Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.
One of the things this election, and the last four years, has shown me, is the impact of technology on our political discourse. It hasn&#x27;t been a &quot;good&quot; insight.<p>Federal Election records indicate that the leadership of technology companies overwhelmingly supported a set of values that their employees appear to just as overwhelmingly reject. That dissonance is really quite remarkable.<p>I see one of the fundamental challenges facing the new administration is how to address this. I am not a fan of government regulation, more of a &quot;let the markets decide&quot; kind of guy. I recognize however there is a systemic risk where the technology &quot;owner&quot; can exploit it to harm society in a way that was previously impossible.<p>While the country has focused on disinformation and hate speech, consider a company that controls, in real time, the self-driving software in a car. Such a technology, if weaponized, to could kill hundreds of thousands of people. Or it could be weaponize to kill select people who were in the intersection of riding in a self-driven car and in disfavor by the company that really controls that car.<p>Early on in my career I chose not to work for military contractors who were the &quot;big&quot; employers in Los Angeles at the time I graduated from college. They were clearly engaged in finding clever, or at least more effective, ways to kill people and that wasn&#x27;t where I wanted to spend my time. But what about someone working on self driving? It saves lives by avoiding some of the things end up resulting in crashes. But it also provides an opportunity for great evil.<p>Do we trust the person in charge to not be evil? Companies change and while they might declare their intentions when they are growing, what happens when they are on top? Sometimes those quaint notions get cast aside when being a little bit evil makes what you&#x27;re trying to do that much easier or maybe that much more profitable.<p>What is the appropriate response, in a democracy, to a small number of people controlling a potential weapon that can destroy that democracy? Sadly this is no longer an idle question.<p>I don&#x27;t have any answers here, just more questions.