Ethics in Technology impacting Business and Ecosystem

Introduction

While participating in the creation of the Governance Principles of Quantum with the ?World Economic Forum, I realized that Governance and Ethics in Technology are very little understood outside the discussions in specialized forums. This edition of my newsletter, emphasizes the importance of ethics in tech for corporate leaders.

In today’s edition of Science and Tech for Boards and CXOs, you can find

1)?????The Importance & examples of Ethics in Tech

2)?????Deeper Dive into this topic for Artificial Intelligence & Quantum

3)?????Board Tech Tips to help leaders make better decisions

A little reminder

This newsletter was created for you to help you make informed and better decisions in your domain as a leader. Therefore, I will be glad to see you treating this newsletter as your tech advisory notes to make more effective decisions as a leader.

?Science & Tech for the benefit of Humanity

Science and Technology are?crucial cornerstones of human development. Science is an attempt to understand how nature works and use that knowledge to be able to harness the powers of the laws of nature.

This is done with the purpose of either answering?the fundamental questions to reality OR creating?technology that can make human life and existence, better, safer, more efficient, and create opportunities for all-around progress.

While the aim of science and technology is to create a better future for humanity, science and technology can be used in ways that may create negative impacts of varying levels.

?Some of the negative impacts may stem from the use of science or technology for clearly negative or harm-causing intent.

?A good example that helps understand this dichotomy is the massive connectivity that has been possible due to the internet and the merging of the physical and the digital through Massive Infrastructure monitoring systems connected through the internet. When everything is online, it needs to be secure, and while Cybersecurity firms continue to advance their tools, techniques, and processes to keep people, assets, and systems secure, when Cyber Security incidents happen, the costs are very high.

For example

The cyberattack on Ukraine power in 2016 and the cyber attack on the hydropower generation plant in New York in 2013 were attacks on utilities. Attacks like these threaten to disrupt human lives in ways that could not happen before. The following table represents the nature of cyberattacks from Jan 2019 to May 2020

Source springer.com

Another example - In the field of defense has been the combining of a rotor fitted drones with special recognition algorithms that have allowed people to identify and diffuse explosives, monitor and maintain peace in areas of military and/or civil unrest, identify and thus save people trapped under rubble, etc in rescue operations among others. However, there have been incidences of anonymous attacks on military bases using these types of drones, for example, the attack on a Russian base in Syria. These incidences bring to light the questions about the employment of technology in military and defense, especially in war-torn regions

Yet Another Example

There is also the alleged misuse of facial recognition by the state of China to specifically single out and target the Uyghur Muslim minority.

What about Individuals?

At a very individual level as more and more of our data is online, the more the need to maintain security, privacy and the need for laws, regulations, tools, and processes to protect our rights and then have mechanisms for either reversing or mitigating harm from misuse of technology

Examples of Artificial Intelligence and Quantum

Let us go through 2 of the prominent technologies and look at some of the efforts that are happening around the world.

Artificial Intelligence

A good example of early efforts in the area of Ethics was when in 2016 IEEE released Ethically Aligned Design: A Vision for Prioritizing Human Wellbeing with Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems for Public Discussion available here

It's important to note that the World Economic Forum has released a report on 28th January 2022 on the pros and cons of AI - Our children are growing up with AI: what you need to know | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)

The European Commission, United Nations, and several other international forums have provided guidance and inputs through public and representative entities discourse around this very important topic.

Quantum

I had an opportunity to be part of the very early efforts in understanding the potential impact of Quantum and establishing some Governing Principles by the World Economic Forum.

?These Principles will serve as a reference for Organizations, International Institutions, and Governments for establishing Design principles, International Agreements, and Regulatory measures that may be required for Quantum. You can find the Document outlining the Principles here. As one of the lead authors I feel great about the fact that these principles have been released as the Technology is maturing and not as an afterthought, which is often the case for new Technological Areas.

?Board Tech Tips-Insights for leaders to make better decisions

Positive & Negative Impact

Emerging Technology Areas may have an impact on multiple aspects of Business, Society, Ecology, The way we live, the way consumers behave, and so on. It's important to understand both of these positive and negative impact possibilities.

?When Board & Top leaders look into both positive & Negative impact of emerging technologies. They are able to create proactive strategies around business opportunities (e.g consumer behaviors & their impact on their business growth). and Risks ( e.g lack of compliance to upcoming regulations)

?Future Compliance Requirements

There is a need to learn from how the privacy conversations around the world started with Principles and later became laws around the world, even impacting principles and rules for?data exchange across borders.

Board & Top leadership can keenly look into and be informed about the Early Conversations on Ethics for a Technology/Domain. This will help them keep sight of potential regulations and laws.

New Governance Principles

Board Members and CXOs need to understand any new Governance Principles for an emerging technology area. Technology implementations need to plan for future compliance requirements by understanding existing principles.

?Top leaders when vigilant about the Future of Science & tech, will take informed business decisions.

?Leaders Influencing Compliance and Laws

Ethics in Technology is not just about being Passive Adopters of regulators. ?Industry Leaders need to play an active role in the definition of the rules, especially when they have an opportunity to bring in a specific usage/implementation/impact perspective.

?Top Leaders may look forward to being proactive & grabbing the opportunity to provide their inputs on the discourse on ethics in technology. Their initiatives around defining and improving ethics will help industry benchmark with them across the globe.

Ethical Businesses Sustain Longer

Studies have proven that Ethical businesses are more likely to sustain for the long term and in the majority of cases are highly profitable businesses. Keeping this in mind while important decisions are made in the boardroom is important.

Just as examples - If you look at companies like Google and Microsoft, they invest their resources and time for participating in the International and National level dialogues on topics related to Technologies impact on Society, Privacy, Ethics associated with Technology, and so on. This can become a strong enabler for building systems that are geared towards benefiting humanity. From a pure compliance perspective, The Telecom sector is highly regulated and participation in Standards and inputs to policy and law formulation is almost imperative for Telecom players.

In the comments, I would love to see you sharing you ideas around ethics in Technology and how can corporate leaders bring in more ethical practices.

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About the Author

Reena Dayal is a global thought leader on Emerging Tech & Science. She is a board advisor & CXOs coach for New Tech & its impact on Business, Industry, and Society. She loves to examine the latest developments in New Tech & brings this in the form of monthly briefings to Senior Leaders. Her agency “Benzaiten Advisors” provides customized reports, updates & solutions for organizations that care about the impact of emerging tech on their business growth. She can be contacted through a DM on LinkedIn or via?e-mail?or?website