Does IT pay attention to ethics? Kitty thinks it’s growing: she’s seen it on LinkedIn, in the newspapers, especially with the development of AI…

Solutions Leaders at Ordina, Maschinka Poiesz and Kitty van Leeuwen, will be speaking with Anke this week about ethics in IT: after all, they are women who contribute to new IT solutions and that includes thinking about the how, what and why. Maschinka: “I help clients develop good solutions for their platforms, infrastructure (networks, servers, etc.). I also keep an eye on co-workers: what training do you need to do to be able to do the job?”

As important as IT is, it remains something people have a hard time understanding. On the birthday, however, Maschinka chose to provide an example of which customer she worked for, because that speaks for itself a little more. “People often know that there is a computer somewhere doing something. There are also more people in my family who work on computers, so it’s a bit easier.”

digital city

Maschinka has even worked on a digital city which is now even recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage site. “Digital city is a website with boxes. It used to be textual only, but soon a graphical version followed. There is a special component, digital metro. A group of people then programs a room where you can do certain activities. People from the University of Tilburg, but also from elsewhere in the Netherlands and not from the university, and we sometimes hang out together in real life. Of course, it was expensive to call at the time with all that internet surfing, so we always tried to do it in a public or public place. Talking to people, learning from each other and programming, it’s great fun.”

Kitty also gets a trip down memory lane, but from the Zork games. “I wondered if it was some kind of game, but I can’t compare it to that. When you mentioned earlier about it being text as well, it reminded me Zork, a text-based video game in which you follow a specified route through a world via text. You interact with specific questions.” Yes, said Maschinka, but not in a playful way. “There are people who make part of it, but apart from that there’s a lot of talking to each other, kind of an online community.”

Anke also had to think about something similar, namely a middle ground between digital cities and Zork: Decentraland, a kind of online environment that you can find in VR. “Actually, when you create an environment like that, you are busy laying the groundwork, what do you accept, what do you disagree with each other. That’s where ethics comes in again. Did you do that at the time?” Maschinka said yes. “Of course, people talk to each other about things too. You do have a certain rank in it, with administrators, and you can get kicked out. other people and it’s really hard. First you talk to them about it, but that’s also what real society does.

Tech Girl Podcast

But after that, and whether there’s also a prison in the city, you can hear about it on our TechGirl podcast, which also revolves around whether development is moving at a faster pace, or whether it’s likely because we’re talking about it more now. Maschinka cites virtual reality, for example: which has been in development for a long time. The data needed to generate ChatGPT and what information is still being added, this is a very time consuming thing, especially if you really want to get a good knowledge out of it. Maschinka: “I think it will take a while before we think: ooh, AI. But we can’t sit idly by, we have to think about how we deal with it.”

On our podcast, you can hear how these IT professionals think about ethics and AI development, among other things. But also listen to the podcast for app tips that can tell you which patio is currently sunny, tips for cleaning your AirPods Pro, and more.

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