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Remote Work Will Stress Test the Internet - and Parts Will Fail

March 18, 2020

Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Computer Science, James Waldo, sits down with the Harvard Gazette to outline that although we have seen tremendous technological advances, the transition to remote work in wake of the Coronavirus pandemic will stress test the internet to limits we have not seen before.

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2020 Sep 16
Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society
Registration Closed 11:00am to 12:00pm
Location: 
Virtual Event (Registration Required)
Towards Life 3.0: Ethics and Technology in the 21^st Century is a talk series organized by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy featuring prominent scholars, business and technology leaders, public interest technologists, and activists who address the ethical and rights implications of the impact of Artificial Intelligence on society and human life. The title of the series draws inspiration from the title of Max Tegmark’s book, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
Speaker:
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Science Will Not Come on a White Horse With a Solution

April 6, 2020

Scientists have emphasized modeling the progression of the coronavirus, but not the social consequences of the preventative measure being taken.

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Tina Kempin Reuter. 4/24/2020. “Smart City Visions and Human Rights: Do They Go Together?” Carr Center Discussion Paper Series, 2020-006. See full text.Abstract

Over half of the world’s population lives in cities today. According to the latest predictions, more than two thirds of all people will inhabit an urban environment by 2050. The number and size of cities has increased over the last decades, with the highest projections for future growth in the Global South. As cities continue to expand, so does their impact on policy generation, as political players, as drivers of states’ economies, and as hubs for social innovation and cultural exchange. Cities are important actors on the national and international stage, with mayors’ conferences, city grassroots organizations, and urban citizens driving the search for today’s most pressing problems, including climate change, inequity, migration, and human rights concerns. Many have expressed hope that “cities [will] deliver where nation states have failed.” Organizing this ever-growing, dynamic human space, enabling people from diverse backgrounds to live together, addressing the spatial and social challenges of urban life, and delivering services to inhabitants are challenges that cities have struggled with and that continue to dominate the urban policy agenda.

 

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Mark Latonero. 7/11/2019. “Stop Surveillance Humanitarianism.” The New York Times. See full text.Abstract

Mark Latonero – Carr Center Technology and Human Rights Fellow, and research lead at Data & Society – discusses surveillance humanitarianism for The New York Times. 

A standoff between the United Nations World Food Program and Houthi rebels in control of the capital region is threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Yemen.

Alarmed by reports that food is being diverted to support the rebels, the aid program is demanding that Houthi officials allow them to deploy biometric technologies like iris scans and digital fingerprints to monitor suspected fraud during food distribution.

The Houthis have reportedly blocked food delivery, painting the biometric effort as an intelligence operation, and have demanded access to the personal data on beneficiaries of the aid. The impasse led the aid organization to the decision last month to suspend food aid to parts of the starving population — once thought of as a last resort — unless the Houthis allow biometrics.

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Study Group: Data Trusts | An Ethical Pathway to Protect the Human Rights of People Living with Criminal Convictions Impacted by Background Screening?

February 14, 2020

The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy invites you to join a study group on the urgent need to establish a human rights framework in criminal justice reform, which addresses mass incarceration in America.... Read more about Study Group: Data Trusts | An Ethical Pathway to Protect the Human Rights of People Living with Criminal Convictions Impacted by Background Screening?

2020 Oct 15
Surveillance Capitalism
Registration Closed 1:30pm to 2:30pm
Location: 
Virtual Event (Registration Required)
Please join the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy for its signature weekly series this fall, The Fierce Urgency of Now, featuring Black, Indigenous, People of Color scholars, activists, and community leaders, and experts from the Global South. Hosted and facilitated by Sushma Raman and Mathias Risse, the series also aligns with a course they will co-teach this fall at the Harvard Kennedy School on Economic Justice: Theory and Practice. 
Panelists:
• Chinmayi Arun | Assistant Professor of Law,...
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Teaching Technology to See the Whole Person

March 5, 2020

Technology & Human Rights Fellows Laurin Leonard & Teresa Hodge explain their path to creating an algorithm that provides an inclusionary and human rights approach when applying for employment and loans.

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Luís Roberto Barroso. 9/9/2019. Technological Revolution, Democratic Recession and Climate Change: The Limits of Law in a Changing World. Carr Center Discussion Paper Series. 2019009th ed. Cambridge: Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Publisher's VersionAbstract

ccdp_2019_009_technology_democracy.pdf

 Law is a universal institution that has pretensions of being ubiquitous and complete. However, in a complex, plural and volatile world, its limits and possibilities are shaken by the speed, depth and extent of ongoing transformations, its resulting ethical dilemmas, and the difficulties of forming consensus in the political universe.

This article provides a reflection on how the Law has attempted to deal with some of the main afflictions of our time, facing demands that include the needs to (i) keep the technological revolution on an ethical and humanistic track, (ii) avoid that democracy be perverted by populist and authoritarian adventures and (iii) prevent solutions to climate change from coming only when it is too late. At a time when even the near future has become unpredictable, Law cannot provide a priori solutions to multiplying problems and anxieties. When this happens, we must set clear goals for the future of humanity, basing them on the essential and perennial values that have followed us since antiquity.

2020 Jun 23
Technology and Human Rights in the Age of the Pandemic 
Registration Closed 12:00pm to 1:15pm
Location: 
Virtual Event (Registration Required)
Join the Carr Center for a conversation with leading technology scholars and policy makers on a range of ethical and rights concerns related to technology and its current applications. 
Panelists:
• Joan Donovan | Research Director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
• Vivek Krishnamurthy | Samuelson-Glushko Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC)...
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