What will you do when your AI misbehaves?

The promise of artificial intelligence is automated decision-making at scale, but that means AI also automates risk at scale. Are you prepared for that risk?

Already, many companies have suffered real damage when their algorithms led to discriminatory, privacy-invading, and even deadly outcomes. Self-driving cars have hit pedestrians; HR algorithms have precluded women from job searches; mortgage systems have denied loans to qualified minorities. And often the companies who deployed the AI couldn't explain why the black box made the decision it did.

In this environment, AI ethics isn't merely an academic curiosity, it's a business necessity. In Ethical Machines, Reid Blackman gives you all you need to understand AI ethics as a risk management challenge. He'll help you build, procure, and deploy AI in a way that's not only ethical but also safe in terms of your organization's reputation, regulatory compliance, and legal standing?and do it at scale.

And don't worry?the book's purpose is to get work done, not to ponder deep and existential questions about ethics and technology. Blackman's clear and accessible writing helps make a complex and often misunderstood concept like ethics easy to grasp. Most importantly, Blackman makes ethics actionable by tackling the big three ethical risks with AI?bias, explainability, and privacy?and tells you what to do (and what not to do) to mitigate them.

With practical approaches to everything from writing a strong statement of AI ethics principles to creating teams that effectively evaluate ethical risks, Ethical Machines is the one guide you need to ensure your AI advances your company's objectives instead of undermining them.

Reid Blackman is the founder and CEO of Virtue, where he works with companies to integrate ethical risk mitigation into the development, procurement, and deployment of emerging technology products. He sat on Ernst & Young's Artificial Intelligence Advisory Board, is a member of IEEE's Ethically Aligned Design Initiative, and is the Chief Ethics Officer of the Government Blockchain Association.

Reid's work has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, and he has contributed multiple pieces to Harvard Business Review, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and Risk & Compliance e-magazine. He regularly speaks at various venues and for various companies, including the World Economic Forum, SAP, Cannes Lions, Forbes, NYU Stern School of Business, Columbia University, and AIG.

Prior to founding Virtue, Reid was a professor of philosophy at Colgate University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research has appeared in numerous prestigious professional journals. He also founded a fireworks wholesaling company and was once a flying trapeze instructor. He received his BA from Cornell University, his MA from Northwestern University, and his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin.

Connect with Reid Blackman at:
reidblackman.com
virtueconsultants.com
Twitter: @reidblackman

What will you do if your AI misbehaves?

The promise of artificial intelligence is automated decision-making at scale, but that means it also automates risk at scale. Are you prepared for that risk?

Already, many companies have suffered real damage when their algorithms led to discriminatory, privacy-invading, and even deadly outcomes. Self-driving cars have hit pedestrians; HR algorithms have precluded women from job searches; mortgage systems have denied loans to qualified minorities. And often the companies who deployed the AI couldn't explain why the black box made the decision it did.

In this environment, AI ethics isn't merely an academic curiosity, it's a business necessity. In Ethical Machines, Reid Blackman gives you all you need to understand AI ethics as a risk management challenge, then to build, procure, and deploy AI in an ethically (and thus reputationally, regulatory, and legally) safe way, and do it at scale.

And don't worry, we're here to get work done, not to ponder deep and existential questions about ethics and technology. Blackman's clear and accessible writing helps make a complex and often misunderstood concept like ethics easy to grasp. You will understand ethical concepts while barely knowing you are taking them on. More importantly, Blackman makes ethics actionable. He tackles the big three ethical risks with AI—bias, explainability, and privacy—and tells you what to do (and what not to do) to mitigate ethical risks.

With practical approaches to everything from how to write a strong statement of AI ethics principles to how to create teams that effectively evaluate ethical risks, Ethical Machines is the one guide you need to ensure you're using utterly unbiased, totally transparent, and remarkably respectful artificial intelligence.