Sessions at SXSW Interactive 2012 about Ethics in Hilton Austin Downtown

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Sunday 11th March 2012

• The Moral Psychology and Big Data Singularity

  by Ravi Iyer

  Moral psychology and data analysis will eventually converge because successful organizations no longer serve physical, but psychological needs. This presentation will show how, in an age where consumption is about values (e.g. Whole Foods) and happiness (e.g. Zappos) rather than survival, moral psychology is essential knowledge for any organization. Leveraging our work at YourMorals.org, I will present research showing: 1) why emotional profiles are more important than demographic profiles, 2) how social networks form from moral agreement, and 3) why the ideological identification of employees and customers is important knowledge. Organizations will both use and contribute to the world's knowledge of moral psychology. Leveraging my dual experience as a data scientist for Ranker.com and as a moral psychologist at USC, I will illustrate how you can use recent moral psychology research to better help your customers and employees understand and live up to their values.

  • Big Data
  • Ethics
  • Morality
  • Psychology

  At 3:30pm to 4:30pm, Sunday 11th March

  In Salon H, Hilton Austin Downtown

  Coverage audio clip

Monday 12th March 2012

• Recognize This! Ethics of Mobile Face Tagging

  by Bryan Nunez and Harlo Holmes

  With the ready availability of social media, digital databases of ID photos, high-resolution cameras and free, powerful face recognition software that can run on smartphones, we are entering into an unprecedented shift in the visual privacy of everyday people. Technology that was once the domain of authoritarian states, is now being put to use by the hottest tech startups, who often lack the capacity or capability to consider the broader cultural impact.

  What right do people have to control personal images in a socially-networked age or to be visually anonymous in a video-mediated world? Startups like Viewdle are building compelling user experiences that correlate people who appear in photos taken with your smartphone, with all of the profile photos stored in your address book and social graphic. The question is, how is it decided who can be recognized and indexed, how and when, and where does control of that record reside?

  The ObscuraCam project (developed by WITNESS and the Guardian Project, funded by Google) will be shared as one countermeasure to these trends. It is a mobile app that allows users to automatically conceal faces or objects in photos and video, using pixelization, masks or redaction. It also removes extra metadata, such as GPS location, often stored in media.

  Bryan Nunez will represent WITNESS, presenting human rights advocacy driven user stories and challenges. Harlo Holmes will counter with "privacy by design" technology solutions.

  • Ethics
  • Mobile
  • Privacy

  At 11:00am to 12:00pm, Monday 12th March

  In Salon J, Hilton Austin Downtown

  Coverage audio clip