Mike Walsh, Harvard Business Review; Why Business Leaders Need to Understand Their Algorithms
"Leaders will be challenged by shareholders, customers, and regulators
on what they optimize for. There will be lawsuits that require you to
reveal the human decisions behind the design of your AI systems, what
ethical and social concerns you took into account, the origins and
methods by which you procured your training data, and how well you
monitored the results of those systems for traces of bias or
discrimination. Document your decisions carefully and make sure you
understand, or at the very least trust, the algorithmic processes at the
heart of your business.
Simply arguing that your AI platform was a black box that no one
understood is unlikely to be a successful legal defense in the 21st
century. It will be about as convincing as “the algorithm made me do
it.”"
Issues and developments related to ethics, information, and technologies, examined in the ethics and intellectual property graduate courses I teach at the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information. My Bloomsbury book "Ethics, Information, and Technology" will be published in Summer 2025. Kip Currier, PhD, JD
Showing posts with label shareholders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shareholders. Show all posts
Thursday, November 21, 2019
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
CBS Report on Moonves Shows Epic Failure of Corporate Governance; The New York Times, December 4, 2018
James B. Stewart, The New York Times; CBS Report on Moonves Shows Epic Failure of Corporate Governance
[Kip Currier: Another example of toxic organizational culture--at multiple levels--that's also a "teachable moment" case study on the need for ethical leadership.
It's also (another) call for action and responsibility by Board members in all kinds of organizations--for profit and non-profit:
If you see (or reasonably suspect) something illicit, illegal, or unethical is occurring within your organization, say something!
You have an ethical duty to act. Not to cover up, turn away your gaze, or enable.
Ask tough questions. Demand answers. Report concerns and observations to outside parties when you can't get answers or information from within.
Do your duty. Do the right thing.
Even if it's hard.]
"As a draft report prepared by CBS’s
outside lawyers now makes clear, many of the company’s employees,
including high-ranking executives and even members of its board, were
aware of the former chief executive Leslie Moonves’s alleged sexual
misconduct and subsequent efforts to conceal it.
Yet no one acted to stop him — and the repercussions for that failure are likely to reverberate at CBS for years.
“A
culture where this behavior could have gone unchecked for so long with
so much knowledge is really troubling,” said Charles M. Elson, an expert
on corporate governance at the University of Delaware. “This is a
disaster for CBS shareholders. There’s been no other #MeToo incident
with this kind of negative impact” on a major American company...
Members of corporate boards, senior executives and even rank-and-file
employees have a duty of loyalty — to the company, not its chief
executive. They’re required by corporate law, company policy and in many
cases their employment contracts to report misconduct to the board."
Sunday, March 4, 2018
What price privacy when Apple gets into bed with China?; Guardian, March 4, 2018
John Naughton, Guardian; What price privacy when Apple gets into bed with China?
"Corporations can blather on all they like about corporate responsibility and human rights, but, in the end, maximising shareholder value is all that counts. And Apple is determined to get to that trillion-dollar valuation no matter what. So if you’re an Apple user in China, you now have a simple choice: junk your iPhone, iPad and fancy Macbook laptop; or accept that your autocratic rulers can access your data at their convenience. In which case, whatever you say, say nothing – as they used to say in Belfast."
"Corporations can blather on all they like about corporate responsibility and human rights, but, in the end, maximising shareholder value is all that counts. And Apple is determined to get to that trillion-dollar valuation no matter what. So if you’re an Apple user in China, you now have a simple choice: junk your iPhone, iPad and fancy Macbook laptop; or accept that your autocratic rulers can access your data at their convenience. In which case, whatever you say, say nothing – as they used to say in Belfast."
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
U.S. lawmakers demand investigation of $100 price hike of lifesaving EpiPens; Washington Post, 8/23/16
Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post; U.S. lawmakers demand investigation of $100 price hike of lifesaving EpiPens:
"The medication itself isn’t expensive. Analysts calculate that the dosage contained in a single pen is worth about $1. It’s the company’s proprietary pen injector that makes up the bulk of the cost... A profile in Fortune in 2015 described her rise in colorful terms: Bresch, a 46-year-old who’s spent more than half her life at Mylan, has steered the company’s transformation from a quirky outfit run out of a West Virginia trailer to a global operator with 30,000 employees in 145 countries. Born into politics—her father, Joe Manchin, is a longtime West Virginia Democratic stalwart who’s now a U.S. senator—Bresch has mastered the regulatory world. Since becoming CEO in 2012, she’s overseen a major revenue increase; Mylan projects sales of up to $10.1 billion this year, up from $6.1 billion in 2011… Under Bresch’s leadership, Mylan has also stumbled through a series of ethically messy mishaps and public relations gaffes. Mylan’s inversion took place just as uproar over the tactic reached a fever pitch on Capitol Hill. (Among the politicians who denounced the move was Bresch’s own father, though he later changed his mind.) Critics have called out the company for unusually high executive pay packages, questionable use of company jets, and murky relationships with board members. Then there’s “the Heather Bresch situation,” as she herself calls it, a scandal surrounding her executive MBA credentials—when you Google her name, the episode still ranks even higher than her official Mylan bio."
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