Blog

  • On teaching AI & ethics

    On teaching AI & ethics

    The Montreal AI Ethics Institute interviewed me, along with my ForHumanity colleagues Merve Hickok and Ryan Carrier, about our thoughts on teaching AI and ethics. I recommend keeping AI ethics as applied as possible and inspiring people to think about what that means for their own work experience.

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  • Is there business ethics in Clubhouse?

    Is there business ethics in Clubhouse?

    What can AI ethics learn from business ethics? What’s the ethics of Clubhouse, if any? Is the Robinhood app undermining free will? And how can tech companies create an ethical business culture? Listen to my thoughts in this interview.

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  • Rainwater Harvesting in Bangladesh

    Rainwater Harvesting in Bangladesh

    In 2017 I visited various NGO projects in Bangladesh and India in my role at the time as a board member of the Buchi Foundation. Upon return to Switzerland I wrote a piece on one of the projects together with Md Abu Hena Mostofa Kamal, who was field coordinator of HELVETAS at the time. The…

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  • Getting to the root of food waste in bananas

    Getting to the root of food waste in bananas

    The food waste of bananas created by consumers is only the tip of the iceberg. Even more waste is created at the farm level, where up to 40% of bananas are put to waste. The high percentage of waste at farm level puts an additional strain on the cost/income ratio of farmers.

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  • Robinhood: democratized finance on shaky ground

    Robinhood: democratized finance on shaky ground

    More than 900 years after the heroic figure Robin Hood set out to steal from the rich and give to the poor, two American entrepreneurs borrowed his name to establish a fintech company that claims to “democratize finance for all”. But the new Robinhood’s claim of ‘democracy’ is on shaky ground. Just as the company…

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  • Privacy conundrums in early 2021 — on violators and accomplices

    Privacy conundrums in early 2021 — on violators and accomplices

    How is it possible that an app that simultaneously breaches privacy principles and that, for the time being, undermines ideals of inclusiveness, is so successful? And why do even people who are usually strong advocates of the very values Clubhouse violates, hop on this latest trend?

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  • “AI is a tool, not a right. It’s not an end in itself”

    “AI is a tool, not a right. It’s not an end in itself”

    “We might trust machines more than people when we communicate with them but this is dangerous because behind every machine there are the people that create it”. Just one of my statements from my lively talk with Kimberly Misquitta from Indian chatbot company Engati.

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  • No, we don’t want to ‘democratize’ AI

    No, we don’t want to ‘democratize’ AI

    The talk about democratizing AI is a clever marketing move. Democracy is an inherently positive term. By suggesting that AI is in everyone’s interest, it is not far off from framing AI as a basic need. But let’s not be fooled: AI is not a basic need. It is a tool, that is, a means…

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  • Four reasons why hyping AI is an ethical problem

    Four reasons why hyping AI is an ethical problem

    Hyping AI creates ethical challenges on top of the existing ones. Here is how: 1. AI hype does not question the very purpose of AI. 2. AI hype is linked to misleading promises. 3. AI hype directs energy at something that is barely tangible. 4. AI hype exaggerates the capabilities of AI when effectively humans…

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