How to Build Digital Trust?

9:41 AM

Digital Trust: It Takes Years to Build, And Seconds to Blow Up

Try naming one similarity between “tech” and “trust”. Yes, both are spelt with a “T”. But that’s hardly where their similarity ends. Trust takes years to build. Likewise, it has taken years for tech to arrive at this point.

What’s more interesting is, we are now at the nexus between trust and technology. And to move forward or stay ahead, it is not about either-or but both-and. As the insider, Mr Lee Joon Seong from Accenture, says “Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become table stakes for businesses seeking competitive differentiation.” And indeed, we’ve seen first-hand how AI helped normalise demand-supply during these abnormal pandemic times.

Exciting as it sounds – we are just grazing the surface of possibilities. Tech, and more specifically AI, can only do more if there’s good data. Privacy issues aside, the key to more and better data lies in – trust.

How much we share our data depends on how much we trust tech companies, their applications, and the governance system. Can I trust tech companies with my data? How is my data used? Is my data potentially exploitable by software vulnerabilities? So many questions – and no definite answers. We’ll do well to remember that tech is neutral – it is not judgemental. Hence if it is biased, it is because of the people who design and build it.

That’s why a rigorous DevOps and, as Prof Lim Sun Sun from SUTD astutely points out, the education of tech designers and developers in ethical issues matter. Of course, the importance of a strong and transparent professional ethics framework such as AI Ethics and Governance Body of Knowledge cannot be undermined too. After all, it takes the whole village – tech companies, governments, developers, tech users – to build a trustful digital ecosystem.

We are now in the second half of the chessboard for Moore’s law, and whether we like it or not (or trust it or not), the level of trust we have in tech will decide its course and speed of development. Trust me – it’s all about trust.

Happy reading!

TAN TENG CHEONG

Editor Fellow, SCS tan.teng.cheong@scs.org.sg

EDITOR

Tan Teng Cheong

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Eu Kwang Chin Khoong Hock Yun Vladyslav Koshelyev Albert Ooi Harish Pillay Cherie Teo

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