A Practical Guide for Building Ethical Tech
Companies
are hiring "chief ethics officers," hoping to regain public trust. The
World Economic Forum's head of technology policy has a few words of
advice.
""Techlash," the rising public animosity toward big tech companies and their impacts on society, will continue to define the state of the tech world in 2020. Government leaders, historically the stewards of protecting society from the impacts of new innovations, are becoming exasperated at the inability of traditional policymaking to keep up with the unprecedented speed and scale of technological change. In that governance vacuum, corporate leaders are recognizing a growing crisis of trust with the public. Rising consumer demands and employee activism require more aggressive self-regulation.
In response, some companies are creating new offices or executive positions, such as a chief ethics officer, focused on ensuring that ethical considerations are integrated across product development and deployment. Over the past year, the World Economic Forum has convened these new “ethics executives” from over 40 technology companies from across the world to discuss shared challenges of implementing such a far-reaching and nebulous mandate. These executives are working through some of the most contentious issues in the public eye, and ways to drive cultural change within organizations that pride themselves on their willingness to “move fast and break things.”"
