Technology Ethics

[Technical Overview] The current scenario reveals a concerning trend: major technology companies appear to be aligning their interests with specific political actors, potentially compromising ethical principles and market fairness. This goes beyond traditional lobbying; it suggests a strategic capitulation aimed at securing preferential treatment and avoiding regulatory scrutiny. The core technical concepts involved include: regulatory capture, where industry influence subverts regulatory processes; strategic alignment, where business objectives are explicitly linked to political agendas; and oligarchic tendencies, where economic and political power concentrate within a small group....

[Technical Overview] The emergence of sophisticated AI technologies, particularly in generative models, has enabled the creation of highly realistic fake images and videos, commonly known as deepfakes. These deepfakes utilize machine learning techniques, such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), to learn the complex patterns in image and video data and then generate new content that is often indistinguishable from real footage. The process typically involves training the model on a large dataset of target individuals, enabling the system to manipulate their appearance and actions in new, synthesized scenarios....