Ethical Digital:

London and New York

25 September - 1 October 2019

Driving better business ethics, better business – & better businesses

STUDY TOUR

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Ethics has moved from the realm of moral philosophers to computer programmers. It is now seemingly routine for Silicon Valley and other Corporate executives to defend their record on ethical issues including privacy, data, tax, competition, diversity, inequality and employment. For technology-driven businesses, today’s reputational risks have become tomorrow’s market pressures in the battle for Defending Digital1.

This tour will be focused around London and New York. The home of the digital revolution may be Silicon Valley, but for Ethical Digital the gravitational centres are different. Both these hubs share a unique mix of innovation capital; regional, national and international policy frameworks; and robust academic and privately funded research institutions all focused on ethical automated decision systems.

London in particular is leading the way on driving regulatory and policy frameworks, with the UK’s stated goal of crafting policies that have an outsize impact on global behaviour in the same way that GDPR has impacted privacy practices far beyond the EU’s Borders.

New York is also taking legislative strides ahead of the rest of the nation in terms of algorithmic auditing, and has long been the home of a different ethos to capital investment than Silicon Valley which includes some of the earliest and most active firms focused on reaping the rewards of investing in underrepresented groups. These are the key factors which give London and New York the right conditions to incubate what will become common practice for Ethical Digital.

Business leaders have always held responsibility for resolving complex ethical choices by setting an organization’s vision and making strategic decisions. As traditional organizations become technology driven, these challenges are exacerbated by increasing layers of abstraction and automation touching every part of a business from operations and delivery to product development and HR practices. Leaders are called upon to consider ever more complex conflicting interests, balancing the risks and rewards of designing Ethical Digital technology to not just improve organizational performance, but also contribute more broadly to society.

At the start of this tour, delegates will be grappling with questions such as:

• Where do you start? What’s your scope and how do you prioritize?

• How do you realize financial and cultural gains from ethical technology use?

• Who is governing ethical implications and what process is right for your organization?

• Risk vs reward: how do you balance conflicting ethical concerns?

• How do you keep up with emerging practices?

• How do you create a sustainable culture of Ethical Digital?

By the end, delegates will be equipped with tools to identify possible ethical strategies and match these to the maturity of technological components, to choose the right ethical approach at the right time.

We had Digital. Now we have Ethical Digital. Whether it’s guarding against cyber-risk, misuse of data and opaque AI-powered decisions, or building trust in automation and autonomous systems, ethics is – or should be – an explicit requirement of the digital leadership agenda.

1. https://leadingedgeforum.com/news/defending-digital/

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Key areas of this evolution to explore will include:

• Handover mechanisms for ‘border zones’ along the technology maturity axis

• The role of regulation for innovators and incumbents

• ‘Dark patterns,’ ethics-washing, and warning stories

• Continuous cycles of ethical evolution

Ethical considerations and their method of application evolve over time

Phase of maturity Innovation Growth Industrialisation

Ethical approach

Teleological Translating teleology into deontology

Deontological

The conjecture of consequences

The principles of pragmatism

The codes of consistency

PurposeIdentifying potential benefits, harms, risks

Managing real world consequences

Guiding constructive behavior at scale

Evolutionary Adopters Pioneers Settlers Town Planners

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Tour Itinerary & Agenda

Wednesday: Welcome & Setting the SceneA welcome lunch and introduction session that will structure the key concepts and questions the tour will address. It is critical that we all understand what types of ethical approaches to adopt at different stages of a technology’s maturity. We will introduce the emergent frameworks in digital ethics and how to choose the right one. Delegates will consider ‘where they are now’ and ‘where they want to be’ at the end of the tour through an interactive session where participants will have the opportunity to introduce themselves and get to know one another.

Our first visit of the tour will be a session focused on ethics in practice at a market-leading technology company advancing the field of AI. Practitioners who are grappling with novel ethical challenges on a daily basis will share their approaches to identifying and managing ethical conundrums.

On Wednesday evening we have the opportunity to accelerate learning with elective dinners, where attendees can choose from two topics:

1. A hands-on Wardley Mapping workshop focused on deepening understanding of how ethical approaches can vary based on technological maturity

2. How 21st Century Humans can building future-sensing capabilities with an ethical flavour

Thursday: EvolutionBringing to life the themes we introduced in Wednesday’s kickoff session. For technologies that are approaching ubiquity, we will explore the emerging regulatory and industry body frameworks, while for more speculative genesis and product (or service) stage components, we will hear how investors and some of the newest technological innovators consider their ethical approaches.

The day starts with a panel discussion that includes representatives of the UK’s leading governmental, non-governmental, and private sector organisations who are working to develop standard ethical frameworks, such as:

• The Ada Lovelace Institute, an independent research body promoting public understanding of AI’s diverging impacts on different societal groups.

• The Alan Turing Institute, the national institute for data science and AI with a research remit shaping the next generation of data science and AI leaders to put ethics into practice by getting ethical concepts off the page and bringing them into practical, actionable steps.

• The Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation, who are setting the governmental advisory landscape within the UK as well as acting as an indicator for the regulatory direction of travel globally.

• Doteveryone, a think tank making responsible technologies ‘the new normal’ by introducing pragmatic steps digital leaders can take to empower their teams to make the right choices.

• The Open Data Institute, building trustworthy data ecosystems in the private and public sectors to help decision-makers make better use of data through managing harmful impacts and identifying potential benefits.

• The Wellcome Trust’s Patient Data Team, who advocate for improving health, care, and services to patients by using ethically managed patient data. 3

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Followed by a visit to a company at the leading edge of transforming industries through embedding data mining techniques into traditional processes, we will learn how these companies are tackling some of the biggest ethical challenges in AI like explainability and fairness in outcomes. We’ll also learn how they are using AI to proactively identify valuable opportunities such as improving energy efficiency and improving risk assessment. Possible companies may include Quantum Black or Refinitiv.

Rounding out the day at Bethnal Green Ventures, we will hear about BGV’s approach to ethical investment with presentations from portfolio companies such as:

• Aparito, dealing with data privacy and security issues in patient monitoring for an especially vulnerable population: children.

• DrDoctor, empowering digital solutions in the NHS including automation and risk management.

• eFridgemagnet, a non-invasive IoT activity monitoring solution for vulnerable people.

• Ally, a chatbot that supports housing associations, councils and charities serving populations in precarious housing.

• Democracy Club, a data-driven platform to empower citizens.

• [civictech] How do I? Making life more accessible for those with additional needs while driving efficiency for civic service providers.

• Rights DD, helping employers manage human rights risk through due diligence.

• Mastodon C, providing zero carbon infrastructure for big data.

• Open Utility, a peer to peer energy marketplace.

Over a drinks reception and light dinner delegates have the opportunity to informally pursue deeper questions with the startups at Bethnal Green Ventures.

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Friday: Ethics in PracticeWhat are the challenges and benefits of getting ethics off the page and putting them into action.We start the day with a visit to Intel, a technology organisation with a global focus on the rapidly changing and regionally distinct ethical challenges for both technology consumers and builders of AI. We will hear how the latest technology-led privacy solutions such as federated learning, homomorphic encryption, and differential privacy can be used to adapt to the shifting regulatory landscape about consumer privacy across different regions.

This is followed by a peer-learning session from an award-winning member of the LEF’s client ecosystem, sharing insights about their own journey putting ethics into practice.

The day closes with an LEF facilitated session to consolidate your learnings so far, and set out the key questions we will consider for the balance of the tour.

Friday pm – Sunday afternoon: TravelDelegates are free to travel to New York at any time that will suit their own schedules, arriving in time for the formal kickoff session on Sunday evening.

Saturday: Optional Time with LEFPlease feel free to join members of the LEF team and your tour colleagues in New York. On Saturday evening we will host an optional and informal dinner in New York City.

Sunday: Social & Re-FocusSunday Social: join us on Sunday morning for visits to local attractions followed by lunch. An opportunity to continue and deepen conversations that have started throughout the tour.

On Sunday evening we restart the formal tour programme with a recap and re-focus session, setting the stage for the next two days by discussing how our thinking has evolved since we last met. This is followed by an informal dinner combined with an interactive ‘wearable tech’ session to discuss some of the ethical issues around innovative consumer technologies.

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Monday: Ethics as a Value PropositionWhat if ethics was more than the mitigation of risk, but a proactive strategy for guiding business development? Our first stop on Monday is an ‘in practice’ session with a company like Etsy or Salesforce, where ethical guiding principles are at the heart of every decision made across the organization; from technical engineering to hiring and workforce development, and from infrastructure to supply chain and waste management.

We follow this with a visit to one of New York’s premier investment firms where we will hear how ethical principles make for good business. We get a second look at ethics in practice at Cisco, whose seven-year run on Ethisphere’s “World’s Most Ethical Companies” list demonstrates the success of ‘doing good business’ through being a good business. We will hear how Cisco’s ethics extend to technical choices particularly in developing automated decision makingsystems and conducting technology threat research for harm prevention and reduction.

Finally on Monday afternoon we will enjoy another peer-learning session from the LEF’s client ecosystem deepening our knowledge about what it takes to put ethics into practice and why this investment reaps returns.Join us on Monday evening for the exclusive Tour Gala dinner.

Tuesday: Barrier & SolutionsWhat can trip you up in adopting an ethical approach? How can these barriers be managed?In the morning we will hear from NYC’s AI Task Force, who we anticipate will be joined by the AI Now Institute, on the challenges they have observed in implementing an ethical approach mandated by regulation. The AI task force’s role is evaluating the fairness of automated decisions for all citizens in the city and the practical approaches you are developing will be of great interest to our clients. However, despite repeated requests, they’ve been unable to get city officials to provide information on the automated decision systems in use. The AI Now Institute has provided a partial workaround through an independent audit of these systems.

This will be followed by an ‘ethics in practice’ session at Microsoft, where we will consider the challenges of scaling ethics as an organization grows to a global commodity.

We close the tour with an LEF facilitated workshop to consolidate delegates’ learning, as we review and reflect on the week’s themes and experiences. This will equip participants to make up your own minds about what ethical approaches are right for the current and future challenges you are facing, with the opportunity to decide on the future action steps you will take back to the office with you.

The Tour will formally close at 16.00, and arrangements will be made for delegates to travel to New York airports.

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© 2019 DXC Technology Company. All rights reserved. 05/19

About Leading Edge Forum

Leading Edge Forum is an independent think tank, committed to helping clients embrace opportunities created by disruption.

With our global ecosystem of industry-leading practitioners, disruptors and innovators, LEF creates progressive research and next-practice advisory interventions that agitate clients to activate change and accelerate impact with their own organizations and customers.

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About DXC Technology

DXC Technology (NYSE: DXC) is the world’s leading independent, end-to-end IT services company, deploying digital solutions at scale to produce better business outcomes for its clients. The company’s technology independence, global talent, and extensive partner network enable 6,000 private and public-sector clients in 70 countries to thrive on change. DXC is a recognized leader in corporate responsibility. For more information, visit www.dxc.technology

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