Media Mentions

Five councilmembers rejected a ballot measure that would have improved the city’s ethics commission, which is currently investigating cases involving current and former lawmakers.

Eli Wolf, reporting for The Oaklandside, asks, "Is it a conflict to have lawmakers decide the budget of a watchdog agency that has the power to investigate and penalize them?"

“In most cities the council is the one that has got to approve the budget, and that budget is just part of their legislative authority,” says John Pelissero, director, government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

John Pelisssero, director, government ethics, quoted by The Oaklandside.

Nothing comes close to a flashpoint like Forbes’ recent accusation about Perplexity AI. This is a unique moment because it is about journalistic labor and form.

"What’s missing in all the back and forth about the adequacy, or not, of citations, traffic referrals, and rights is a discussion on a fundamental question: What is the future of the journalistic form? Paywalled or not, are we headed to a future where journalists are merely laboring to supply tokens (pun intended) to large language models and their applications?"

Subbu Vincent, director, journalism and media ethics, published in Forbes.

According to Ann Skeet, senior director at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University and author of the book Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies, Anthropic has an organizational structure that differentiates it from other startups. of AI. “They established themselves as a public benefit corporation [PBC, a corporation created to generate benefits for society and operate in a responsible and sustainable manner]. This allows them to consider other interests when making decisions, in addition to investor profits,” Skeet told Época NEGÓCIOS. Furthermore, they introduced a compliance structure with five members with no financial interest in the company, who appoint and dismiss some of the board members.

“With this, they intend to align corporate governance with the mission of developing AI aimed at the well-being of society”, explains the expert. 

Ann Skeet, senior director, leadership ethics, quoted by Época NEGÓCIOS. (The original article is in Portuguese. Select English for translation.)

John Pelissero, the director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, told KQED that it would be hard for a public official like Thao to govern after an FBI raid because there would be a lack of public confidence in their ability to serve in the public interest.

“And long before there’s even a trial, there’s the risk that the trust in the mayor and trust and in the city government of Oakland will be impacted,” he said. “From an ethical perspective, the appearance of serious charges pending because of the raid is going to undermine the ability of the mayor to carry out her duties.”

John Pelissero, director, government ethics, quoted by KQED.

"AI ought to be designed to respect human freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and other important freedoms, but with the constant awareness that objective moral truths do exist and also must be respected."

Brian Patrick Green, director, technology ethics, published by Future of Life Institute.

The auditor should have identified any financial irregularities, including if statements were falsified, said Harrington.

“They should have at some point had some concerns about the money-in, money-out problem and dug deeper, whether it’s with a call to the bank or a deeper look at the CFO or even saying something to the board chair or audit committee,” she said.

Ethics Center Fellow, Joan Harrington, quoted by the Detroit Free Press.

"Right now, we have lots of ability to use artificial intelligence for bad purposes, but how can we ultimately direct it toward something which is actually beneficial to human beings, something that brings us together?"

Brian Green, director, technology ethics, quoted by NPR.

Humankind has been searching for an elixir of life for thousands of years, and today’s biological tech has us pushing the boundaries of a future without death.

"It's perfectly reasonable to want people to be healthier. But like I said, we need to be very healthily skeptical about the possibilities of this going too far. Certainly, there's a reasonable range for life extension or for health extension, but there are also probably some unreasonable measures that are either impossible or that we should seriously consider not taking."

Brian Green, director, technology ethics, featured in a video by Popular Mechanics (paywall).