CEO Damian Ehrlicher shares his concerns with other Technology Leaders in FORBES about patient data & genomics.

15 Ethical Crises In Technology That Have Industry Leaders Concerned

Growing technologies such as artificial intelligence have incredible potential. However, they also can come with ethical concerns, such as privacy violations and data safety. These issues must be addressed before people can safely implement emerging technologies in their daily lives.

As industry leaders, the members of Forbes Technology Council keep a close eye on issues impacting the field. Below, they share 15 ethical crises they’re concerned about and what can be done to remedy them.

1. Lack Of Barriers To Fintech Entry

The proliferation of API-as-a-service in fintech allows for any startup to quickly enter a once-difficult space. There is a world of a difference between trading and creating a retirement plan and providing consumer education and sound financial advice. Having more than “tools” is critically important to the future success of fintech. Technology without purpose is meaningless. - Leibel Sternbach, Fusion Capital Management

2. Poor Disclosure Around Personal Data Use

I think organizations need to be completely transparent about how they use personal data. More education is required concerning how data is moved or transported and the real-world implications of how data is routed. Technology companies should explain in detail the benefits customers get when they use the service. They should disclose in plain English when the data is used for other purposes. - Mark Hobbs, Fundmetric Incorporated

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3. Storage Of Individual Genomes

Genomics platforming and personalized medicine are opening up Pandora’s box. The ethical crisis of having your genomes stored is a scary scenario, but it is juxtaposed with the fact that your life is at risk and triggers the internal need to live. Personalized medicine has amazing potential to prolong life and eliminate future diseases that an individual may be predisposed to, but at what cost? - Damian Ehrlicher, Protected IT

4. Compromised Patient Data In Drug Discovery

AI is being utilized in drug discovery and as a result, patient data might get compromised. That’s a real challenge with so many countries racing to find a cure for Covid-19. Many countries do not have strict privacy laws like the United States’ HIPAA. - Marty Puranik, Atlantic.Net, Inc.

5. Inherited Human Bias

AI is the appropriate emerging technology to be concerned about. In the end, it’s trained by humans and inherits our biases. This has already resulted in virtual AI judges imprisoning the innocent. In addition, AI is often network-accessible and can be tricked—as can a human—influencing the bias and decision-making of the AI to produce the desired results of the person doing the tricking. - James Carder, LogRhythm

6. The Legality Of Public Facial Recognition Software

One of the most topical questions of the facial recognition process is how legal the gathering and storing of data is. How legal is it to install facial recognition tech in public spaces or track our online activity? Developing laws and regulations that both protect our privacy and make the environment we live in safe might lift a lot of legal and ethical questions out of the way. - Daria Leshchenko, SupportYourApp Inc.

7. ‘Digital Twin’ Manipulation

As we move towards hyper-personalization, there are newer, smarter technologies being developed to gather and store everything that is knowable about us. With rapid progress in AI, our “digital twin” could easily lead to our being manipulated about decisions that are not limited to just shopping. The only solution is to draw clearer lines and introduce stricter norms. - Mayank Mishra, Contentstack

8. ‘Temporary’ Crisis Measures That Push Ethical Boundaries

Governments have a long history of introducing “temporary” measures in times of crisis. These measures always push the otherwise unacceptable boundaries one step forward. The current situation is no different. Under the disguise of fighting pandemics, contact-tracing apps are here to stay. Thanks to Google and Apple’s Exposure Notification protocol, tracing is decentralized and on request only. - Pawel Rzeszucinski, Codewise

9. Valuing Money Above Human Rights

The root of all the ethical crises in technology is when money is valued above all else. Until there is a cost, tech companies will not value you as a person if money is to be made from treating you as something less than a person. Increasingly, having a reputation for valuing people, their privacy and human rights will make an organization stand out and even make more money in the long term. - Kendall Miller, Fairwinds Ops, Inc.

10. Decisions Made By Autonomous Driving Systems

Autonomous driving systems make calculations that humans could not make in the same amount of time. In the case of an unavoidable collision, does the car hit a nearby motorcyclist or a car with four people in it? The incentives of that particular system, as well as the network of systems from different manufacturers co-evolving with different incentives, would need to be governed carefully. - Ryan Peeler, Voxx Analytics

11. Deep-Fake Videos And Disinformation

AI is enabling a wide spectrum of new applications, including deep-fake videos. While the world is plagued by the spread of disinformation through social media, deep-fake videos take disinformation to a whole new level. While enabling deep-fakes, AI will eventually enable the emergence of a helpful byproduct: anti-deep-fake tools. - Ahmad (Al) Fares, CeliTech Inc.

12. AI Taking Over Jobs

Automation, robotics and AI will take over most professions in the future, from truck driving and construction to teaching and healthcare. We should all be joining forces today to make sure there is a proper education system for all children to have access to better schooling, from preschool to trade school to leadership training. - Russell P Reeder, Infrascale

13. Fractured Data Privacy Regulation

I’m concerned with the fractured way we regulate data privacy globally. How can companies deal with the different ways countries legislate data privacy as data moves throughout a cloud-based, global network? We need to come together more efficiently and effectively on this to retain the trust of customers. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster

14. Systemic Discrimination In Data Used To Train AI

There is an enormous amount of discrimination built into current AI systems because the data they were trained on contained years of systemic discrimination. Systems that review résumés, for example, are only as good as the résumés they are trained on. Systemic discrimination means those résumés used for training will exclude and penalize minorities. - Sean Byrnes, Outlier

15. Commoditization Of Online Data

The biggest concern currently is how much data is available online and how it is used as a commodity for other corporations. To remedy the situation, the government can mandate regulation for data privacy. As one example, the European Union is doing that with the General Data Protection Regulation, ensuring that websites disclose when they have cookies to collect visitor information. - Arnie Gordon, Arlyn Scales