Pondering AI

Practical Ethics with Reid Blackman

Apr 5, 2023

Reid Blackman, AI ethics expert, discusses practical approaches to AI ethics, debunking ethicists as moral priests, balancing advocacy vs. activism, and distinguishing AI ethics from ethics writ large. He emphasizes the importance of language, justified buy-in, and concrete ethical guidance. The chapter also explores the challenges of fanaticism and the need for a flexible ethics framework for emerging technologies.

46:06

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Episode guests

Reid Blackman

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Quick takeaways

Comprehensive approach to AI ethics should cover all relevant topics and provide a practical understanding for actionable steps.

Companies should prioritize avoiding harm in AI applications rather than solely focusing on doing good to prevent ethically questionable practices and reputation damage.

Using language that resonates with businesses, such as AI ethical risk mitigation, helps bridge the gap between ethics and risk management, emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations in operations.

Deep dives

The Importance of Comprehensive Approach to AI Ethics

The speaker emphasizes the need for a comprehensive approach to AI ethics that covers all relevant topics and provides a solid understanding of the foundations of AI ethics. They believe that previous discussions on AI ethics have been fragmented, focusing on individual issues like bias and explainability. The goal is to provide a practical understanding of AI ethics that can be translated into actionable steps.

Introduction

3min

Language and Conceptual Distinctions in AI Ethics

5min

The Importance of Justified Buy-In versus Compliance in Ethics Programs

2min

Concrete Ethics: Moving beyond generic statements

7min

The Challenge of Balancing Ethical Advocacy and Fanaticism

24min

Flexibility and Challenges in Ethics Framework and AI Regulations

6min

Reid Blackman confronts whack-a-mole approaches to AI ethics, ethical ‘do goodery,’ squishy values, moral nuance, advocacy vs. activism and overfitting for AI.

Reid distinguishes AI for ‘not bad’ from AI ‘for good’ and corporate social responsibility. He describes how the language of risk creates a bridge between ethics and business. Debunking the notion of ethicists as moral priests, Reid provides practical steps for making ethics palatable and effective.

Reid and Kimberly discuss developing organizational muscle to reckon with moral nuance. Reid emphasizes that disagreement and uncertainty aren’t unique to ethics. Nor do squishy value statements make ethics squishy. Reid identifies a cocktail of motivations driving organization to engage, or not, in AI ethics. We also discuss the tendency for self-regulation to cede to market forces and the government’s role in ensuring access to basic human goods. Cautioning against overfitting an ethics program to AI alone, Reid illustrates the benefits of distinguishing digital ethics from ethics writ large. Last but not least, Reid considers how organizations may stitch together responses to the evolving regulatory patchwork.

Reid Blackman is the author of “Ethical Machines” and the CEO of Virtue Consultants.

A transcript of this episode is here.

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Pondering AI

Practical Ethics with Reid Blackman

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

The Importance of Comprehensive Approach to AI Ethics

Prioritize Not Doing Harm

The Language of Ethics and Risk Management

Focus on Justified Buy-in Rather than Compliance

Moving Beyond Generic Ethical Statements

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts