Virginie Glaenzer and panelists Jonathan, Mia, and Speaker D discuss how to embed ethics into identity and leadership. Jonathan argues for an opportunity-based narrative that unlocks collective potential rather than top-down education. Mia calls for diverse, non-technical voices, especially women, in AI ethics. All agree ethical decisions remain human choices requiring reflection and inclusive dialogue.
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Before we end, I want to thank everyone for this insightful conversation. And as I just said, as we come to the end of the hour, I'd like to end this discussion with the way it began, with a tour de table. So one of the promises of this podcast— it's a promise and a premise of this podcast— is that there's too much talking and not enough doing. So let's pass the mic and tell us what you've heard today that you will inspire you to start something differently than the way you did it prior to this conversation, or any insights that you want to leave the listeners and the viewers with. And I'm going to start by sharing my own takeaways to give you guys a moment to collect your thoughts. So there's two things that I heard that really triggered my synapses, my brain. The first one is, it's more a question, if We're lacking education to know what's right and wrong, and ethics is really being expressed through our culture. I think what we need is a new narrative that incorporates ethics, and I haven't heard any new narrative as a society narrative about who we are. I'm, you know, I'm an American. Is there ethics in that story? I'm a woman. Is there ethics in that story? I haven't heard that. So I want to take some time and think deeper about what is this new narrative or new story that would encompass the notion of ethics. So that's number one. It's almost like a homework. And the second one is I was asking myself, and what does it mean to be an ethical leader? And Jonathan, you said something that will stick with me and most likely guide me through my own becoming of a leader in my own marketing agency. And it's someone who listens to others. And I think it goes, it makes sense because if ethics are connected to our own belief, if I want to make the right choices and understand what's right and wrong, I have to go beyond my own belief. And you can only do that by listening to other people. So those are the two points, and I want to really thank you from the bottom of my heart for bringing me those insights and homework. So anyone wants to jump in, or I'll just give a name.
I'll jump in. It's a very rich discussion and a lot of different dimensions to it, so hard to summarize or takeaway. I think it's a lot of takeaways. I think one of the things is, I think that the fact that ethics is emerging as a central discussion item today is an indicator that we are in a period of great change. I mean, it was mentioned that there was no education about ethics. Well, that was because we all knew what the ethical behavior was for companies. It was taken for granted. No need to educate. It's It's clear now there's real question about what is ethical business. And I think rather than education, I would focus on exploration and discussion because I don't think we can just have a teacher teach us, here's the ethics that you need to pursue. We need to explore together and figure it out. And I love your comment about narrative. As you may know, I've written a lot about narrative and it's a key part of my new book. I have a very different view of what narrative is. But I think that the opportunity here is to frame what I call an opportunity-based narrative, which is a call to action that is framed around an opportunity. And broadly, to me, the opportunity-based narrative that can help all of us to explore ethics and, and be more consensus around ethics is let's come together so that we can all achieve more of our potential. That's a huge opportunity, but we need to come together and we need to focus on achieving more and more of our potential. That's the call to action.
Beautiful. Thank you.
Honestly, for me, mine is around education and some of the things that were said about enabling learning and enabling lifelong learning is something that I've been thinking about anyway over the last week and a half and is definitely something that I'm taking away.
Great, thank you. Mia, do you want to share a little bit your final thoughts or reflection or frustration, whatever you want to share?
All of the above. First of all, thank you so much for hosting this insightful discussion. It's wonderful to hear different perspectives, and I'm a big believer that diverse perspectives make the best outcome. And when it comes to artificial intelligence, I feel the more— the answers may not come from the technology world. The answers most likely will come from outside of the technology world. So the initiative that I lead, which is Women in AI Ethics, is built on the premise that we need to be including more folks, more women, more diverse perspectives who are not technical. They may be policymakers. They may be people who work on HR recruiting, people who work on the business side. It will take all of us to come together, whether it's a society, whether within a business, to come together, come up and formulate what an ideal ethical model looks like and how it can benefit not just the business but all humans who are actually going to be impacted by it. So I'm glad to be part of this conversation, and I hope to continue to participate in future.
Wonderful. Thank you very much. Since you started, Jonathan, you're going to be the last one to end this conversation.
Well, you know, I've heard Catherine and Mia especially talk about the information that we need. And yet ethics is ultimately about the decisions that we make with the data that we get. And so the thing that Mia said a few minutes ago about focusing on the human, is, I think, therefore, what really stands out to me from this conversation. Because, you know, we can build tremendous black boxes, but ultimately, it's going to be human beings making decisions, or we'll be living in the apocalypse. And, you know, that's a separate ethical question. But let's presume we don't have that happen. Human beings are still going to be making decisions. Um, and right now, um, we seem to be flooded out. Um, I really am, uh, pleased to see that in AI and in business, people are beginning to grapple with this because the innovation that we need now, I think, is human, not technological. Though technological is great, it's amazing, but we need to catch up as humans. With our tools. We need to be able to use them wisely. We need to be able to innovate what it means to be a human in this new world. And until we do that, we're not going to be capable of mustering the mental clarity that's required to make an ethical decision. So I want to end this by wishing for everybody in the world, and especially in business, because they've got so much power. Some moments of reflection to summon that clarity and more opportunities for us to gather together to question these things, to explore their ambiguities, which is why I'm so thankful to you, Virginie, and thank you for putting this together.
My pleasure. Thank you very much. We've covered a number of ideas and topics, and I hope it will be useful for ourselves and others. And I want to thank you for your time.
