AI & Ethics: 'The dog ate my homework' excuse won't work here

What will work is a good mix of honesty and courage to ask the right questions and the humility to go back to school, advises this veteran tech wizard whose deep-end experience straddles corporate war-rooms as well as university classrooms

- Pratima H

The beauty of any problem is that whenever we get stuck at something, thinking it as a dead-end, just changing one's way of looking at it can be a miraculous way out of it. Everything - no matter how new or unusual- boils down to the simple and fundamental problems, principles and questions that humanity has embraced time and again. That's the drift we get while looking at the problem of Al's ethical dilemmas from the unique point of view of Information Systems Professor Tej Anand who directs Maryland Smith's newly launched Blockchain Business Imperative. He has spent the first 10 years of his career working in Al and Data research and product development in many companies such as Philips Research Laboratories, A. C. Nielsen, and NCR/Teradata. He has also worked as a senior business technology executive in many companies and his research interests cover technology ethics and blockchain governance, among other areas. Excerpts from a conversation with a sweet voice and a strong mind.

Recently there was something reassuring in Al Ethics leader Kathy Baxter's win over preserving the Al ethics responsibility over a business goal of a new product launch. But are these victories few and far between? What is your reckoning of the progress being made on the tough path of Al Ethics?