Name: Brainstorm AI 2023: Tackling Misuse and Misinformation in a World of AI
Uploaded: 2023-12-13
Duration: 19 min 34 s
Description: Eric Effron, Editorial Director, NewsGuard Christina Montgomery, Vice President; Chief Privacy and Trust Officer, IBM Jim Steyer, Founder and CEO, Common Sense Media Moderator: Ellie Austin, FORTUNE

Eric Effron, Editorial Director, NewsGuard Christina Montgomery, Vice President; Chief Privacy and Trust Officer, IBM Jim Steyer, Founder and CEO, Common Sense Media Moderator: Ellie Austin, FORTUNE

Brainstorm AI 2023: Tackling Misuse and Misinformation in a World of AI

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All right, there's a lot of fear surrounding artificial intelligence that extends beyond security when prompted for information A I has produced hallucinations with inaccurate and sometimes even harmful information. So in this session, we'll hear from business leaders on how their organizations are tackling misuse and misinformation. Please welcome to stage Eric Ephron, editorial director at News Guard, an organization tracking A I enabled misinformation. Christina Montgomery, Vice President and Chief Privacy and Trust Officer at IBM. Christina testified in front of the Congress this past May to share IB M's recommendations for how to set guardrails for A I and Jim Steyer Ceo of common sense media, an organization that reviews media and technology content with children's safety in mind. They'll be interviewed by Fortune's Deputy editorial director for live media. Ellie Austin. Hi, everyone. And thank you to our trio of panelists for joining us. So Jim, I'm going to start with you. We heard then um in the introduction about the work that you do to safeguard Children and young people and I know that last month um Common Sense media unveiled its first ever rating system for A I products. Actually, you say the world's first ever rating system A I products. It was a five point scale. Some organizations came out of it. Well, some, not so well, I'd love to know what big tech's response to it was. And did you hear from any specific leaders about their results? OK. Fair question. So, number one, nice to see you all. Um I hope you're big common sense media fans. Uh I would say that big tech's response was this would be Sam Altman Sundar and James Weike, Google, Satya Nadella, et cetera. Number one. And it's very gratifying to us. They all agreed common sense should be the group that does independent third party ratings. That was a big deal because it matters that, that they, that they understand we're going to do this just like we've done it for all other forms of media and tech. Second, some of them did not like the grades they got in their first rating. Um because we were pretty tough on issues that related to transparency, fairness, um efficacy. It's very different than rating a movie or TV show. So I definitely heard from the CEO S of several of the companies that we rated, which just to me is a good sign means we're getting their attention. So what comes next? We're going to basically, we think that this is incredibly important for the public at Writ large here in the US and globally to understand what A I means. And in a very basic way, understand how it can impact their lives, their kids' lives, but also democracy and, and, and the bigger and the bigger frame that I think A I is going to cap and it's really important. I think the public understands that because there needs to be legislative efforts to put guardrails in place. And I think the ratings also help us understand what kind of legislative strategy and guardrails need to be in place here in the US. And globally Christina, you've argued for regulation to focus on use cases rather than the technology itself. Can you elaborate a bit on why that is? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, these technologies are very context dependent. Um a recommendation for, you know, what restaurant you might enjoy is obviously very, very different than a recommendation for, you know, who you're gonna hire or whether somebody qualifies for a loan and the like. Um so, uh that's been a big point of advocacy that coupled with the fact that the technology is evolving and developing so quickly and if you start to try to regulate um something like, you know, the the capabilities of the technology, your regulation is never gonna keep up. So, absolutely, we've been focused on uh directing regulation to the highest risk uses of A I and to take into consideration the socio technical concerns and the context in which it's deployed. We'll come back some of that in a second. But Eric I want to come on to you. So at News Guard, you analyze the trustworthiness of news sites and you were doing that long before a I was a prominent issue. What happens? What steps do you take when you find a website that has repurposed content from a top publisher? Is there a human that you can get in touch with to speak to? What happened to that? You know, one of the earlier panels um Alan Murray mentioned that one of the themes that's emerged from the last couple of days is that there's a feeling that there needs to be a human in the loop. So News Guard, we think of ourselves as the humans in the loop. Um We're, we're a journalism organization, we rate and review websites and we've done about 8000 now in um nine different countries in four different languages. Um based on some very basic criteria, journalism criteria. Does the website run corrections? Do they tell you who owns them instead of nothing very controversial? Do they distinguish opinion from news? Do they tell you what their agenda is? And we developed a ranking ratings scores and reviews of these websites. Um The A I angle is that the, the, as we all know from the last couple of days and we've all known this before. A I can do great mischief and it can do great good. Um We think that it does better, good when it has good information. So our content both our website ratings. And also we have over 1000 debunks of very prominent narratives can help teach these tools what to believe and what not to believe. And if you do a Google search is Ukraine uh run by Nazis, you'll find lots of articles that say yes, Ukraine is run by Nazis. They may be from um RT and Sputnik or Far, right. Pro Russia us sites, um News guard can tell you that those are not credible news sites or you at least you should take it what they with a grain of salt. So really, our tools are meant to sort of make the information that's available both to humans and to bots more reliable. And what responsibility do you think the companies who are creating the bots which are repurposing the content have in this whole process? Well, I think they have a tremendous amount of responsibility because the potential harm is really almost can't be understated coming into an election year. Obviously, there's a lot of mischief that can be done. Um There already is very, let me just mention this. Since the advent of um the Israel Hamas War, October 7th, we've identified 75 narratives that um are very prominent on social media and on, on websites. Um And with the election coming up, we've already noticed we've already found examples of some mischief that's being done with deep fakes. Um So it, it's the, the, the, the good needs to be bound the, I'm sorry, the, the, the A I companies really can be much smarter and more aggressive about how they monitor information and produce information that actually comes from decent vetted sources. And Christina on that note, as we do head into an election year, what collaboration do you want to see between government political campaigns, corporate America to try and mitigate what could become pretty chaotic as we head up to the end of next year. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it comes down to trust, right? Because people verify what they're seeing and I think that's true with the technology even more broadly than in the context of elections and misinformation in general, right? So it has to be a collaboration with governments and companies both having really critical roles to play. I mean, for companies, um they have to be responsible and be held accountable and have accountability mechanisms for the A I that developing a kind of mechanisms. So for IBM, for example, we have a set of principles that we've built uh an internal governance program around with respect to A I um in terms of where we're gonna deploy and use it uh that it had the trust, you know, that it have uh be fair and explainable and the steps that we take in order to build that trust and the like uh we develop practices like ethics by design throughout our company to hold ourselves accountable to those principles. And we work on solutions for our clients to do the same so that they have the capabilities to do things like generate nutrition labels, right? Fact sheets associated with the A I models that they're putting in context and do things like uh algorithmic impact assessments and high risk use cases and the like and then advocating for policies that support, you know, sort of that um risk based regulation focusing on the highest risk uses and being clear in terms of like, what is high risk. Um And what do we expect from companies when they're deploying something like a solution in the high risk space? What is an algorithmic impact assessment look like? And when is it required? So I think it's absolutely a collaboration required on the part of both Jim. Do you want to add? Yeah, I'm deeply skeptical of what's going to happen in 24. I think it's going to be a total shit show in terms of misinformation. I think we'd be honest about that. Look, Elon has gutted the trust and safety division at Twitter X, whatever he calls it. So has Facebook, right? So we know that, remember we're the biggest advocacy group in the field on these issues and they've just gutted their staff. I'm not worried about IBM. I'm worried about Twitter. I'm worried about Facebook and Instagram. I'm worried, look, and there's been no regulation of those platforms. One thing I would say in the context of A I is how do you think we did with the social media regulation? Terribly right. I run the biggest group in the country on those issues. And it's a joke Washington hasn't passed a law about privacy. We had to do it in California or about social media regulation since Mark Zuckerberg was in kindergarten. And so these are really serious issues. I think you're going to have a really, really scary 24 election because you have so many different actors, both domestic and foreign who are going to try to interfere with this election and put out disinformation and the companies have gutted the staff that was supposed to do it. And I think we need to call them out by name and we need to hold them accountable. I don't think the federal government will do anything other than job owning. But I think this is an, this is an extraordinary moment for our democracy and we all be and as a kids advocate, I'm mostly worried about it in terms of young people and what world they're going to inherit. But I think we have to be extremely serious about this because I think 24 here and there are hundreds of elections around the world that are also going to be impacted by disinformation and the ability to regulate that. So I'm very, I think we really have to call out the key platforms and shame them into behavior and whose responsibility is. It's call out those platforms and what does that shaming? It's all about, it's ours. I mean, we're the biggest advocacy group. So it's on us. But I think it's also on, I think it's on folks like IBM to call out their, I'm not, as I said, I'm not worried about IBM. I'm worried about Facebook X, some of the other platforms that I think could really damage the democratic systems in our country and leave this country and the world with a whole mess on our hands. So this is very big stuff and I don't think regulation will come. We've been very involved in Europe with the new A I regulation but and privacy. But I think this is, this is a watershed moment for our democracy and we should all be speaking out all of you, whether whatever field you work in should be concerned about this because our democracy is on the line in 24 and global global democracies are as well. And were you about to say you don't think regulation will come in 2024? I think you'll see regulation A I regulation. No, I think you'll see it in California. Maybe because you'll see what we do here just like we did with the privacy law in 2018 and the ballot initiative we ran in 2020. So I think you'll see California. I think you'll see England pass some stuff this year and the eu just came out with the A I regs this week. Um, but I Washington, nothing will come out of Congress. They can't even get their act together to pass a budget. So they're not going to pass a comprehensive A I legislation. So I think corporate responsibility on that and I think the public speaking out and the media speaking out and holding some of these platforms accountable. You know, if I, if I could, um, just to back up, um, your Jim, your thought about how we can't really rely on the platforms. Um Because News Guard is a journalism organization, we always call for comment if we're saying something negative about a platform. And if I had a dollar for every time that we've got in touch with X tiktok, Facebook, you name it and say, hey, we, we've just noticed that you have, you know, dozens of these um A I generated videos on your platform which falsely claim fill in the blank. They say, oh, thank you for letting us know we'll take them down. And I think that's not good that they're relying on this little news, this little organization in New York with, you know, 35 employees as their fact checkers. And so that really, to me sort of exposed that there are solutions and we think we're part of the solution, but that the platforms themselves really have had a lot of work just to add, look, you have an election denier who's leading in the Republican nomination, who's lying every day about the fundamentals of our democracy. So to me and by the way X has changed their, they just let what's his name back on the platform? That was really smart, Elon. And, and I just think you have a situation where as I said, you have a fundamental election denier running for president in the United States, which to me should be held account, the platform should not put up there. So if you're just starting with that, but think of the other mis misinformation that can happen, I think it's a very, very critical moment for the for America and also global society. And I think Czech leaders should be calling out their colleagues for failing to do this because because I, because I think it's a bad moment and that, that import to, I want to see if anyone has a question in the room. Yes, over here. Could we get a mic over hippies? And could you um tell us your name and your company? Thank you so much. Hi, I'm Sammy Hasan from a RP. But it's a personal question. So you say people should speak up, media organization, speak up, corporate organization, speak up. But even in this room, you can get everybody to agree what to speak up about. So how to deal with that? There's different points of view. I don't, it's not that I disagree with you, but society is larger than speaking with one voice. So you can, you can scream all you want about. People should speak up and corporate America should do something and brands should do something about it. But how do we deal with it? Well, I think there's a couple of examples. You've seen all the, all the brands who fled the Twitter platform. I think that's really good and they should do it. I also think there is something called truth and I don't think that there are multiple versions of truth in fact. And I think part of, and I think that companies should, should stand up for what's right and not like there's no question about what happened in the 2020 election or what happened on Jan Se. So companies that go on, on the one hand, on the other hand, that's just a BS response and that's just catering to an, I think, I think you sometimes have to stand up for bigger principles. And I think that on basic stuff around misinformation and disinformation, it's not that hard to do it when you're talking about this perspective on the situation in Gaza, that's somewhat different. But I think on fundamentals of election integrity. And by the way, I'm glad you brought up Twitter because I think Sho Zi has a big, a big platform that he needs to do that influences young people at times. I think that Neil and the people at youtube have to be really careful on this too. But fundamentally, the ones to watch. I'm scared of are Facebook always because they don't do their job and Twitter, they've gutted their trust and safety divisions. You haven't? But they have. Yeah. And I would just say another thing, you know, section 230 reform. So we've been, this is social media, this is an A I but it comes back to social media reform that never happened. Um, there needs to be a reasonable care standard and that's something you can ask, you know, you can write your con congressional representatives and ask them to advocate for that. I mean, I don't know if it'll happen, but it's absolutely something that we've been advocating for at IBM for years now. And, and on that note as we kind of come to the uh oh, we've got time for one more question. I can see Ma and Pa in the clone now and I wanna get one more question in, I'm Ryan close. Um What's the likelihood of having a A I generated news source that's non biased? Mhm. By the way, I'm a complete Luddite. Why you would ask me? I could barely turn on my phone. Uh I would say that's a really interesting question. We should ask that to re read my friend Reed who was just up here or Sam or some of the technology people. I don't know. I, I do have a couple of thoughts about that. Um So one of the things that makes that, that marks good journalism versus bad journalism is that you don't assume that you've got it right. You call for comment, you are skeptical, um some would say cynical. Um And so it's hard for me to imagine like an algorithm, you know, calling for comment, for example, just to make a sort of a very basic point. But there's also the, the, the uh the principles that sort of underlie good journalism, um at least, you know, theoretically that you're trying to get it right. You're trying to be fair, you're trying to not approach it with preconceived notions. And so I think between the, the, the actual physical work that journalists do, if you can think of calling for communist physical and the values that under underline good journalism, I think it's hard for me to imagine like AAA trustworthy completely. A I generated say website. Um But, you know, we'll, we'll have to see what the, who the humans in the loop are to see how that actually works. Ok. Unfortunately, we have to leave it there. Thank you for such an impassioned discussion to Jim, to Christina and Eric. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Ok. So that wraps our mainstay conversations this morning. It's now time to head into our strategy sessions and those begin at noon and please do go to the session that you signed up for. If you're confused, if you've forgotten, ask someone from Fortune and they will help you. We'll meet back here at 1 p.m. for our lunch and keynote conversation with the nod Kohler and Fortune senior editor Jeremy Kahn. Thank you so much in your in your car. We keep trying to talk about us. I'm someone. You may be my love. I'll be your cry afternoon. Be your overnight rush. Make you crazy over my no cry. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, we ask your kind cooper in clearing the room once again so that we may prepare for the next session. Thank you and I do everything right and you call I forgive.