A survey of 1,500 technology employees found that 77% of them think that Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook have too much power. Only 8% disagree.
Technical workers were also asked about a wide range of other technological issues, including working with law enforcement, China and the legislation of AI …
The survey was conducted by Protocol, from the publisher of Politico.
To give impetus to where tech workers across the country stand on key issues facing the industry, Protocol launches its first Tech Employee Survey, a survey of 1,504 employees nationwide, of C-suite level managers to employees. They come mostly from large technology companies – almost 40% of the respondents work for companies with an annual income of more than $ 500 million and most of the companies have more than 1000 employees.
The first topic was whether technology giants are too powerful.
About 78% of the technical workers we surveyed agree that the technology industry is too powerful, with only 11% disagreeing. The same goes for Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet and Apple. More than 77% of respondents said that businesses have too much power, and just over 8% disagree.
Not only did the majority say the industry is too powerful, but about 40% also said that technology does more harm than good. Only about 45% of technological workers disagree with this, indicating that technological workers even within the industry are concerned about the negative impact that technology has on the world.
And yet there is a shortage of remedies. More than 68% want their companies to partner with or be acquired by a Big Tech player, and three-quarters said Big Tech businesses should be allowed to acquire other businesses. Just over 40% believe that Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet and Apple should be broken up. Despite their concerns about technological power and negative impact, technology workers do not view monitoring application as the solution.
On China, a majority believes that the US government has been too aggressive, and worries that an equally robust response from China could paralyze US technology companies.
The Trump administration has adopted a hawkish stance toward the Chinese technology industry, placing dozens of companies on the country’s blacklist and trading several executive orders to ban Chinese social media programs – particularly TikTok – from the US. In general, technical workers have said they think the deviation should end, and it is an openness to work more closely with Chinese technology companies.
Fifty-six percent of respondents said they agree that U.S. restrictions on Chinese technology companies have gone too far, while 28 percent said they are neutral about it. And 60% agree that US technology companies should work more closely with Chinese technology companies. Finally, a majority of respondents said they believe the future of the technology industry is at stake, with 58% agreeing that a cold war with China could ‘paralyze American technology enterprises’.
However, there are limits to their openness to Chinese technology – 46% said they agree that the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei should be banned from the US.
There is concern about AI, especially when it comes to demonstrated issues regarding AI systems that pick up and reinforce prejudices in society.
AI can overload prejudices in the real world and harm people with color disproportionately. Seventy-three percent of respondents said they agree that the government should regulate AI. Only 9% disagree and 18% said they are “neutral”.
You can view the other findings on Protocol. (If you came to the remarks to claim that the size of the sample is meaningless, you can get a quick basis in the example theory here and a more detailed one here.)
Photo: Kevin Ku / Unsplash
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