Pondering AI

Ben Bland expressively explores emotive AI’s shaky scientific underpinnings, the gap between reality and perception, popular applications, and critical apprehensions. Ben exposes the scientific contention surrounding human emotion. He talks terms (emotive? empathic? not telepathic!) and outlines a spectrum of emotive applications. We discuss the powerful, often subtle, and sometimes insidious ways emotion can be leveraged. Ben explains the negative effects of perpetual positivity and why drawing clear red lines around the tech is difficult. He also addresses the qualitative sea change brought about by large language models (LLMs), implicit vs explicit design and commercial objectives. Noting that the social and psychological impacts of emotive AI systems have been poorly explored, he muses about the potential to actively evolve your machine’s emotional capability. Ben confronts the challenges of defining standards when the language is tricky, the science is shaky, and applications are proliferating. Lastly, Ben jazzes up empathy as a human superpower. While optimistic about empathic AI’s potential, he counsels proceeding with caution. Ben Bland is an independent consultant in ethical innovation. An active community contributor, Ben is the Chair of the IEEE P7014 Standard for Ethical Considerations in Emulated Empathy in Autonomous and Intelligent Systems and Vice-Chair of IEEE P7014.1 Recommended Practice for Ethical Considerations of Emulated Empathy in Partner-based General-Purpose Artificial Intelligence Systems.A transcript of this episode is here.

Join Philip Rathle, the CTO of Neo4j and author of The GraphRAG Manifesto, as he takes you on a journey through the world of knowledge graphs and AI. He explains how GraphRAG enhances reasoning and explainability in large language models. Philip discusses the importance of graphs in understanding complex systems and their applications in fraud detection and social networks. He also navigates the limitations of LLMs' reasoning abilities and highlights the advantages of integrating graphs into AI for better decision-making and human agency.

Matthew Scherer, Senior Policy Counsel for Workers' Rights and Technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology, advocates for a worker-led approach to AI adoption. He highlights the risk of bias in AI hiring processes, questioning the reliability of automated decisions. Matthew discusses the balance between safety and surveillance in workplace technologies, stressing the importance of transparency to protect workers' rights. He critiques the notion of innovation as an unqualified good, urging for meaningful regulations that reflect cultural values toward labor.

Heidi Lanford connects data to cocktails and campaigns while considering the nature of data disruption, getting from analytics to AI, and using data with confidence.Heidi studied mathematics and statistics and never looked back. Reflecting on analytics then and now, she confirms the appetite for data has never been higher. Yet adoption, momentum and focus remain evergreen barriers. Heidi issues a cocktail party challenge while discussing the core competencies of effective data leaders.Heidi believes data and CDOs are disruptive by nature. But this only matters if your business incentives are properly aligned. She revels in agile experimentation while counseling that speed is not enough. We discuss how good old-fashioned analytics put the right pressure on the foundational data needed for AI. Heidi then campaigns for endemic data literacy. Along the way she pans JIT holiday training and promotes confident decision making as the metric that matters. Never saying never, Heidi celebrates human experts and the spotlight AI is shining on data.Heidi Lanford is a Global Chief Data & Analytics Officer who has served as Chief Data Officer (CDO) at the Fitch Group and VP of Enterprise Data & Analytics at Red Hat (IBM). In 2023, Heidi co-founded two AI startups LiveFire AI and AIQScore. Heidi serves as a Board Member at the University of Virginia School of Data Science, is a Founding Board Member of the Data Leadership Collaborative, and an Advisor to Domino Data Labs and Linea. A transcript of this episode is here.

Marianna B. Ganapini contemplates AI nudging, entropy as a bellwether of risk, accessible ethical assessment, ethical ROI, the limits of trust and irrational beliefs. Marianna studies how AI-driven nudging ups the ethical ante relative to autonomy and decision-making. This is a solvable problem that may still prove difficult to regulate. She posits that the level of entropy within a system correlates with risks seen and unseen. We discuss the relationship between risk and harm and why a lack of knowledge imbues moral responsibility. Marianna describes how macro-level assessments can effectively take an AI system’s temperature (risk-wise). Addressing the evolving responsible AI discourse, Marianna asserts that limiting trust to moral agents is overly restrictive. The real problem is conflating trust between humans with the trust afforded any number of entities from your pet to your Roomba. Marianna also cautions against hastily judging another’s beliefs, even when they overhype AI. Acknowledging progress, Marianna advocates for increased interdisciplinary efforts and ethical certifications. Marianna B. Ganapini is a Professor of Philosophy and Founder of Logica.Now, a consultancy which seeks to educate and engage organizations in ethical AI inquiry. She is also a Faculty Director at the Montreal AI Ethics Institute and Visiting Scholar at the ND-IBM Tech Ethics Lab .  A transcript of this episode is here. 

Miriam Vogel, policy and practice innovator, discusses the importance of good AI hygiene, regulatory progress, and boosting literacy and diversity in AI. She emphasizes the need for standardized and context-specific guidance, transparency, and a multi-disciplinary mindset. Vogel highlights the business value of beneficial AI and the importance of AI liability for businesses. She sees regulation as a way to spur innovation and trust, outlining progress in federal AI policies and the need for collective AI literacy. Vogel urges asking critical questions to ensure benefitting from AI opportunities.

Melissa Sariffodeen discusses learning, unlearning, and the impact of AI on education. She emphasizes the human element in digital transformation, the need to view AI as a collaborative partner, and the importance of unlearning outdated skills. Melissa also highlights the role of critical thinking and diverse perspectives in technology adoption.

Shannon Mullen O’Keefe champions collaboration, serendipitous discovery, curious conversations, ethical leadership, and purposeful curation of our technical creations.    Shannon shares her professional journey from curating leaders to innovative ideas. From lightbulbs to online dating and AI voice technology, Shannon highlights the simultaneously beautiful and nefarious applications of tech and the need to assess our creations continuously and critically. She highlights powerful insights spurred by the values and questions posed in the book 10 Moral Questions: How to Design Tech and AI Responsibly. We discuss the ‘business of business,’ consumer appetite for ethical businesses, and why conversation is the bedrock of culture. Throughout, Shannon highlights the importance and joy of discovery, embracing nature, sitting in darkness, and mustering the will to change our minds, even if that means turning our creations off. Shannon Mullen O’Keefe is the Curator of the Museum of Ideas and co-author of the Q Collective’s book 10 Moral Questions: How to Design Tech and AI Responsibly. Learn more at https://www.10moralquestions.com/. A transcript of this episode is here. 

Sarah Gibbons and Kate Moran riff on the experience of using current AI tools, how AI systems may change our behavior and the application of AI to human-centered design.   Sarah and Kate share their non-linear paths to becoming leading user experience (UX) designers. Defining the human-centric mindset Sarah stresses that intent is design and we are all designers. Kate and Sarah then challenge teams to resist short-term problem hunting for AI alone. This leads to an energized and frank debate about the tensions created by broad availability of AI tools with “shitty” user interfaces, why conversational interfaces aren’t the be-all-end-all and whether calls for more discernment and critical thinking are reasonable or even new. Kate and Sara then discuss their research into our nascent AI mental models and emergent impacts on user behavior. Kate discusses how AI can be used for UX design along with some far-fetched claims. Finally, both Kate and Sara share exciting areas of ongoing research.  Sarah Gibbons and Kate Moran are Vice Presidents at Nielson Norman Group where they lead strategy, research, and design in the areas of human-centered design and user experience (UX). A transcript of this episode is here. 

Simon Johnson takes on techno-optimism, the link between technology and human well-being, the law of intended consequences, the modern union remit and political will.In this sobering tour through time, Simon proves that widespread human flourishing is not intrinsic to tech innovation. He challenges the ‘productivity bandwagon’ (an economic maxim so pervasive it did not have a name) and shows that productivity and market polarization often go hand-in-hand. Simon also views big tech’s persuasive powers through the lens of OpenAI’s board debacle.Kimberly and Simon discuss the heyday of shared worker value, the commercial logic of automation and augmenting human work with technology. Simon highlights stakeholder capitalism’s current view of labor as a cost rather than people as a resource. He underscores the need for active attention to task creation, strong labor movements and participatory political action (shouting and all). Simon believes that shared prosperity is possible. Make no mistake, however, achieving it requires wisdom and hard work.Simon Johnson is the Head of the Economics and Management group at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Simon co-authored the stellar book “Power and Progress: Our 1,000 Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity with Daren Acemoglu.A transcript of this episode is here.