In a few words, can you tell us about yourself and how you found your way to the academic field?

I grew up in the kibbutz, and left it as soon as I could when I turned 18, but I took from there two important things away. One thing is the need to fight for a just society. As I get it, the impact of advanced technology on society is one of the most significant areas today that will determine how our societies’ will look like in the future, so I chose to specialize in it. Academy allows me to invent and test different models for responsible innovation and data ethics. Secondly, because I grew up in a very homogeneous community, I’m searching to operate in an interdisciplinary field that will provide a meeting place for different worldviews and perspectives. The interdisciplinary study of the effects of technology on society and society on technology is such a dynamic area that requires me to keep up to date, learn new things and critically examine my basic assumptions. The dialogue with researchers from other fields requires me to step out of my comfort zone and examine things from new perspectives. I love it.

What is the main core of your research? Can you give an example or two? How is it related to cyber security?

I explore the legal, ethical and social challenges associated with the governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other data-driven technologies. I concentrate on the intersection of innovative technology, corporations, and justice. I interested in both sides of the algorithm: How to regulate emerging technologies and how do emerging technologies regulate us? In contemporary research, I explore various tools for dealing with disinformation and fake news. I am particularly interested in the role of social media corporations in the distributions of information, and in various ways to regulate this role. For me, cyber security in this context is the protection of our ability as individuals and as groups living in data-driven environments to communicate, act, and develop worldviews, with significant amount of individual and political freedom.

Why did you choose this area over all others? Did your personal or professional background lead you to it?

I’m a legal and ethical expert. While practitioners use existing tools to build a legal structure that fits the specifics of their case, I have always had a desire to reinvent these tools. I had a desire to critically examine the existing legal building boxes, to imagine alternative worlds with alternative tools that might better cope with changing realities and values. Academic research is for me the sandbox that allows a rethinking of the status quo. Academic research enables innovative thinking, which is not subject to external dictates and ad hoc aims.

Do you think that in this cyber age these issues are even more complex compared to other times in history? If so – in what ways?

The information revolution actually translates the physical world we live into digital data. It is a huge project with deep social and political implications. Because we are in the midst of or in the very beginning of the project, we have a huge opportunity to re-examine and decide on what conventions and what concepts and values we will live by. So the challenges today are huge - we have to rethink questions like, what is just war in the cyber age, what is fair decision making in the era of artificial intelligence, What is political freedom in the age of digital surveillance? The questions today are indeed complex, but it is also an exciting age because we can rethink and refresh existing conventions.

After explaining the main core of your research, what do you think is the solution? What is the proper model for that? Is it applicable?

In my opinion, the way to find solutions for today's problems lies primarily in the understanding that technology is never just a technology, it always involves social and political assumptions and implications. Therefore the development of technology and its regulation must be done through dialogue between experts from all disciples - something that our cyber center specializes in. Secondly, it may sound old fashion today, but for me democracy can and should be the key to responsible innovation. If we be able to integrate democracy into the various stages of technological development, and we see democracy as a leading value in examining new technologies, we will ensure that we will live in a society where machines are empowering individuals and communities and not turning individuals and communities into machines themselves.

What is the next phase in your professional life?

I am looking for opportunities to deepen my research dedicated to the development of tools and methodologies that will enable responsible innovation. I also hope to continue to develop courses, which give computer science students a basis for ethical and social thinking, and social science students a basis in technology. In my vision, I see research institutes that allow researchers and from all disciplines to understand each other's language and collaborate in order to develop technologies from a humanistic and democratic perspective.

What is your message to the public?

We live in an exciting time. The norms and values that we embed today in advanced technologies, will continue to accompany and influence us in the future. The inventors, developers, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and the public today have tremendous power over what our future will look like. Humans determine the direction in which technology is evolving, not the other way around. Nothing is deterministic and predetermined. With great power there is also great responsibility, said Spider-Man's uncle, I hope we will listen to him, and find ways to meet that responsibility.