The Responsible Edge: Recent Episodes
Topio Networks
The Responsible Edge is a podcast that explores the ethico-political issues of today's emerging technologies associated with hyperconnectivity. From platform technologies, AI to edge computing, and beyond, we will be having conversations with the leading thinkers on responsible technologies across disciplines as broad as anthropology, law, data science, engineering, and the arts. Our goal is to catalyze new conversations across industries and fields that foster constructive engagement with technologies to address the socio-political dimensions of their adoption.
Pierre Gronlier is the CTO of GAIA-X, a European initiative to create the next generation data infrastructure with the goal of enabling more open, secure, and transparent ecosystems.
In this episode we discuss GAIA-X's work in this domain and how it will impact data sovereignty, the specific problems they want to solve with the current internet and debates over control of data for both companies and citizens.
Chris Kelly has had a broad ranging career that spans politics and regulatory issues to current work as an investor in blockchain startups. In this episode we begin with a discussion of his role as the first general counsel of Facebook and the early work on privacy that he directed.
We discuss how the notion of privacy and the politics of privacy and trust have shifted over the past decade or more and where he sees the future of privacy in the context of his work with blockchain companies in the present.
In this episode we speak with Chantal Bernier from Dentons where she is the Co-Chair of the Global Privacy and Security Group. She shares insights from her experience advising the City of Toronto's Waterfront on the Sidewalks Labs collaboration that ultimately failed. We learn about the ethico-political dimensions that created challenges to developing the partnership and how companies and local governments need to think about privacy, security and data management for responsible smart cities of the future.
In this episode we have a conversation with Kirk Hanson, Senior Lecturer Emeritus at the Stanford Business School, retired university professor and executive director at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. Kirk was one of the early business strategists who helped establish the field of business ethics. We discuss his experience in the field over the past several decades, how ethics issues have changed with the evolution of technologies and how the framing of ethics itself has shifted over time. We end with a discussion on responsible AI and a look at future ethical issues he sees stemming from current developments in technology.
In this episode we have a conversation with Melyssa Barrett from Lattice Industries. She comes with deep expertise in risk management and diversity having worked for decades in banking and with Visa. Her work with Lattice Industries involves developing public-private partnerships (PPPs) with smart cities projects in ways that address equity, inclusion and diversity. A focal point of our discussion is on the way data governance, consent management and responsibility can come together to return measurable value and impact back to the communities that have been historically marginalized. We also discuss one example of Lattice Network's programs in Delaware.
In this episode we have a conversation with Chris Diehl who began his career working in data science for national security before entering the private sector. We discuss his journey into the realm of ethics and AI and how he began working with Navajo communities in New Mexico. Over the past three years he has been working to understand the complexities of Navajo communities and history and the legacy of uranium mines. A major issue to address is soil regeneration but this is also an example of a wicked problem--one without any clear cut solution. We discuss his work and how he is deliberately working to avoid the common problem of "solutionism" and a technological quick fix. This episode raises important questions about how we think about uncertainty, complexity and data science where the livelihoods of communities that have been historically marginalized are at stake.
In this episode we have a conversation with data scientist Cameron Turner from Kin + Carta and his career in building ethical AI-based companies. Our discussion ranges from ways of thinking about bias in both data and models and how he has addressed these challenges with his companies. The ethics of A/B testing and behavioral economics in machine learning are also explored with a focus on XAI and the table stakes in claiming one's work is ethical.
In this episode we have a conversation with Dr. Helen Armstrong author of "Big Data, Big Design. Why Designers Should Care About Artificial Intelligence". We discuss some themes from her book on what machine learning means for design and notions such as anticipatory design. How can designers work to create more empathetic user interfaces in conversational AI? More than human-centered AI that builds on insights from human centered design for AI but does more is another topic. Transparency and disabilities and AI are some of the other topics explored in this conversation.
Her book is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Data-Design-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/1616899158
In this episode we have a conversation with Dr. Tania Martin-Mercado, a clinical researcher who advises Microsoft, and her work on implicit bias and racial bias in clinical algorithms. We discuss some of the ways that bias has been integrated into clinical decision support tools and to what effects. Furthermore, what are some of the technology tools that can be used to detect bias and most importantly, how can organizations build teams that are most effective at detecting bias and improving AI tools.
Platform business models are moving into new sectors such as healthcare and finding new challenges as they attempt to disrupt the status quo. Can we get the ethical issues right this time as they have the ability to scale bias quickly?