Speaker Lana Brindley
Time 2019-01-26 11:35
Conference LCA2019

Herman Hollerith. Census Bureau.

Technical debt.

Herman created machine to punch results into cards, and read 18 cards a minute.

He didn’t sell these machines to the government, he leased them.

CTR: Computer Tabulating Recording System.

Which become International Business Machines, which in turn came IBM.

Machine to cross reference bank account information to Census data.

Used to help kill Jews.

Herman Hollerith solved difficult problem. Not his fault it was used in the wrong way or that IBM were never held accountable. Or that it has largely been forgotten over time.

Alfred Nobel.

Eugenics. Stop people from breading who we don’t like.

Thalidomide. Birth defects. Drug testing introduced.

Civil Engineering.

Unintended consequences. Lead to improvements. Better laws.

Chinese Surveillance.

No Ethics standards for software development.

GPL - can be used for any purpose without restriction.

AABill.

Government breaching ethics. What can citizens do? Vote in better government.