in keeping customers happy and in raising awareness about the dangers of privacy. The chapter concludes that The Circle meets the requirements regarding the outcomes of responsible innovation, at least to a certain extent, while at the same time, one feels unease about certain activities they undertake. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders are facing an ethical dilemma and a tense tradeoff between employees’ health and economic performance. From the perspective of employees’ perceptions of the work situation, this study examines the way ethical leadership enhances employee creativity during the COVID-19 pandemic by using leader-member exchange and organizational ethical climate as mediators. The sample included 308 supervisor-employee pairs from 20 high-tech companies in eight provincial regions of China. Structural equation modeling was used (...) to test the proposed hypotheses. Results indicate that ethical leadership can significantly enhance employee creativity through the fully mediating roles of employees’ perceptions of leader-member exchange and organizational ethical climate. Moreover, leader-member exchange affects employee creativity directly as well as indirectly through the mediating role of organizational ethical climate. This study offers insights into the process linking ethical leadership to employee creativity and provides practical suggestions on ways of enhancing employee creativity in situations like the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. (shrink)

Patient online record access (ORA) is spreading worldwide, and in some countries, including Sweden, and the USA, access is advanced with patients obtaining rapid access to their full records. In the UK context, from 31 October 2023 as part of the new NHS England general practitioner (GP) contract it will be mandatory for GPs to offer ORA to patients aged 16 and older. Patients report many benefits from reading their clinical records including feeling more empowered, better understanding and remembering their (...) treatment plan, and greater awareness about medications including possible adverse effects. However, a variety of indirect evidence suggests these benefits are unlikely to accrue without supplementation from internet-based resources. Using such routes to augment interpretation of the data and notes housed in electronic health records, however, comes with trade-offs in terms of exposing sensitive patient information to internet corporations. Furthermore, increased work burdens on clinicians, including the unique demands of ORA, combined with the easy availability and capability of a new generation of large language model (LLM)-powered chatbots, create a perfect collision course for exposing sensitive patient information to private tech companies. This paper surveys how ORA intersects with internet associated privacy risks and offers a variety of multilevel suggestions for how these risks might be better mitigated. (shrink)

Background:The debate over the ethical implications of care robots has raised a range of concerns, including the possibility that such technologies could disrupt caregiving as a core human moral activity. At the same time, academics in information ethics have argued that we should extend our ideas of moral agency and rights to include intelligent machines.Research objectives:This article explores issues of the moral status and limitations of machines in the context of care.Design:A conceptual argument is developed, through a four-part scheme derived (...) from the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. No empirical data are used.Ethical consideration:No primary data were gathered for this study. Secondary sources and authorship have been acknowledged throughout.Findings / discussion:Certain kinds of social experience, including the narrative unity of a life, and the giving and receiving of care, are essential for moral development. Machines, no matter how advanced, cannot participate in such experiences in key respects, and thus cannot develop as practical reasoners.Conclusion:It follows that they cannot be moral agents and that they cannot care. There are, it seems, no such things as care robots. In view of the institutional power of tech companies and commissioning bodies, care practitioners need to take more of a lead in developing new assistive technologies which are appropriate to their practice. (shrink)

This study empirically examines the proposition that ethical leadership may affect individuals’ task performance through enhancing employees’ promotive voice. Our theoretical model was tested using data collected from employees and supervisors in a high-tech company located in South China. Analyses of multisource three-wave data from 37 team supervisors and 176 employees showed that ethical leadership could significantly affect individuals’ task performance through promotive voice. Further, it was found that the relationship between ethical leadership and promotive voice was moderated by (...) leader–leader exchange. Specifically, ethical leadership may significantly enhance employees’ promotive voice when leader–leader exchange is low. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)