Unintended Consequences of Technology

The role of technology and innovation is becoming harder and it is no longer enough to roll out innovation for the sake of it. Technology is able to scale exponentially faster than humans, the consequence of which is that decisions made by technology tend to affect a lot more people that decisions made by humans.

Hence, when thinking about how to reach half a billion people with life-changing assistive technology, it is very important that conscious and unconscious biases are eliminated in the data that drives AI in order to avoid the unintended consequences of scaling. Whilst discussions about how to use frontier technology to improve workplace health is becoming mainstream, conversations about ensuring the ethical use of such technologies, including Elon Musk’s Neuralink that aims to enhance brain performance using AI as well as tackle diseases such as Alzheimer and epilepsy, must occur simultaneously.

Global governments must therefore be proactive in enforcing transparency that protects consumers, rather than wait until negative consequences begin to manifest before regulations are enacted.

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