Why and how to regulate emerging technology

My presentation will focus on how our development of intelligent technology—intended to make our lives easier—has brought along with its advantages numerous hazardous consequences that call for more careful regulation. After giving some examples of specific looming hazards, my presentation will conclude by suggesting multiple avenues for regulation that developers, industry, and government can take that may work to mitigate dangerous consequences of unregulated emerging technology.One of the examples of new AI-based technology that has some great positive potential, but which is also subject to abuse is Brain Computer Interface (BCI). The newer forms of it hold great promise for medical therapy: it has been used with some success to help control extremely severe forms of Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, obsessive compulsive disorder, and depression. However, it also has been used in dangerous ways. In China, some businesses are monitoring data from employees’ brains by forcing them to wear caps outfitted with sensors while they work; these sensor arrays can scan their brainwaves for emotional disturbances and send that data to AI run by corporate management. At one such business, the Hangzhou Zhongheng Electric factory, the management feeds that data into algorithms that allow AI to recommend how to manage these wired-up human workers, such as adjusting “the pace of production and redesign[ing] workflows” [1]. Thus, humans have gone from running machines to having machines run them. This scenario is far from isolated. I will discuss further examples of this and other double-sided effects to our social fabric posed by emerging technology. Then I will delineate specific ways we can better regulate it to reduce the danger that our smart technology becomes hazardous to our wellbeing