One thing I took from Jesse Miller’s presentation was the idea that technology always has a ‘byproduct’. The example he gave with the captchas really caught me off guard. I had never considered that captchas were being used for any other purpose than ensuring that I wasn’t a robot. That Google could be covertly using this information for another purpose, i.e. to improve self-driving cars, seems brilliant but wrong. To me, consent is essential in all spheres and technology is no different. If our brains are being used for some purpose, I think that at the very least we should be demanding that our ‘agree’ is received prior to engaging. From now on, I will be a lot more wary about what I am giving away to technology and seek with each interaction to discover the hidden by-product. And as a teacher, I will be even more wary, especially when I ask my students to interact with it.
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