Google employees’ personal politics helped dissolve their own ethics committee. Can India expect a similar scenario? | The Indian Express

Google employees’ personal politics helped dissolve their own ethics committee. Can India expect a similar scenario? | The Indian Express

Written by Peter Ronald DeSouza |Updated: April 27, 2019 9:35:49 am

The writer is professor at the CSDS and holds the Dr S. Radhakrishnan Chair of the Rajya Sabha, 2015-17. Views are personal.

Google employees’ personal politics helped dissolve their own ethics committee. Can India expect a similar scenario?

However, one wants to play it, this was a major goof up by the company — a failure of conception, planning and execution. Google could have avoided this huge embarrassment if they had only googled to find out what lay ahead.

Google could have avoided this huge embarrassment if they had only googled to find out what lay ahead. (Illustration by C Sasikumar)

Consider this: An external advisory council, the Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC) — essentially an ethics council to guide new technologies — set up by Google in the last week of March, being disbanded in the first week of April, within less than a fortnight. However, one wants to play it, this was a major goof up by the company — a failure of conception, planning and execution. Google could have avoided this huge embarrassment if they had only googled to find out what lay ahead. But to do so, one must know what questions to ask. Even they seemed to have asked the wrong questions.