Tech and Ethics: The World Economic Forum’s Kay Firth-Butterfield on Doing the Right Thing in AI

**Sam Ransbotham** (0:02)
How can governance of artificial intelligence help organizations?
The word governance can come with a lot of baggage and some negative connotations, but governance can enable organizations too. The question is how. We'll close out the season with a discussion with Kay Firth-Butterfield. She's the head of artificial intelligence and machine learning for the Executive Committee of The World Economic Forum. With Kay, we'll learn not only about her specific background in the legal profession, but she'll also help us think about what we've learned over all this season.
Welcome to Me, Myself, and AI, a podcast on artificial intelligence and business. Each week, we introduce you to someone innovating with AI. I'm Sam Ransbotham, professor of information systems at Boston College, and I'm also the guest editor for the AI and Business Strategy Big Idea program at MIT Sloan Management Review.

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (0:52)
And I'm Shervin Khodabandeh, senior partner with BCG, and I co-lead BCG's AI practice in North America. And together, BCG and MIT SMR have been researching AI for four years, interviewing hundreds of practitioners and surveying thousands of companies on what it takes to build and deploy and scale AI capabilities and really transform the way organizations operate.

**Sam Ransbotham** (1:21)
Well, first, Kay, let me just officially say we're thrilled to have you talk with us today. Thanks for taking the time. Welcome.

**Kay Firth-Butterfield** (1:27)
Thank you.

**Sam Ransbotham** (1:27)
Of course. So Kay, you've got a fascinating job, or actually really jobs.
You've got so many things going on. So for our listeners, can you introduce yourself and describe your current roles?

**Kay Firth-Butterfield** (1:40)
Yes, certainly. I'm Kay Firth-Butterfield, and I am head of AI and machine learning at the World Economic Forum. So what that essentially means is that we work with multi-stakeholders, so companies, academics, governments, international organizations, and civil society to really think through the governance of AI. So when I say governance, I say it very much with a small g. We're thinking about everything from norms through to regulation.
But AI, we feel, is less susceptible to regulation.

**Sam Ransbotham** (2:21)
Can you tell us how you got there? Give us a little bit of background about your career to date and how did you end up in this role?

**Kay Firth-Butterfield** (2:28)
I am by background a human rights lawyer. I'm a barrister. That's the type of trial lawyer that wears the wig and gown.
And I got to a point in my career where I was being considered for a judicial appointment in the UK. They kindly sort of try out whether you want to be a judge and whether they think you're any good at it. I don't know what their view was, but my view was that it wasn't the culmination of a career in the law that I really wanted.
And I had been very interested in the impact of technology on humans and human rights. And so it gave me this wonderful opportunity to rethink where my career would go. So I was fortunate to be able to come to Austin and teach AI, law, international relations, to pursue my own studies around law and AI and international relations and AI and geopolitical implications of this developing technology. And then, purely by luck, I met a person on a plane from Heathrow to Austin. It's 10 hours.
He was this chair and CEO of an AI company who was thinking about AI ethics. And this was back in 2014 when hardly anybody apart from me and the dog and some other people were thinking about it. And so, he asked me as we got off the plane if I would like to be his chief AI ethics officer. And so, that's really how I moved into AI. But obviously, with the social justice, with the ideas of what benefits AI can bring to society and also cognizant of what we might have to be worrying about. And so, I have been vice chair of the IEEE's initiative on ethically aligned design since 2015
I was part of the Azilomar Conference thinking about ethical principles for AI back again in 2015 And so, my career ended up with me taking this job at the Forum in 2017 I say ended up, but maybe not. Who knows?

**Sam Ransbotham** (4:59)
Yeah, we won't call it an end just yet. So, what does artificial intelligence mean?

**Kay Firth-Butterfield** (5:05)
Well, part of the problem and part of its complexity is that AI means different things to different people. Say AI means one thing to an engineer and another thing to a person who's using it as a member of the public through their phone.

**Sam Ransbotham** (5:23)
So we're shifting our definition as we go and we'll continue to as well.