Cory Doctorow talks machine learning and big data in NZ

Wednesday, 14 March 2018, 11:00 am
Article: Joseph Cederwall

Cory Doctorow talks machine learning and big data - PrivacyLive 2018

International internet and digital technology commentator Cory Doctorow talked about machine learning and big data at the Privacy Commissioner’s PrivacyLive event on 13 March 2018 in Wellington.

Hon Clare Curran, Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media and Government Services introduced Cory Doctorow. Her talk is available below:

Cory Doctorow’s full speech is available here:

Cory Doctorow is a Canadian technology, copyright and privacy thinker, blogger, journalist, activist and science fiction writer. He is co-editor of Boing Boing and the originator of Doctorow's Law: "Anytime someone puts a lock on something you own, against your wishes, and doesn't give you the key, they're not doing it for your benefit."

Cory discussed the topic 'Machine Learning, Big Data and Being Less Wrong'. He explains the seemingly limitless possibilities for machine learning and how it will require skilled practitioners and careful research to separate approaches that seem promising from those that deliver.

He argues that in order to get these things right, we must preserve the right of inquiry, discussion and experiment - the right to investigate how systems work, to share conclusions, and to implement them without fear of reprisal.

If you're concerned about IoT surveillance from devices woven into our lives in the most sensitive and intrusive ways, you must allow firms and individual to offer patches that override the manufacturers' choices about how these work, otherwise, we're entirely beholden on firms to check their own worst impulses.

Cory's visit to New Zealand was enabled and supported by Internet NZ and the New Zealand Festival Writers and Readers.

For updates on more PrivacyLive events:
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Joseph Cederwall

Freelance Writer

Joseph is Co-editor of Scoop and Editor of The Dig. Joseph is an editor, writer, and social entrepreneur with an interest in open and participatory media and business models. In 2019, Joseph founded The Dig. Joseph has qualifications in law and anthropology and previously practiced as a lawyer in the Immigration and Human Rights field. He is now applying this background to the practice of ‘reverse anthropology' using a framing of indigenous worldviews to deconstruct the dominant worldviews and cultural myths of Western society. Joseph has a longstanding interest in the commons, participatory democracy, social justice, and human rights. He was a co-founder, and founding Director of ActionStation Aotearoa - now NZ's largest online movement-building organisation. Joseph is also a Director of Freerange Publishing Cooperative, and a long-time contributor to Enspiral - a non-hierarchical collective of freelancers and ventures dedicated to collaborative business practice and purpose-driven enterprise. He lives in beautiful Taranaki and enjoys watersports, permaculture, tai chi, music, and being in nature.

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