I do agree that more constructive feedback on possible routes forward would be useful.
Although it's not stated by the author, one simple and low-cost approach is to take more time for further discussion and review before accepting deployment of a system like this.
To those who might argue that we "don't have time to delay" and need to rush this functionality out, then I would respond that a rushed solution can often be worse than doing nothing -- especially if there is no easy way to roll it back.
Therefore my personal suggestions would either be to take more pause before accepting and deploying a single solution like this, or to enact stringent and specific time bounds on the rollout.
> To those who might argue that we "don't have time to delay" and need to rush this functionality out, then I would respond that a rushed solution can often be worse than doing nothing -- especially if there is no easy way to roll it back.
That is a reality-independent objection that can apply in any situation and delay anything indefinitely.
Lots of experts say that a robust digital contact-tracing solution (as part of a multipronged contact-tracing effort) could provide big health and economic benefits, the sooner the better. That doesn't mean we should have no discussion and review, but it does mean we should expedite them. We have at least a month before Google and Apple start rolling out their stuff, let's make the most of it.
My primary concern is related to maintaining pleasant social interaction and a reasonable balance of power on a time horizon of five years and beyond.
To me it's hard to imagine that a continuous digital record of human interactions that is subject to a proprietary protocol and implementation would be the safest situation to end up in.
> one simple and low-cost approach is to take more time for further discussion and review before accepting deployment of a system like this.
That's "simple and low-cost" in the sense that doing nothing is simple and low-cost, usually. But it's not an "approach" to anything. It's also not low-cost considering thousands of people are dying every day.
It doesn't seem to me that there are easy solutions for this problems that offer better privacy that we haven't yet thought about for lack of time.
It's an emotive issue and as technologists we often feel an urge to do something, anything straight away.
I'm not suggesting delaying forever, and I do realize that there is human impact at the moment. I would not refer to the value of life in monetary terms that way.
There may not be easy solutions but there are plenty of other contract tracing technologies[1] that experts have been discussing, developing and critiquing.
I am suggesting that we allow those experts the time they need - no more, and no less - to get their work done to a sufficient level and report their findings to decision-makers.
After that feedback is gathered it could become apparent that deploying GACT as a closed-source, time-unbounded OS-level feature with app approval restricted to two companies situated in one nation of the world is less than ideal.
That could allow nations to collectively ask for changes to the proposal, with solidarity in their concerns and expert evidence to back it up.
Although it's not stated by the author, one simple and low-cost approach is to take more time for further discussion and review before accepting deployment of a system like this.
To those who might argue that we "don't have time to delay" and need to rush this functionality out, then I would respond that a rushed solution can often be worse than doing nothing -- especially if there is no easy way to roll it back.
Therefore my personal suggestions would either be to take more pause before accepting and deploying a single solution like this, or to enact stringent and specific time bounds on the rollout.