Technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality show great promise in fields like medicine and manufacturing, but they come with risks to individual and societal well-being that could be incredibly hard to reverse. Now is the time for business leaders to take measures to prevent, or at least mitigate, the potential downsides of such tools.

Though autonomous technology has a large and growing range of potential applications, it also may threaten users’ sense of autonomy and free will, or their belief that they can decide how to pursue their lives freely. But companies can create systems users don’t hate by protecting users’ autonomy, unpredictability, and privacy.

This week’s must-reads for managing in the digital age: how vigilant companies stay ahead, Disney launches into the streaming wars, how businesses can engage on LGBTQ issues, and mindful meditation.

Employers have learned that their employees’ emotional states contribute to productivity, sales, and culture. But how do you measure emotions when self-reporting is often inaccurate because respondents either aren’t aware of or don’t want to report their emotions? Facial recognition technologies may hold the answer, but there are significant privacy concerns to be addressed.

There’s very little regulatory oversight for the tech industry, and this has become a problem. The status quo lacks transparency and shuts down competition — while holding no one accountable for breaches of trust. Some want big tech companies broken up. Others want stronger government oversight. They all are trying to answer the same question: What’s the best way to regulate the tech industry so that privacy and ethics concerns are addressed without stifling innovation?

Counterpoints takes on two pressing questions in the sports analytics field: the issue of information overload and whether there is such a thing as too much data, and a very different — but related — issue: Biometrics. We’ll go to the mat over whether professional athletes will be willing to share their personal biometric data in real time.

Cyberattacks are increasing in frequency, sophistication, and impact. Defending against them requires a new perspective on the attacks and the attackers. By applying a value chain lens to the problem, we can better understand the dark web as an ecosystem in which well-orchestrated attacks are assembled by entrepreneurs and supported by well-organized service offerings. This casts new light on the dark web and suggests more effective and proactive responses to cyberattacks.

Many different factors determine how consumers balance data privacy against a desire for personalized products and services — age, geography, and education among them. Companies can help their customers feel more comfortable with the data collection needed for personalized service by understanding customer values and maintaining transparency and good communication when it comes to data collection.

Technology may hold the answer to two of the knottiest problems faced by the U.S. economy — the shortage of farm labor and the excess of vehicle traffic. But there’s a flip side: It also enables surveillance so widespread and intrusive, companies can track even our heartbeats — and the data collected by these sensors is far from secure.

Recent efforts and concerns to protect the privacy of users’ data, while admirable, do not go far enough. Innovators and leaders must consider how new technology will be monitored to protect against potential harmful and irreversible effects.

Beliefs and behaviors in today’s virtual world blur the definitions and boundaries of responsibility for data privacy, which is reshaping consumers’ expectations of protection. Organizations seeking to adapt their culture toward better digital trust face many challenges but can benefit from four activities in their journey toward better digital trust.

Many people don’t trust decisions, answers, or recommendations from artificial intelligence. To address that problem, makers of AI applications and systems should stop overpromising, be more transparent about how systems are used, and consider third-party certification.

Each month, the MIT SMR Strategy Forum poses a single question to our panel of experts in the fields of business, economics, and management. This month’s question asks our panel whether privacy concerns will limit businesses’ use of consumer data.

Many ethical, lawfully managed businesses have consumer data they aren’t legally authorized to possess, obtained from a surprising source: their customers, who inadvertently share the personal data of family, friends, and colleagues. And in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the enactment of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, peer-dependent privacy is emerging as a critical consideration for businesses.

Digital titans with access to large quantities of data are a challenge to competition. To maintain a competitive business environment, regulation focusing on both market and data dominance needs to be developed. Among the best tools for limiting companies’ influence: data audits.

New emotion-sensing technologies can help employees make better decisions, improve concentration, alleviate stress, and adopt healthier and more productive work styles. But companies must address important privacy issues.

The 2017 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium explores how organizations can respond to data security breaches.

Efforts by advertisers to attract attention are not new. What’s different with the web, author Tim Wu says, is the extent to which individuals are willing to open their lives to advertisers and trade away their time and private information for having the world at their fingertips. This creates unprecedented opportunities for manipulation.