Changing Business Needs: DEI and AI Ethics

Microsoft fired its DEI team because of “changing business needs”. There is an important lesson here that goes beyond DEI and applies to AI ethics.

➤ The lesson is:

DO NOT be fooled by the existence of a team, an executive, or company principles or commitments. 

➤ While we all theoretically know that these indicators are unreliable, many still use them as if they were reliable. 

People often say to me things like:

“How do we know that our vendor is serious about AI ethics? Well, they have a dedicated team and even a senior executive!”

No, these signals mean nothing. 

➤ It’s truly amazing to me how companies shamelessly combine 

(1) boasting of having teams for ethics / DEI / AI ethics as proof that they are ethical / equitable etc. 

And (2) shutting down these teams, usually very quickly. 

We've seen this so many times that it boggles my mind that people still see the existence of such teams as proof of anything about companies. Perhaps it's because people are naturally trusting. 

➤ But only action matters. Ask companies instead:

What do you measure?

How often do you measure it?

What are you doing to solve problems?

Refuse to accept fluff answers from companies.

h/t to Cory Warfield who pinged me about this yesterday!

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