Catherine Havasi argues that AI and business schools rarely teach ethics, leaving founders and the public unaware of how AI systems affect them. She points to Google Maps routing as an example of hidden ethical choices in everyday AI, and cites Finland's Elements of AI course as a model for public literacy.
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I mean, I think Mia makes a really great point about awareness as well, which is super important here. If you think about it, you know, before Edron, they didn't teach ethics in business school. Certainly until extremely recently, ethics wasn't something that was considered in an AI curriculum either. And I think to some degree awareness is key because when founders and when folks in AI sit down and they start working on technology, there are two big issues at play. One of which is, as I think all of us have talked about, there's a real issue with diversity in AI. And with diversity comes diversity of perspectives and understanding of how technology impacts people. But I think there is, to this point, a huge gap between understanding how deploying a piece of technology actually affects people, and a huge gap lack of education in understanding how to look at that problem. I mean, most people who are out there in AI right now haven't had any training in this and haven't really thought about this. It's a new issue, right? And to that degree, awareness is really key. I was speaking on a different panel maybe a month or so ago at Harvard, and someone said, well, how should we talk about regulation when we talk about AI that doesn't affect people? Like, for example, Google Maps routing. And I was like, well, all AI affects people. Google Maps routing affects people. If you think about about it, you know, whether or not there are more cars through your tiny neighborhood, you know, whether or not Google Maps should tell people how to avoid speed traps. All of these things are real ethical questions. And I can't think of— well, there aren't very many pieces of AI that don't affect people. And I think closing that awareness gap is really important. But on the flip side of that, there's also an education gap for everyone in the country, in the government, everywhere. About what AI is, what it can do, and what you're signing when you sign these different sort of access statements, right? I think people have a real— you know, one of my big things is data and data privacy, right? And you'll probably hear more about this, but, you know, most people don't really understand what kind of information they're giving away when they use their cell phone, when they sign contracts, things like that. In the EU, out of Finland, there's been this great course called Elements of AI, and a lot of people have taken it and are really starting to learn learn a little bit about the ideas of AI, how it works, what, you know, what these— what the software does, and, and so they can make a little bit more informed choices. And I think that kind of, of culture of awareness is going to become very important as we sort of move forward as well.
