On April 11 of this year, The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission unveiled a new ethical framework and set of principles, called Artificial Intelligence: An Evangelical Statement of Principles, in a crowded room in Washington, D.C. This marked the first time that a Protestant Christian group laid out a set of guiding principles aimed at equipping the Church to think wisely about emerging technology and to engage the larger cultural conversations surrounding artificial intelligence.
While many believed this statement would be significant, we could not have planned the way the Lord would use this document. The statement has been circulated widely and has received a good deal of feedback in the nine months since its launch. It was featured in news reports and opinion pieces, with over 80 mentions in major media outlets. It quickly became one of the most popular pieces of content at ERLC this year. While some questioned the need for Christians to speak to these issues, the feedback was, by and large, extremely encouraging and well received.
Interesting technology stories
Political ads become 2020 flashpoint – Axios
Tech giants, TV networks, and even transit companies are all struggling to figure out how to manage political ads ahead of the 2020 election. While some firms choose to run lots of political and issue ads with little oversight, others opt to ban them altogether.
Hikvision Markets Uyghur Ethnicity Analytics, Now Covers Up – IPVM
Hikvision has marketed an AI camera that automatically identifies Uyghurs, on its China website, only covering it up days ago after IPVM questioned them on it.
Leak Reveals Technology’s Role in Chinese Detention of Uighur Population – Morning Brew
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) obtained a chilling, highly classified tranche of documents detailing the Chinese government’s mass detention of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang region.
Here’s a Deepfake of Nixon Giving a Eulogy for the Apollo 11 Astronauts if Their Mission Failed – Universe Today
It’s July 16th, 1969. The Apollo 11 crew have completed their training, and they’re in the Columbia Command Module atop a Saturn V rocket, to this day the most powerful rocket ever built. At 9:32 EDT the rocket lifts off, delivering the crew into Earth orbit 12 minutes after launch.