They Say / I Blog

Up close and personal: Tausif Noor on Facebook’s Safety Check

Is Facebook a community resource for the common good? Yes—but it is also a for-profit corporation. Can it effectively be both at the same time? Focusing on Facebook’s Safety Check feature, London-based writer Tausif Noor examines the ways in which the company’s financial mission interacts with its community service mission in this March 2017 post to the blog RealLife.

Read it here: Noor, "Safety in numbers"

 

Robo-debt: Matt Simon on the taxing of robot labor

If a robot takes your job, you’re not the only one who loses income. Since robot workers don’t pay taxes, the government loses money, too. That fact by itself may not stimulate too much sympathy until you realize that the government’s lost income might have repaired a pothole on your street or replaced worn-out playground equipment at your local park. Science writer Matt Simon explores the issue of taxes and robot labor in this May 2017 Wired article. 

Read it here: Simon, “Who will pay for the future if not the robots”