AI Ethics & Business Transformation w/ Xena Ugrinsky and Meeri Haataja

Who is most responsible for the ethical growth of AI--technology vendors, companies, or governmental entities? How can we ensure that technology is augmenting intelligence? How do we get around the tension between profitability and social responsibility? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Xena Ugrinsky (Founder of GenreX) and Meeri Haataja (CEO and Co-Founder of Saidot. We talk to Xena and Meeri about business transformation, senior management’s role in job reskilling, and the importance of having a multidisciplinary team capable of an iterative process. We also get into the problem of thinking of AI as magic, Finland’s national AI program, the need for collaboration within the industry, and how it’s difficult to determine the best application for AI.

“[I]t takes a village [for AI and ethics]. Enterprise-wide solutions take an even larger village and so when you have a mismatch of values, you immediately have a deterioration of the value the collective can bring. Ethics and AI are probably one of the, one of the most challenging topics that we are going to have to wrestle with over the next couple of years.” -Xena Ugrinsky, Founder of GenreX

“[A]sking what's the best application for AI is like it will be asking what's the best use case for [the] Internet. So it's sort of like, it's impossible. It goes across everything.”-Meeri Haataja, CEO and Co-Founder of Saidot

Connect with us + the guests:
@IBMthinkLeaders
@QueenOfDataTech
@meerihaataja

BIOS

Xena Ugrinsky is the founder & principal of Genre-X, and the author of Enterprise AI: Your Field Guide to the New Business Normal. She frequently speaks on topics related to the application of advanced analytics to systems modernization and business transformation. She provides strategy and client advisory related to implementing advanced analytics maturity in support of solving business issues for finance, operations, sales, and marketing.

Prior to founding GenreX, Ms. Ugrinsky was a Senior Vice President of Analytics, Cloud, and Strategy in the Civil Commercial Group at Booz Allen Hamilton. In that role, she was part of the leadership team that led Booz Allen’s efforts defining a commercial strategy that translated offerings and services provided in the federal and civil markets to the commercial market.

Meeri is the CEO and Co-Founder of Saidot, a start-up with a mission for enabling responsible AI ecosystems. Saidot develops technology and services for AI risk management, focusing on transparency, accountability and agreements on AI. Meeri was the chair of ethics working group in Finland’s national AI program that submitted its final report in March 2019. In this role she initiated a national AI ethics challenge and engaged more than 70 organizations to commit to ethical use of AI and define ethics principles. Meeri is also the Chair of IEEE’s initiative for the creation of AI ethics certificates in ECPAIS program (Ethics Certification Program for Autonomous and Intelligent Systems).
Meeri is an Affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University during the academic year 2019-2020 with a focus on projects related to building citizen trust through AI transparency as well as developing certifications for judicial AI systems.

Meeri is an active advocate of responsible and human-centric AI. She’s an experienced public speaker regularly speaking at international conferences and seminars on AI opportunities and AI ethics.