Toward More Ethical Technologies and Business

In this issue, we highlight our most important learnings from a Modern Matters conference, titled “Design Ethics of Technology”. Here’s what you need to know on how we can build better, more ethical technologies.

What you need to know

The recent emergence of innovative technologies has defined our current era as part of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. But while technological revolutions can be signs of growth, it can also spell disaster for us and society if we don’t keep a close eye on its development and use.

There’s no need to tell you that technology has become an integral part of our lives, and you’ve experienced its design through all kinds of tech — from Instagram’s infinite scroll to YouTube’s and Netflix’s recommendation algorithms. At first glance such features seem benign but it could have hidden, unintended consequences. Without morally grounded design principles, we assume our budding designers and engineers will always be acting correctly.

Further, while AI technology promises us considerable economic and societal benefits, some of its racial and sexist biases are forcing us to reassess its merits. At the root of this problem is the lack of diversity in the AI field, which perpetuates gender and racial biases. If this remains unchanged, we are at risk of replicating historical biases with AI such as image recognition services making offensive classifications of minorities, chatbots adopting hate speech, and Amazon’s technology failing to recognize users with darker skin colors.

As AI and emerging technologies are blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and the ethical, reflecting on them requires more than our knowledge of science and technical matters. We need to embrace the insights of the social sciences and humanities too, from economics to moral philosophy. For the sake of future generations, we need to be responsible for the technologies we produce.

What you can do

Have the “people with power” close to the “people with pain”. To make the technology we use more ethical, this is a principle of employing technology that we should abide by, says Max Stossel, Head of Education for the Center for Humane Technology. Here, the people with power are usually the designers and owners of the technology, whereas the people with pain are its consumers and users. With mobile applications — such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat — that impinge on the attention economy, we mainly have a few key people at the top making decisions, and these decisions ultimately make an impact on the lives of over two billion people. So, if designers of technology and products and the people using that product are on the same team, the people with power should be asking about how they can help everyone live by their values? The incentives for using any technology should be so deeply aligned between the designers and people using the product.

Be intentional about bringing diversity, starting from the top management. Tackling the diversity crisis of the AI field needs more than just hiring people in minority groups into the organisation. For Ovetta Sampson, Principal Creative Director at Microsoft, since the corporations and the values they uphold are a reflection of their CEO, then having a diverse company requires leaders who are likely to be from minority backgrounds. That said, Jorge Cueto, Product Manager at Google and Advisor at the Stanford Institute at Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, adds the point that companies must also make the effort to reach out to lesser-known communities and institutions — such as historically black or Hispanic colleges — to recruit new, diverse employees.

Foster ethical practices and culture in a company with a multi-stakeholder approach. Take this last suggestion from Erika Cheung, the whistleblower of Theranos and Co-Founder at Ethics in Entrepreneurship. In her approach toward helping businesses foster ethical culture, considering the interests of every stakeholder become key, and the idea is to shift the culture within the startup ecosystem to produce better decision making and ethical outcomes. What’s important here is for founders and their teams to take stock of what they’re doing as a business, why they are doing them, and the ethical standards they should strive to achieve. For example, Erika suggests that if we say that transparency is important, then we must ask if that transparency seen and felt in the company’s methodology, in generating revenue, and in the way that the product is designed and how it interacts with the people? This is one way in which a company might approach building its foundations in becoming an ethical business.

Missed the virtual conference? You can watch the recordings of the live sessions below.

Panel discussion: The Designer’s Ethical Code of Conduct (watch here)

Speakers:

• Adejire Bademosi, Global Social Impact Leader at Airbnb.
• Max Stossel, Head of Education at The Centre for Humane Technology.
• Momo Estrella, Digital Design Lead at IKEA.
• Moderated by: Norman Teh, Product Design Lead at Grab.

Panel discussion: Discrimination and Diversity in AI (watch here)

Speakers:

• Jorge Cueto, Advisor at the Stanford Institute at Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
• Oriana Medlicott, Philosopher, and Head of Operations at Ethical Intelligence Associates.
• Ovetta Sampson, Principal Creative Director at Microsoft.
• Moderated by Vaibhav Namburi, Director at Five2One, Cenario.

Fireside chat: Being a Whistleblower (watch here)

Speakers:

• Erika Cheung, Theranos whistleblower and Co-founder at Ethics in Entrepreneurship.
• Moderated by Grace Shao, HK Lead at SoGal and former CNBC reporter.