Is A.I. the problem? Or are we?; The Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times, June 4, 2021

The Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times; Is A.I. the problem? Or are we?

"One of my projects this year is to get a better handle on this debate. A.I., after all, isn’t some force only future human beings will face. It’s here now, deciding what advertisements are served to us online, how bail is set after we commit crimes and whether our jobs will exist in a couple of years. It is both shaped by and reshaping politics, economics and society. It’s worth understanding.

Brian Christian’s recent book “The Alignment Problem” is the best book on the key technical and moral questions of A.I. that I’ve read. At its center is the term from which the book gets its name. “Alignment problem” originated in economics as a way to describe the fact that the systems and incentives we create often fail to align with our goals. And that’s a central worry with A.I., too: that we will create something to help us that will instead harm us, in part because we didn’t understand how it really worked or what we had actually asked it to do.

So this conversation is about the various alignment problems associated with A.I. We discuss what machine learning is and how it works, how governments and corporations are using it right now, what it has taught us about human learning, the ethics of how humans should treat sentient robots, the all-important question of how A.I. developers plan to make profits, what kinds of regulatory structures are possible when we’re dealing with algorithms we don’t really understand, the way A.I. reflects and then supercharges the inequities that exist in our society, the saddest Super Mario Bros. game I’ve ever heard of, why the problem of automation isn’t so much job loss as dignity loss and much more."

Openness Is Key to Becoming Employer of Choice for Millennials; Inside Counsel, February 17, 2017

Devdeep Ghosh, Ally Klein, Inside Counsel; 

Openness Is Key to Becoming Employer of Choice for Millennials

"To drive change, it is important that these values are communicated to the entire department through sustained campaigning. While documented policies and guidelines (both from an HR and departmental perspective) are essential, it is critical to design a messaging campaign around the rollout of such culture-building initiatives. In the messaging campaign it is critical to answer the “what’s in it for me?” question; i.e., the law department needs to show how these values and the openness help each and every attorney and staff member in their daily work. The rollout of such a campaign needs to have a framework that will work in a loop to identify and develop the content needed, roll out the message, gather feedback and revise periodically. The framework should include types of communications, proposed media, frequency/cadence and audience, as well as success measures.

To ensure a cultural change, law departments also need to find a way to measure and review their alignment to these values. For example, criteria can be built into performance management reviews in order to ensure that all attorneys and staff are adhering to and promoting a culture of openness and collaboration instead of one that solely promotes competitiveness and individual merit. The law department should promote and require open feedback, as well as encourage employees to share information and be honest, responsive and transparent with their colleagues."