Helen Toner: AI Safety in a World of Uncertainty
Release Date: 09/19/2024
Kay Firth-Butterfield: Using AI Wisely
The Road to Accountable AI
Kevin Werbach interviews Kay Firth-Butterfield about how responsible AI has evolved from a niche concern to a global movement. As the world’s first Chief AI Ethics Officer and former Head of AI at the World Economic Forum, Firth-Butterfield brings deep experience aligning AI with human values. She reflects on the early days of responsible AI—when the field was dominated by philosophical debates—to today, when regulation such as the European Union's AI Act is defining the rules of the road.. Firth-Butterfield highlights the growing trust gap in AI, warning that rapid deployment without...
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Dale Cendali: How Courts (and Maybe Congress!) Will Determine AI's Copyright Fate
The Road to Accountable AI
Kevin Werbach interviews Dale Cendali, one of the country’s leading intellectual property (IP) attorneys, to discuss how courts are grappling with copyright questions in the age of generative AI. Over 30 lP awsuits already filed against major generative AI firms, and the outcomes may shape the future of AI as well as creative industries. While we couldn't discuss specifics of one of the most talked-about cases, Thomson Reuters v. ROSS -- because Cendali is litigating it on behalf of Thomson Reuters -- she drew on her decades of experience in IP law to provide an engaging look at the legal...
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Brenda Leong: Building AI Law Amid Legal Uncertainty
The Road to Accountable AI
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Shameek Kundu: AI Testing and the Quest for Boring Predictability
The Road to Accountable AI
Kevin Werbach interviews Shameek Kundu, Executive Director of AI Verify Foundation, to explore how organizations can ensure AI systems work reliably in real-world contexts. AI Verify, a government-backed nonprofit in Singapore, aims to build scalable, practical testing frameworks to support trustworthy AI adoption. Kundu emphasizes that testing should go beyond models to include entire applications, accounting for their specific environments, risks, and data quality. He draws on lessons from AI Verify’s Global AI Assurance pilot, which matched real-world AI deployers—such as hospitals and...
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Uthman Ali: Responsible AI in a Safety Culture
The Road to Accountable AI
Host Kevin Werbach interviews Uthman Ali, Global Responsible AI Officer at BP, to delve into the complexities of implementing responsible AI practices within a global energy company. Ali emphasizes how the culture of safety in the industry influences BP's willingness to engage in AI governance. He discusses the necessity of embedding ethical AI principles across all levels of the organization, emphasizing tailored training programs for various employee roles—from casual AI users to data scientists—to ensure a comprehensive understanding of AI’s ethical implications. He also highlights...
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Karen Hao: Is Imperial AI Inevitable?
The Road to Accountable AI
Kevin Werbach interviews journalist and author Karen Hao about her new book Empire of AI, which chronicles the rise of OpenAI and the broader implications of generative artificial intelligence. Hao reflects on how the ethical challenges of AI have evolved, noting the shift from concerns like data privacy and algorithmic bias to more complex issues such as intellectual property violations, environmental impact, misleading user experiences, and concentration of power. She emphasizes that while some technical solutions exist, they are rarely implemented by developers, and foundational...
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Jaime Banks: How Users Perceive AI Companions
The Road to Accountable AI
AI companion applications, which create interactive personas for one-on-one conversations, are incredibly popular. However, they raise a number of challenging ethical, legal, and psychological questions. In this episode, Kevin Werbach speaks with researcher Jaime Banks about how users view their conversations with AI companions, and the implications for governance. Banks shares insights from her research on mind-perception, and how AI companion users engage in a willing suspension of disbelief similar to watching a movie. She highlights both potential benefits and dangers, as well as novel...
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Kelly Trindel: AI Governance Across the Enterprise? All in a Day’s Work
The Road to Accountable AI
In this episode, Kevin Werbach interviews Kelly Trindel, Head of Responsible AI at Workday. Although Trindel's team is housed within Workday’s legal department, it operates as a multidisciplinary group, bringing together legal, policy, data science, and product expertise. This structure helps ensure that responsible AI practices are integrated not just at the compliance level but throughout product development and deployment. She describes formal mechanisms—such as model review boards and cross-functional risk assessments—that embed AI governance into product workflows across the...
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David Weinberger: How AI Challenges Our Fundamental Ideas
The Road to Accountable AI
Professor Werbach interviews David Weinberger, author of several books and a long-time deep thinker on internet trends, about the broader implications of AI on how we understand and interact with the world. They examine the idea that throughout history, dominant technologies—like the printing press, the clock, or the computer—have subtly but profoundly shaped our concepts of knowledge, intelligence, and identity. Weinberger argues that AI, and especially machine learning, represents a new kind of paradigm shift: unlike traditional computing, which requires humans to explicitly encode...
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Ashley Casovan: From Privacy Practice to AI Governance
The Road to Accountable AI
Professor Werbach talks with Ashley Casavan, Managing Director of the AI Governance Center at the IAPP, the global association for privacy professional and related roles. Ashley shares how privacy, data protection, and AI governance are converging, and why professionals must combine technical, policy, and risk expertise. They discuss efforts to build a skills competency framework for AI roles and examine the evolving global regulatory landscape—from the EU’s AI Act to U.S. state-level initiatives. Drawing on Ashley’s experience in the Canadian government, the episode also explores...
info_outlineJoin Professor Kevin Werbach in his discussion with Helen Toner, Director of Strategy and Foundational Research Grants at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. In this episode, Werbach and Toner discuss how the public views AI safety and ethics and both the positive and negative outcomes of advancements in AI. We discuss Toner’s lessons from the unsuccessful removal of Sam Altman as the CEO of OpenAI, oversight structures to audit and approve the AI companies deploy, and the role of the government in AI accountability. Finally, Toner explains how businesses can take charge of their responsible AI deployment.
Helen Toner is the Director of Strategy and Foundational Research Grants at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). She previously worked as a Senior Research Analyst at Open Philanthropy, where she advised policymakers and grantmakers on AI policy and strategy. Between working at Open Philanthropy and joining CSET, Helen lived in Beijing, studying the Chinese AI ecosystem as a Research Affiliate of Oxford University’s Center for the Governance of AI. From 2021-2023, she served on the board of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
Helen Toner’s TED Talk: How to Govern AI, Even if it’s Hard to Predict
Helen Toner on the OpenAI Coup “It was about trust and accountability” (Financial Times)
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