Jeffrey Saviano (EY): "I Feel Strongly That We Need a Hippocratic Oath for AI"

Apr 15, 2024

Jeffrey Saviano, EY executive and ethics scholar, discusses the need for an AI Hippocratic Oath, multistakeholderism, and board technology committees. He explores the evolution of AI ethics, challenges with AI regulation, and the U.S.-China AI geopolitics. Saviano also shares insights on AI governance, innovation, and the intersection of Web3 and AI.

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Introduction

00:00 • 2min

Exploring a Diverse Career Journey in Technology and Governance

01:58 • 3min

Evolution and Ethics of AI

04:46 • 13min

Evolution of AI Expertise on Boards

18:02 • 26min

Navigating AI Tools and Data Security

43:45 • 6min

Exploring Innovation and AI Impact

50:00 • 6min

Reflections on Mentors, Inspirational Quotes, and Tennis Improvement

55:36 • 2min

Exploring Methodologies, Admiration, and Future Podcast Guests

57:26 • 2min

(0:00) Intro.

(1:10) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel.

(1:58) Start of interview.

(2:43) His role at EY and appointments at Harvard's Safra Center for Ethics (ELSCE), MIT and Boston University.

(5:23) Defining AI. Reference to the 1956 Dartmouth AI conference.

(8:29) GAI, AI market and valuations.

(11:31) On AI Ethics for business and AI governance. Reference to Harvard's Danielle Allen.

(15:10) On the concept of Multistakeholderism and AI Ethics. Hippocratic Oath for AI: "Do No Harm to the World."

(19:10) Board Committee Structure for AI. "[Only] 67 of the S&P500 companies have some sort of board technology committee." NACD report on board technology committees. "You may get a financial boost from doing that" "I think that'll be 50% greater a year from now."

(22:39) On board oversight. A deep dive on evolution of Caremark duties.

(31:09) On AI regulation.

(34:41) Geopolitics between the U.S. and China on AI.

(37:44) On OpenAI's board fiasco. Unusual structures such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Inflection AI and xAI.

(44:02) Recommendations for directors using AI.

(47:40) The intersection between Web3 and AI.

(50:00) On his EY Podcast: Better Innovation.

(51:15) Other thoughts for directors: university partnerships and risks of employee use of GAI.

(54:22) Books that have greatly influenced his life:

Tennis related books.
The Fish that Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen (2012)
Disrupt Yourself by Whitney Johnson (2015) *

(55:47) His mentors. At EY: Kate Barton (EY Global Co-Chair, Emeritus).

(56:18) Quotes that he thinks of often or lives his life by: "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can do." (Arthur Ashe) and "No matter how far you travel in the wrong direction, you can always turn around." (Winston Churchill).

(56:53) An unusual habit or absurd thing that he loves.

(58:04) The living person he most admires: Billy Jean King.

Jeff Saviano is the EY Emerging Technology Strategy & Governance Leader.

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Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License