In ACM Communications, Rice University professor and former CACM editor-in-chief Moshe Y. Vardi doesn't mince his words in “Computing, You Have Blood on Your Hands!".
He argues that the unintended consequences of the rise of social media and laptops have brought hate trafficking on a global scale but also a global youth mental health crisis.
"How did the technology we thought was so 'cool' just a decade ago become an assault weapon used to harm, injure, or even kill vulnerable people?" Vardi wonders.
"Looking back at my previous columns, one can see my warnings. Our obsession with efficiency came at the expense of durability. In the name of efficiency, we aimed to eliminate all friction. In the name of efficiency, it became desirable let's move quickly and we have allowed the technology industry to be dominated by a very small number of large companies."
“It's time for all IT professionals to take responsibility for the current situation. To use metaphors from Star Wars, we once thought of computers as the “Rebels”, but it turns out that IT is the “Empire”. Admitting we have a problem is a necessary first step in addressing the problems IT has created."
Examples he cites in the post include:
On category of Amnesty International in 2022 that Meta has "substantially contributed" to the human rights violations of Myanmar's Rohingya
and internal Meta documents that say “We don't really do what we say we do” on policing harmful content.
So far the ACM publication has attracted one comment.
"Thank you very much for your long-term commitment to ethics and the way you articulate its challenges."
