Working with AI Surveillance

Since several years I am exploring ethics and meaning of my work as software engineer. While it is not a clear cut topic, it lies in the core of our work, similar to all the tech and engineering stuff. Last year Artur Meyster, CTO of Career Karma, contacted me about cooperating on a guest blog post here on my site. (Thank you Artur for your patience.) While guest blogging seems mainly SEO related, I do not mind a fresh perspective on a topic I have been thinking about, much like the series of interviews I am conducting from time to time. This post was mostly written by Maria Elena Gonzalez. Maria is a broadcast journalist and has been working as a tech writer for three years. During this time, her work has been published by companies like TechAccute, Trip University, and Entrepreneur - and now by the Code Cop ;-)

AI Surveillance
The recent evolution of technology has resulted in many new areas, such as data science, virtual reality or machine learning. As a developer, these are the new and cool topics to explore and dive into. (Maybe start with a data science boot camp.) Applications in these areas have improved our quality of life. They serve the same purpose as AI surveillance: to improve our quality of life. However, as is the case with any invention, AI surveillance has a dark side: we might be losing our right to privacy.

You may think this is a problem only for famous people, but that is not the case. It can also be a problem for you. According to a recent report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 75 out of 176 countries are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for surveillance purposes, which makes it hard to know who is safe from AI surveillance. If you would like to know more about the impact of AI surveillance on our daily life, read on.

What is AI Surveillance?
AI surveillance goes beyond AI-driven security cameras. Companies and governmental organizations have been using this technology to track trends and transitions to make better business decisions.

How is it Affecting Us?
AI surveillance has many benefits. For example, it can improve traffic. Have you ever waited for traffic lights to turn green even though there are no cars around? This could be improved by using AI surveillance. AI algorithms can detect movement and change traffic lights phasing based on real-time activity. Financial companies can use AI surveillance to spot malicious activities and minimize fraud. This has the potential to revolutionize the financial industry. The possibilities are endless, and we could continue to show you the positive aspects of AI surveillance, but let's take a look at the darker side.

With the amount of data collected increasing rapidly, the possibility of privacy invasion is rocketing. While some AI surveillance activity falls within the law, others represent privacy violations. Privacy International points out that AI surveillance can be very delicate when it comes to data privacy: "With the proliferation of surveillance cameras, facial recognition, open-source and social media intelligence, biometrics, and data emerging from smart cities, the police now have unprecedented access to massive amounts of data." Governments that take advantage of this technology have access to citizens' personal data, a situation that can quickly turn into a violation of privacy rights if left unchecked.

Which Countries are Adopting AI Surveillance Technology?
Among the leaders in the use of AI surveillance are China and the United States. Out of the two, China is implementing the technology more widely. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the organizations that most often use AI surveillance are part of the government. China is not only using the technology to improve traffic, it is also applying AI surveillance to track the activities of the Uighurs, in the northwestern province of Xinjiang, according to LiveWithAI. By using facial recognition based on race and ethnicity characteristics, the Chinese government can easily detect when a Uighur attempts to flee Xinjiang.

Is the US Government using AI surveillance? Yes, of course. Common applications of governmental AI surveillance include military activity and security. For example Palantir might have helped to power Trump's "extreme vetting" of immigrants. However, there are other applications that target improving the performance of cities.

Which Companies Provide These Kind of Service?
According to the report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, some of the leading companies providing AI surveillance are Huawei, ZTE and Hikvision. These companies provide AI-powered surveillance to more than 60 countries. A particularly controversial case involving AI surveillance and facial recognition technology is that of Clearview. This company collects and stores publicly available data on every person on the planet. Scraping from social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, Clearview has collected more than 3 billion images from social media platforms, making it the largest such library in the world. Using its enormous library of pictures, Clearview has created a search engine for faces that can be used to recognize anyone. This tool has already been used by more than 600 law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the US Department of Justice. Clearview's willingness to do what no one else dared to do - scrape freely available data and exploit it for profit - has put it in the centre of a moral debate.

Should You Apply at Such Companies?
Now we are getting to the meat of the discussion: As a software professional, should you work for a company that is working on this type of solution? How do you navigate the moral implications of your work? These are complex questions that seem to require deep introspection. However, at the end of the day - at least for the extreme cases mentioned above - the answer is simpler than you expect.

On the personal level, whether working for a company like Clearview is a good idea depends on your values and what you prioritize in life. Some people abhor the whole concept of using free data to spy on people, while others would simply see nothing wrong with this idea. If you are more like the former, then working for a company like Clearview is a bad idea. It goes against your principles - you will simply not be happy in the long run, regardless of the size of that pay check. If, on the other hand, you don't see anything wrong with these practices and everything else about the job looks good, you might think it is OK to do the job. It is not.

In his famous keynote Not just code monkeys Martin Fowler identified two areas where most of our impact and responsibility as a developer lie at the moment: Privacy and avoiding the creation of an alienating atmosphere at our workplaces.

Conclusion
AI surveillance can be beneficial if used wisely and without violating privacy rights. However, there are some organizations that are using this technology to invade our privacy. The key to avoiding this is to create new policies that protect our privacy rights. As a developer, you must be aware of the implication of your work on privacy and steer clear of such violations.

What is Ethical Coding and how to get involved

Three years ago I started thinking about work with meaning. Since then I had great discussions with peer Software Professionals about our social responsibility and ethics in software development. Today I am happy to present a guest post written by Kayleigh Alexandra, a content writer for Micro Startups, a site dedicated to spreading the word about startups. I like seeing a focus on ethical approaches in startups, i.e. Social entrepreneurship. Kayleigh Alexandra shares her ideas about ethical coding in this introductory article. For her latest startup news and inspiring stories, visit the Micro Startups blog or follow along on Twitter.

Technology provides amazing possibilities, but its power also makes it a threat. Almost everything we do relies on complex interactions of computer systems, with those systems running on code from countless distinct sources - you cannot trust one chunk of code to meet the same standard as another.

Unknown quality is not the only concern we can have about code, however. A function devised to achieve one thing can be extended and repurposed to do numerous other things - does not the developer bear some responsibility in how it is used? Those who share that sentiment argue for ethical coding, targeting a future of much broader social awareness. But what exactly does ethical coding involve, what are some relevant cases to consider, and how can you get involved in it? Let's take a look.

What does ethical coding involve?
Ethical coding involves acknowledging and acting upon the social responsibilities of a developer - factoring it alongside corporate responsibility - seeking to adhere to a set of meaningful values. It has becoming more prominent in recent years due to rising social awareness in general.

Because of the layer of abstraction between low-level source code and the consequences of the projects people work on, it is easy for everyone in a development company to absolve themselves of any culpability. Ethical coding requires the executive level to take ownership of the entire company output, committing to holding every last employee to a revised standard.

A developer with an ethical approach will think carefully about what her software will be used (or has been used) to achieve, and adjust course accordingly. They will also have strong thoughts about the general responsibilities of the software development industry, making them eager to advocate for higher standards and more transparency.

Since ethical stances vary wildly, though, there can be no precise definition of ethical coding - the best we can do is to use a broad ethical framework that loosely mirrors the societal standard for other fields such as medicine: minimising harm, being truthful, and making life better. See the Programming Ethical Guidelines by ACM and IEEE.

The rise of ethical software development
As noted, social awareness of the many issues that face the world continues to rise, driven by the 24/7 connectivity of the Internet and the move into adulthood of an ethically-conscious generation. For better or worse, social media users now act as moral guardians of sorts. Because technology in general plays a huge role in industry and the opaque nature of many coding projects is at odds with a desire for transparency, the tech world has attracted a lot of flak. This has led to various projects that have sought to demonstrate that technology can be a force for good, such as the following:

• The Hummingbird Clock. In 2016, as part of the Liverpool Biennial, this timepiece was installed as a commentary on government corruption and to serve as a tool for the public. Set up as three binoculars looking upon the Town Hall, it actually records the hum of the electrical grid and streams it online - since the government has long used that hum for surveillance, this was to make it available to anyone. As a result, anyone in legal difficulty can now use the hum to verify the time and date of a particular recording.
  
  
• The Empathy Deck. Social media can be brutal at times, deeply unpleasant and unempathetic, because being online and having some degree of anonymity drives people to embrace their darkest impulses. The Empathy Deck account was set up to respond to tweets with thought-provoking cards assembled from pieces of an artist's body of work, commenting on the perils of automation while providing some relevant musings and snippets of poetry to brighten someone's day.
  
  
• Cody Rocky. To many, the world of technology still feels quite dry and alienating, which can limit the types of people who choose to pursue it as a career. Cody Rocky is a programmable robot designed to appeal to children, lending a degree of accessibility to the field and making learning both productive and entertaining. It also crosses slightly into the nascent field of digital companionship.

In light of some high-profile fiascos making people much more concerned about the dangers of technology (such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, or the death caused by a self-driven car), the pressure on developers to implement ethics policies has increased significantly. There is also the thorny issue of so-called hacktivism - is hacking done for a good cause any less objectionable? Who gets to decide where to draw the line?

Though industry-wide ethical frameworks have been suggested before, there is so much more impetus on companies to be proactive now. In the coming years, I think it is fairly likely that it will become standard for software developers - well, any companies in the digital industry - to lay out and commit to their ethical codes.

How to get involved in ethical coding
If you are a developer and you want to get involved in ethical coding, then you can. It is actually fairly simple, with the following two major steps:

• Code ethically. This is straightforward enough. Whenever you create applications, be keenly aware of any and all ethical issues that may arise as a result. For example credit everyone whose code you adapt, be efficient to avoid needlessly taxing a system, maintain professional integrity, and refrain from working on any project that you expect to be used irresponsibly or immorally. You cannot know every potential issue, but you can do your best.
  
  
• Contribute to ethical projects. These can be your own, or existing projects that need help. This is not about your code, but about the goals of the project: for instance, you could volunteer some time for a healthcare-related project, or help out a charity with its operations. It does not cost much to start your own business these days, so it is easy for someone with good intentions to launch a startup, but it is much harder to make it a contender. Your support could be the key to a business getting big enough to do some real good.

Beyond that, the specifics are entirely up to you. It is really a matter of getting involved with online communities, finding people who share your values, and slowly discovering how you can best use your time to engage in ethical coding.

Ethical coding is only going to grow as a concern while massively-influential fields such AI or the IoT get larger. If you develop software and are strongly ethical, give a lot of thought to how you can better reconcile your beliefs with your work. There is no reason why you cannot have professional and personal contentment at the same time.

Interview Johannes Link

I am happy to announce my next guest in the series of interviews on ethics in Software Development and meaningful work: Johannes Link is a well known XP practitioner, trainer and frequent speaker from Germany.

Johannes, please introduce yourself.
I have been developing software in a professional context for more than 20 years and that is still one of my passions. My understanding of how to do programming was largely shaped by Extreme Programming. Especially its focus on quality and close collaboration are an intrinsic part of how I look on everything software-related.

I know that you are concerned with ethics in Software Development. Why do you care?
I think that everyone's personal views on ethics, morale, purpose of life, "good and bad" should also be reflected in their professional activities. Thus it is obvious to me that I cannot support activities in my job that I would reject when discussing politics with my friends. It came rather as a surprise to me when I learned that other people intentionally differentiate between their personal opinions and their professional activities.

What other topics are you concerned about?
Besides my intention to not harm society I would love to do something meaningful or even "to give back" to the world. I guess it came with age and with having children: Just implementing the next e-commerce shop or the next workflow-system for travel expenses won't excite me any more - regardless of the technology in use. That is why I am always looking for "purpose" in the projects I work on; it might be a personal purpose - e.g. building a new tool to make my life as a developer easier - or a more general purpose like teaching kids the fundamentals of programming.

There is also a "meta"-topic: Raising the awareness in our industry that what we do and how we do it shapes the future life of all. That is why we have to start thinking about responsibility in all our projects, and that contains aspects like security, usability, accessibility and risks.

Outside the topics discussed so far, what do you consider the biggest challenges (for humanity) of our times?
Preserving a world that is worth living in. It is not only the climate that is at stake but also democracy and other traits of humaneness that came with the Age of Enlightenment.

When I talk to people, many express concern about meat mass production or pollution, but almost nobody really acts on it. What could we do to engage in these topics?
I am probably as lazy as most when it comes to getting into action. I donate money and I sign petitions, but does that really help? Maybe it is even corrupting the purpose because it makes us feel better and takes some of the uneasiness away that could otherwise push us to real action.

That said, I do not think we can (and should) all fight the same battles. Choose one or a few topics in which your interest or your anger is the biggest and tackle those. As for me the rise of nationalism and xenophobia inside many countries that seemed to be very stable democracies until recently is finally driving me to speak up. Just watching is no longer enough.

As a software developer, what options do we have to act and do "the right things"?
You always have the possibility to question certain aspects of your work. For example, when you are supposed to collect vast amounts of data that could potentially be used to harm people, you can raise the related ethical and legal issues with your employer. In the end you must be willing to suffer the consequences and not all of us have the luxury (the savings) to do that.

What looks like technical decisions to us might have a real consequence for others: Choose a certain browser as target platform and you exclude some users from using the product. Switch from on-premise deployment to a cloud solution and you make some operation staff redundant. That is why I think that we cannot hide behind the "It is just technology" argument.

Whatever we do we should always ask ourselves:

• Is there a conceivable way that the system to which I contribute will intentionally or unintentionally harm others? If so, how can it be changed to (at least) reduce the probability?
• Am I competent enough to take the technical decisions that I take? This is especially relevant when it comes to security because even as senior developer it is hard to keep up-to-date in that field.
• Is the quality we build high enough to not put the system's purpose at risk? This decision is so context-specific that we often get it wrong when switching domains, e.g. from web store to medical device.

I run into quality conflicts with my customers from time to time. Sometimes, as a last resort, I might refuse to go with a Product Owner's prioritisation because I consider fixing a certain technical debt or design flaw crucial for either the project's sanity or the team's capability to change the system in the future. Saying that I will not continue with the current prioritization can get me the accusation of blackmailing whereas I consider it to be an additional piece of information for the business side. And yes, in those cases I will stand with my word if we won't be able to find a common resolution; so far that happened only once.

How do you think about selecting industry, customer and project based on your values?
Well, we have to earn our daily pasta. When arguing these topics with others, I had to concede that the decision if a certain industry, company or project is in alignment with my ethical views is sometimes very tricky or even undecidable. It can be difficult to see if my contract is contributing to a good or a bad purpose. Sometimes it is obvious. In those cases you have the choice to quit a contract and to tell others why you did it.

There are a few industries that are no-go areas for me. In most other cases it is the concrete project that makes me decide. It is easier for me as an independent developer than it is for an employee, though.

Since the amount of information you get in advance of joining a project is somewhat limited I tend to find out more details through my network or go with my gut feeling. It has not happened yet that I wanted to leave a project for ethical reasons afterwards.

Let's be more specific: Would you work for an animal factory? Would you work for a company producing equipment for an animal factory?
Animal Factory: No. Company producing equipment for an animal factory: I might not even know. If I knew, it would probably depend on the type of equipment since a lot of equipment is very unspecific, e.g. an electric engine can be used for all kinds of things.

Do you have problems with any industries?
There is currently only one area that I would reject on principle: Military and weapons. I consider intelligence organisations to be part of military so add that to the list. And there are a bunch of companies whose offers I would reject without thinking twice.

I struggle with the distinction of "working for" and "buying from". Buying also means supporting, but I am certainly less consequential there.

Did you ever reject a project, that would bring you money based on your values?
Yes. I was recently contacted by an agent offering me a very interesting position both location-wise and considering the technologies in use. When I was told the name of the customer however, I had to reject, since the company's business model is known for harming people and mostly serving the rich. When I told the agent that I won't take the position "out of principal considerations" she was astonished and I explained my motives. She seemed to be really surprised that anyone would do that.

On the other hand, what would be industries, customers and projects that you would love to work on?
The medical field has a lot of potential to improve the lives of many. But the current equilibrium of forces usually takes care that the established industry players win and the patients lose. So that is tricky and I have been working in medicine-related projects a few times. I would love to do paid work for NGOs that work along my personal political views. I have not seen a single project in that area, though.

Thank you Johannes for sharing your views on this important topic.