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True story: Almost six years ago I was invited into unnamed person’s office, who is head of unnamed subsidiary (rhymes w ShallowFind) to discuss how I might approach building an ethics team inside Doodle. Said person never made eye contact and boasted about 1/ #AIEthics
the billionaires he can call whenever he wanted. But he clearly had a problem, which apparently his billionaire buds couldn’t solve. He needed social scientists. Well how should we approach this, he asked. 2/
Well, we’re social scientists and humanities scholars (trying desperately not to say what I really wanted to say, which was that most of us aren’t impressed by name dropping and gross displays of wealth). But I kept to it. Well, so and so, I continued... 3/
the process isn’t much different from your engineering process. You leverage our expertise and then let us do what we do! What do you mean, he says. Well, just like your quality engineers, we identify both known and unknown problem, consider the specificities of the problem... 4/
... and it’s wider contexts, propose actionable solutions (even if it’s in just debate) and then release this knowledge into the public. Unimpressed, said individual replies: ‘I don’t like the public!’ 5/
Then you have a bigger problem, I said, because the tools you create are released to the public. He was clearly exacerbated. He then continued typing emails or playing mindcraft, who knows? So I picked up my bag and stood to leave. Having nothing more to lose I said, ‘Look!’ 6/
‘Let me give you a bit of advise. You can do with it what you want: If anyone comes in here and just pulls out of their bag a simple one size solution to your ethics problems, don’t trust them. They’re clearly a snake oil salesman.’ That was the only time he made eye contact. 7/
Afterward I put on my sunglasses and walked out trying to leave with a grace that would make LeBron proud. I ate a bucket of ice cream that afternoon, shaking at the thought that a corporate blank check had been given to a child with a talent for video games. 8/
