Impact
My voice in public
My opinion is in demand. As a sought-after expert, I am regularly invited for interviews, web shows and podcasts. From Swiss television to ELLE Singapore, from the e-commerce conference of Swiss Post to the UNESCO Forum: I have a global and multimedia presence. In addition I also write my own articles.
That’s how I create impact.
Impact
Presence on
all channels
You will find a selection of interviews, podcasts, webshows and my own articles on all my topics.
Make your selection with the hashtags.
Podcasts – my thoughts on ethics on air
Hosts from all over the world invite me to share my thoughts on ethics, artificial intelligence, data protection, sustainability or my personal career. Podcasts are a great opportunity to present my views and convictions in a structured and understandable manner. Every single one of these conversations has been an eye-opener for myself as well.
AI and democracy – a complicated relationship
Johannes Castner asked me about my opinion on the intersection between AI and democracy. In a nutshell, I’d say: «Keep the two apart from each other.»
Big Tech and AI ethicists — a reciprocal duty to engage?
If we have a choice: do we want to have Big Tech at the table when discussing regulation, or do we want them to lobby behind closed doors? I argue for the latter. We have a duty to engage.
Cryptocurrencies and ESG? Mission impossible
Cryptocurrencies are booming; many of them are based on extremely energy-intensive mining processes. At the same time, we are under pressure to drastically reduce global emissions consumption, keyword ESG. These two trends are not compatible.
«No one likes to talk about ethics. I show that talking about ethics can be fun»
Here is how I developed from a primary school feminist protesting against handicraft lessons for girls, to a rebellious anticapitalist teenager in high school, to a bored business administration student in the 1990ies, into who I am today.
«The EU regulation on AI makes ethics affordable»
What does the EU draft regulation on AI mean for companies? Will they see it as a burden or do they embrace it as meaningful guidance? I was invited to a short podcast on my views on these matters.
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.
Privacy violations create irreversible damage. There is no compensation scheme for data leaks.
In the year 2021, after countless shitstorms about privacy violations, after Cambridge Analytica, at the same time as people leave Whatsapp because they disagree with their new privacy, Clubhouse comes to Europe with a business model that disregards any legal and ethical considerations, and they are successful.
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.
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 article was originally published in the Bangladesh newspaper Daily Sun on February 7, 2018. Rainwater Harvesting: Path to Gain SDG 6 Clean water is a cornerstone of sustainable development. The Sustainable Development Goals address this issue in their goal number 6, which aims to: “Ensure availability
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.
TedX Zürich: «AI – freedom within, freedom without»
AI frees us from having to solve complex problems ourselves, but does it also deprive us of the ability to think for ourselves? In my TedX speech I reflect on the ambiguous role AI plays for our freedom. Due to the pandemic, my speech was recorded in a huge, empty, pitch-black TV studio in Zurich. I missed the audience, but I am glad that I had the opportunity anyway.
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 can make financial markets accessible to everyone, it can also deny access within a split second. This is what happened when they shut down Gamestop trading on January 28, 2021. Thousands of investors were presented with a fait accompli.
«Ethics is not just about right or wrong but often rather about why»
«People often feel uncomfortable talking about ethics. My mission is to enter a company, a classroom, a stage, and take away that unease», I say in my interview with influencer marketing platform Onalytica.
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?
«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.
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 to an end, that must be measured by its contribution to human flourishing.
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 are still doing most of the work.
Fake it till you make it: AI and Hype
The Algo 2020 conference invited me on a panel discussion titled «Fake it till you make it – AI and Hype». My 4 key points:
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 are still doing most of the work.
«There is no Responsible Tech without accountability»
There is a divide between those working on Responsible Tech inside companies and those criticizing from the outside. We need to bridge the two worlds, which requires more open-mindedness and the willingness to overcome potential prejudices. The back and forth between ‘ethics washing’ and ‘ethics bashing’ is taking up too much space.
Ethics in the tech sector: what makes it so distinctive?
Kate O’Neill is a global thought leader, author, keynote speaker, strategic advisor, and «tech humanist». We talked about connecting the dots between AI ethics, privacy, climate change, CSR, ESG, contact tracing, carbon offsetting and much more, including quite some laughter.
Business is there to make life better. But what does that mean?
As part of his series “Interviews with global leaders in the field of Artificial Intelligence” I spoke with Johan Steyn about AI ethics, privacy, contact tracing, buiness ethics, CSR, etc. – live from my kitchen table.
Ethical debates sparked by Covid19: my thoughts as part of the UNESCO Forum
UNESCO Forum invited me as a speaker to share my thoughts on the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic has sparked fundamental ethical debates. Think of the terrifying reports from hospitals in Italy in Spring 2020. Intensive care units were overrun with patients. There were not enough ventilators. And suddenly we asked ourselves: What is the value of a human life?
Opposing facial recognition: why focusing on accuracy misses the point
Facial recognition has come under massive scrutiny. Approaches to using it are quite divided. While China uses the technology routinely and extensively in order to surveil their citizens’ everyday life; San Francisco, notably the ‘home territory’ of those companies driving the development of this type of technology, has banned it last spring.
AI and sustainability: a solution or part of the problem?
Environmental sustainability is one of the most promising domains to deploy ‘AI for Good’. The environment is an excellent use case for collecting and analyzing data that help us to better understand and address key environmental challenges. In contrast to the use of AI in ‘human settings’, you typically don’t run into problems of privacy and discrimination when using it for environmental purposes.
Pension funds, climate change and the value of future pensions
Climate youth have a long-term horizon – they have that in common with pension funds. Anyone who invests in companies that promote climate change is wilfully depreciating the value of pensions.
Linking digitalization to ethics: a simple outline of some foundations
It shouldn’t take a scandal of the dimensions achieved by Facebook/ Cambridge Analytica to make it clear that we must not use technology blindly without asking ourselves some ethical questions, but incidents like these certainly help to raise awareness on an ever broader scale. Yet, despite an increasing amount of articles calling for integrating ethics into algorithms, it often remains unclear what is effectively meant by ethics. I outline in clear and simple terms how ethics can provide guidance when deciding whether we should adopt digital technologies.
Why AI really needs social scientists
OpenAI states that in order to assure a rigorous design and implementation of this experiment, they need social scientists from a variety of disciplines. The title immediately caught my attention given that the kind of “AI ethics” I am dealing with hinges on an interdisciplinary approach to AI. So, I sat down and spent a couple of hours to read through the whole paper.
ESG in pension funds needs reflection, passion and a mission
As a regular listener at panel discussions on ESG, I became aware that institutional investors often lack reflection, passion and mission on the topic of ESG. IPE.com wrote an article about this.
Algorithmic decision-making and social division
Reading a report on “Discrimination, Artificial Intelligence and Algorithmic Decision-Making”, I wondered to what degree algorithmic decision-making could serve to further exacerbate discrimination in already deeply divided societies. If we want AI in general and algorithmic decision-making in particular to flourish and to contribute to the common good rather than promote or exacerbate division, we need to work towards creating societies where all members have genuine freedom and equal opportunities in their choice of lifestyles and identities regardless of their protected characteristics.
What makes AI ethicists “the top hire companies need to succeed”?
KPMG ranked «AI ethicist» as one of the «top 5 AI hires companies need to succeed in 2019». That’s good news for an ‘old business ethicist’ like me. However, there is no common understanding whether we need AI ethicists in the first place, and whether creating such a profile inevitably leads to «machinewashing». I address these concerns and argue what it takes to really make AI ethicists a top hire.
The costs of lowering social standards
In 2014 Chiquita paid their workers in Honduras private health insurance which cost them a total of 1 million USD per year. Quite a lot of money for a company close to bankruptcy. A few weeks ago they wanted to lower the level of health care services. As a result, workers went on strike for more than 40 days. Bananas worth 30 million USD could not be exported. Is this really worth it?