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âARE we the baddies?â That punchline from a Mitchell and Webb comedy sketch about two Nazi soldiers is something that scientists ought to ask themselves more frequently. Even if the knowledge that people create is neutral, its applications often arenât.
The potential for misuse often goes unnoticed until it is too late. Consider a Facebook app called This Is Your Digital Life, which gathered information about usersâ personalities. What looked like an innocuous, even fun, research project was later used by Cambridge Analytica to harvest personal data and manipulate peopleâs exposure to political…
