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.