IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019 - 80

The main problem of the ethical
neutrality argument is that it leaves
very little space for upholding and
leveraging significant transparency
and accountability.

with the doctrine that better technology necessarily
equals progress. Some engineers are now explicitly
describing how their "code is law," namely that algorithmic design choices are inherently value laden and
fraught with all kinds of biases. Former FB executive
Sean Parker has admitted that the site "was made to
exploit human vulnerability" and former Googler Tristan
Harris has shown that Instagram developers gained
design experience at Stanford's "Persuasive Technology
Lab" where they were schooled to "use technology to
persuade a user's interactions and manipulate their
emotions." Just like the Cambridge Analytica scandal,
the fact that companies actively control the decisionmaking metrics of their users should not come as a surprise. Rather than seeing the effects of power currently
held by computer experts as technology's "unintended
consequences," this power must be understood as an
amazing opportunity to design cyberspaces for justice,
kindness, empathy, and inclusivity. In that context, it's
quite encouraging to see that former FB and Google
employees are currently collaborating with journalists to
create the "Center for Humane Technology" in order to
"fight what they built."

Premise
Conscious Will Sought After by All
The understanding of the connection between conscious will and action is seemingly intrinsic to human
nature. Experiencing action as consciously willed is
sought after by all. An example of how humans strive
for consciously willed actions is through the natural formation of an abstract "ideal human agent" [1]. Even
though it is impossible to know the root cause of each
action due to the many unconscious factors, humans
create an ironic conception that each person is one's
own conscious agent. This conception creates conscious meaning for most actions that are impossible to
describe, and can be seen as an attempt to make
impossibly calculated intentions into calculated actions.
An example can be seen when a user posts a photo on

a social media site. The intentions behind the user posting on the site may seemingly be known to the user, an
example of which may be something like "because I
want my friends to see X," but it is impossible to know
the many unconscious reasons that caused a person to
post that photo. The act of creating a reason behind
posting is a display of the natural tendency to view ourselves as an "ideal human agent," where each of our
consciously willed actions are caused by one of our
intentions. When holding the belief that one has
become this "ideal human agent," actions are felt to be
linked closer to their intentions, causing users to feel a
heightened sense of control over their conscious being.
If a platform is able to cause its users to feel this
increased sensation of control, they will attract more
users. Simply put, the natural formation of ourselves as
"ideal human agents" will be shown later to be abused
by platforms.

Data as Identity
To better understand claims made later in the essay, it
is important to justify that data can also be viewed as
a form of identity. With data being understood to be
"information output by a sensing device or organ that
includes both useful and irrelevant or redundant information and must be processed to be meaningful" [2],
the next step is to then ask who and what processes
that data. In nature, this processing occurs by humans
in order to make sense of the world around them. Taking in large amount of sensory information every second, people must process information and use it to
create actions. Furthermore, the way in which people
form actions can be determined by completely understanding how they uniquely process the data given to
them. Logically following, if an agent never experiences any data, they would be unable to formulate
actions. Thus, data must be present for one to exercise
their intrinsic "capacity to act" which defines their
being [3].
To further this logic, when humans interact with others, they also experience sensory data. Regardless of
whether that data is from the sense of smell, or sight,
etc., people are forced to attach meaning to that data in
order to form action. For example, if one saw a friend
walking past them, they are able to conclude that it is
indeed their friend simply because they processed visual data which they think to be descriptive of some person they know. Furthermore, people naturally take in
data and form abstract representations of others. The
reason that one is able to decide that some visual data
represented their friend is due to these abstract characteristics that are formed by each person. Whether it was
hair color, perceived height, or even location that led
one to being able to tell it was their friend, it is

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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JUNE 2019

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019

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