In Sri Lanka, we are proud to note that we have tried to use technology in a methodical and ethical way as what our Defence Secretary, Major General Kamal Gunaratna has emphasised. There was no need to use water cannon, no need for tear gas, no baton charging. We want to live for the future for our children and grandchildren.
by Victor Cherubim
“Two hundred and fifty years of slavery, ninety years of Jim Crow. sixty years of separate but equal, thirty-five years of racist housing policy” is highlighted in an article in “The Atlantic “. Ta Nehisi Coates states, “until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole”.
 |
| Future after Covid-19 |
What eleven weeks COVID-19 has done to the world is unbelievable. It has besides causing heath havoc, awakened an awareness which has been dormant over years, if not centuries.
Why are people who have experienced discrimination, as well as those who have not, formed a coterie of the willing, to start protests all over the world, not only to go on the street to demonstrate, but to take the law into their own hands and vent their grievance by starting to topple icons of white supremacy standing on pedestals in towns and cities in the civilised world?
Everyone knows that Winston Churchill. a warrior against racism, protestors defacing his pedestal out Parliament is not only a slur against decency but is a disgrace.
Kids can attend demonstrations but not go to school
While kids in UK are attending protest marches including the Black Lives Matter rally, think of what the German school children are doing right now. They are sitting exams. We are told there won’t be exams in UK this year.
British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has said he would first relax the 2-metre rule before he gets children back to school.
Everyone knows that the children were bored out of their brains at home, so getting schools open is the cry of not only politicians in the Labour Opposition, but indeed of children, who are wanting to get their parents back to work to reboot the economy. They claim even McDonalds has opened,
Commentators have accused the government of “no strategy, no planning, no direction, no imagination”. But with the pandemic, nobody is taking chances.
The harmful deployment of technology
On the flip side of the coin, we hear that Amazon’s facial recognition software “Rekognition” tool for law enforcement has been put on temporary ban at least for one year after also IBM announced it is pulling out of the face recognition and identity market.
This is partly also due to the backlash after the protest marches around the world. Researchers Joy Buolamwini and Deborah Raji had pointed out that by selling this discriminatory tech to Police forces, it poses danger to black and brown communities.
Pressing the pause button on the use of this technology by law enforcement in the US is a positive step. But who allowed this open door for privacy and civil liberty in the first place? Was there a lobby in Congress to allow Amazon the sale in the market in the first place?
There is no guess, money talks. Amazon has made huge sums of money by selling this discriminatory technology to Police Departments around the world.
It was not only Amazon, but Clearview AI, another recognition technology was able to identify people by comparing photos to a database of images, scraped from social media and other sites. Clearview AI is now facing multiple lawsuits for allegedly tracking photos without people’s consent.
Benefits of technology living in the future
Apart from individual benefit, new technology should be beneficial to society too. Of course, technology has made things cheaper and more affordable to the public.
In Sri Lanka, we are proud to note that we have tried to use technology in a methodical and ethical way as what our Defence Secretary, Major General Kamal Gunaratna has emphasised. There was no need to use water cannon, no need for tear gas, no baton charging. We want to live for the future for our children and grandchildren.
Of course, we are not having the same problems as those in the West.
Post a Comment