Article: “Trustworthy tech companies: talking the talk or walking the walk?”
Esther Keymolen has published the article Trustworthy tech companies: talking the talk or walking the walk? in the journal AI and Ethics.
Social media, e-commerce, gaming apps, and e-health programs: data-driven applications are at the core of everyday life and Big Tech dominates the market. People are increasingly dependent on tech companies to live a flourishing life. It is of utmost importance that these tech companies are trustworthy, but several incidents (Cambridge Analytica, apps leaking data, discriminating facial recognition applications) have exposed their failure to take the interest of users at heart. It is unclear what, morally, to expect from tech companies and this opens the door for tech companies claiming to take the interests of end-users at heart (talking the talk), while actually dodging responsibility (failing to walk the walk).
By bringing together debates on trustworthiness, philosophy of technology, data ethics and regulatory strategies, the article addresses the following questions: What should tech companies do to deserve our trust? What would make them trustworthy?
