Cinder’s Glen Wise on trust and safety threats and holding AI accountable | S1E10

Generative AI has transformed technology, presenting new opportunities and raising concerns about potential harm. There is no shortage of questions about how to hold generative AI accountable – or if we can at all. Glen Wise and his team are answering these questions through Cinder’s trust and safety platform. Because of the recent advancements in artificial intelligence, companies face new challenges in identifying how users, networks, or content may violate their terms of service. Glen and his team at Cinder are uniquely qualified to help. Before Cinder, Glen worked for the US Government and, after that, in threat discovery at Meta. There he met his co-founder, Brian Fishman, a renowned expert in counterterrorism and hate speech. Together, they collaborated to build community threat intelligence capabilities to combat some of the biggest Internet abuse campaigns of our time involving hate groups, terrorist organizations, and election disinformation. Cinder was born out of Glen’s efforts to improve threat intelligence at Meta. To understand the tools and best practices other companies were using, Glen spoke to teams in delivery, ride-sharing, gaming, and AI, only to come to a startling realization: there weren’t any. To meet the need, Cinder’s trust and safety platform launched in 2021. Today, it is used by both rising AI companies and the top tech companies adopting new technology to help combat internet abuse at scale. “AI is being used across almost every single threat vector today, and we’ve seen real examples of how AI can be used for harm. We need to take this seriously. Can we actually hold this thing accountable?” – Glen Wise, CEO and Co-Founder of Cinder Glen balances the optimism of Silicon Valley with a unique perspective—AI alone can't replace humans in ensuring safety. Platforms will always involve humans in critical decisions and people will always remain essential. On this episode of Spotlight On: AI, Glen and Sara Ittelson discuss the security challenges that have been accelerated by AI and the enduring responsibility humans have in countering them. Conversation Highlights: 00:00 - Intro and Glen’s background 03:00 - The journey to YCombinator and the founding of Cinder 04:00 - Introduction to Trust & Safety and the impact generative AI has had on the space 08:00 - How AI can combat abuse and where it could be used as an engine for harm 14:00 - How investors like Sara discern product-market fit with new AI technologies 17:00 - Glen’s predictions for the future of AI in T&S and the role humans will play 25:00 - Advice for founders to build resilience earlier on so their platform isn’t used for harm Host: Sara Ittelson Partner at Accel Featuring: Glen Wise, CEO and Co-Founder of Cinder Learn more at www.accel.com/spotlightOn/cinder-glen-wise