Researchers Conducted a Survey and Questioned Technologists About Their Thoughts on Tech Giants and Their Increasing Power

Protocol recently carried out a survey in which they questioned around 1500 employees in the tech industry on their thoughts and opinions on the tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple etc. and a wide range of other issues they thought were present in the industry.

The survey was conducted to observe the fact that where does the tech employees in the U.S. stand on key issues facing the industry. A total of 1504 tech workers were surveyed which ranged from C-suite level executives to associates and hailed from well-known large tech companies with annual revenue over 500 million dollars and most of the companies having more than 1,000 employees.

The survey was based on three main topics that all the surveyed employees were questioned about and the result was formed on the basis of their answers.

The first question Protocol had asked the technologists was whether or not they think that tech giants have a powerful hold in the society.

On this question, 78 percent did agree that indeed tech giants held a great power in the current times while 11 percent disagreed with this statement. When specifically asked for companies like Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet (Google's parent company) 77 percent of the respondents agreed that indeed these four companies were a reigning force while 8 percent did not agree with this.

Apart from this through the survey it was also revealed that 40 percent of the employees in the tech world think that technology has done more harm than good to the society, however 45 percent disagreed with such a statement. This enlightened us with the fact that a large chunk of tech workers worry about technology being harmful for the world and having a negative impact on the society rather than making our lives easier.

When questioned about what were there thoughts on United States rather harsh behavior with China, a lot of people showed concerns regarding the fact that they think that such aggressive behavior by the US will make China retaliate once they had enough and that will cause immense harm to the tech companies in the States. The Trump administration had a cruel behavior towards the Chinese Tech Industries when they placed so many companies from China on the trading black list with the US.

About 56 percent of the people from the survey agreed with the fact that US restrictions with China have gone too far now while 28 percent were neutral and did not have any concerning opinion on it. 60 percent agreed that US companies should maintain and work in close relationships with China. US had previously banned any of the US firms in working with Huawei a Chinese built mobile company. On this 46% said they agree Chinese telecom company Huawei should be banned from the US.

The third and final question was related to the AI technology. The artificial intelligence no matter how smart is human fed information and the company questioned that what were the employees’ thoughts on the demonstrated issues of AI systems picking up, and amplifying, biases present in society?

73 percent agree with the fact that AI can supercharge real-world biases and disproportionately harm people of color and therefore think that the government should regulate AI. However, 9 percent disagreed and 18 percent were neutral on this topic.
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