Next on book tv, programs from our archives the focus on technology. Even watch them in their entirety by visiting our website booktv. Org. Use the search function at the top of the page. First of march 2019, nyu school of business professor amy webb, Artificial Intelligence and giving too much power to big corporations. My job is to lower risk for a living. I primarily focus on technology. Over and over i kept going back to the same Nine Companies pretty he sang companies, a controlling share patents. That have extraordinary amounts of money. Theyre able to attract the best talent because they have the best food. They have the relationships with the universities buried and does not mean that there arent other Companies Like salesforce or uber that are doing amazing things, but it is these are through the sign companies and Everything Else flows. The entire ai ecosystem in some way or another touches the sign. In addition to all of the things, there also building the frameworks in the silicone chips for any the coded basis. All roads lead to the sign companies. And the challenge that i have is that is the case that Artificial Intelligence is not just being built to create a better microwave. All of that school. But instead to optimize our lives. Using data as currency. What is the mean when we relegate that to just a handful of companies in a handful of people working at these companies. Who probably dont look like us. They dont have the same worldviews is us. In longerterm, downstream implications of that what does it look like. Three of those companies are in china. There the bat. There publicly traded companies but i have learned in china and japan. Anybody watches china news, publicly traded companies are still under the sum of beijing. There is no escape. You can be an incredibly, successful ceo, it is because your in lockstep in some ways with the chinese government. And thats matters because china currently has a brilliant person at the helm. The president is very smart. Very effective leader and very good longterm planner. China has a culture of long term planning. You can go back to your history luggage a lot of big Strategic Initiatives in the fiveyear plans. See how a lot of the really never amounted to anything. But i think things are different this time. In a different because we have a person in power and Leadership Team around him to really understand technology. So you probably heard of the road initiative. So this seems like an infrastructure initiative. Building bridges and roads in exchange for that diplomacy all around the world. In the silk road route is wealth is into deep latin american affect. But what most people dont realize is that this is not just about building physical bridges and physical roads. As a digital component as well. Fiftyeight countries are part of the digital side of the bri. Beginning five g. Theyre getting chinas social credit score system. So the parts of Southern China right now where you might be an intersection and nephew j walk, which is illegal there, smart cameras are the intersection will recognize who you are. You face covered. We could be obscured. These systems are very smart. And they can recognize you might date, posture, i have you are walking. So if youve caused an infraction, your face is thrown upon a digital billboard rated at that intersection ridealong with your name, and where you work. That information is transmitted to your employers. And to your family members and if you have done it more than once, you might be told to report to a local police precinct. And you are demoted. So your total score the chinese citizen, is taken down a few notches. There are opportunities to earn points if you have done something good. Somebody can report working you might get a few points up. This is a program is intended to be national but has not yet rolled out nationally. You may saying to yourself, that is china. I dont live there. So it is very interesting but you know, who cares. Let me tell you why this matters to you. First of all, this system already prevented 17. 5 Million People from buying plane tickets. More than 70 Million People last year cannot fly. Five and half Million People esther could not buy a train ticket. 300,000 people who did really great jobs at work, their scores were too low and as a result, they were just disqualified from ascending to management positions. These are not just ethnic minorities who are being discriminated against pretty this is a shot at huge social controls. And you may be saying to yourself again, this and you had been talking microwaves. I dont know why all of this necessarily matters to me. And the reason that the matters, if its a case that china is aligning itself with all of these countries around the world. Many of which are economically vulnerable. There vulnerable for any other number of reasons. Because of climate change, because they have political unrest. And they are inching towards an authoritarian leader. The social credit score system, is an option for this place pretty helps keep the populace in control. China has also already exporting this to different places pretty when this matters is because while we are on future wars and building big ships bombs and thinking about missiles in the sky, but we have forgotten to look at is what happens of china rages an economic war. And it effectively in front effectively blocks is out of places and forces us to come to terms with think that we dont like or understand. This potentially prevents us from doing business and traveling. It potentially reshapes the world and a sort of new world order with china is not just a militaristic and economic facing front thread. As a formidable global threat. That is china. In the United States, theres an antagonistic relationship. A transactional relationship but antagonistic relationship, between the valley in dc. So what winds up happening is theres a lack of understanding, there are not enough of a nation ship Spring Valley sort of does what it wants. Until somebody gets upset and than they apologize and than they do the same thing again. Over and over and over again. Until monday, and you have somebody like elisabeth warren, who starts demanding that they are broken up. You cant break up these companies. There are many reasons why some of them have to do with strategy. Some have to do with nuts and bolts of technology. But this is the light bill. Remember when the bell company got broken up into baby bells. This is not that rated is not telephoning. These companies have multiple divisions and their intertwined in their very complicated. At the United States is going to continue to fund it science. Continue to defend our education systems. In technology, and was going to build out the future of ai among other parts of science and Everything Else pretty you cant just break these apart. It does not work that way. And in the process of arguing back and forth. These companies are competing against each other rather than collaborating. This is us a 4inch branch, little by little, your daily permissions being taken away. I no longer have the ability to back my car up into the garage with my radio full volume. It is because somebody in the small ai tribe decided they were going to optimize my filthiest life. I was probably unsafe like you are. Even though we have never been in a car accident. I no longer have control over the volume of my car. It seems insignificant. Theres a compounding effect over time rated and we are all apart now of this process that is unfolding in slow motion. You are the analogy of the frog in the pop and the water slowly over time, boiling a dont realize it until the frog is dead. I dont want to be the doug frog in the pot. And i realize that sounds like hyperbole. There are so many things that we turn a blind eye to it at some point there is no way to turn back. Theres no switch. Theres no single switch for ai forcing a was in charge. And no National Leadership on this issue. President trump issued a in a signed an executive order. With that executive order on Artificial Intelligence is not self executing. We do not have budgets, or singular department in charge. We do not have institutional knowledge, spread throughout our federal government. We have smart people but now the right places. And in the valley, we have incredibly smart people do thanks want to do good by and for society but who are not instead, constantly dealing with market demands. Let me be clear on this. I dont think the big Nine Companies and certainly would are part of the big nine, i dont think theyre able. I dont think that you intend to do harm. I think weve gotten ourselves into a situation with the system is broken. With open of archives to at recent author programs about technology. Recalls her experiences working for tech startups. San francisco, 24 when i joined the company. I was 25 years old. Obviously worldly experience he prayed the fact tha i think its incredibly hard to run a company full of adults mainly who have dependents or debts or whatever. I do not envy anyone in that position. I have a lot of something for someone who is learning to be a ceo and i think that reason, one of them is that i feel that the behavior that i saw institutionally as well as individually, was more result of the start of the Structural Condition individual failure. In her lies that was sort of a narrative. Or framework but. Host governing the companies and people. To be coy, or to be or a puzzle for people to solve. Inaudible. More than i wanted to gesture towards a sort of a common leadership style or has more to do with the incentives of the Business Model than of the industry. And let me illustrate this. I feel like im walking onto these readings with my own book. Its like my American Girl doll. [laughter]. Im here with my book. [laughter]. I think it was in new york. Anna they had read my book in the mentioned scene in which a talk about how early members of my team were wearing a costume of my manager asked who the five smartest people that you know write the names down. I will do this. And then look at it was too. Why dont they work here. Inaudible. Why would they were here. This doesnt make sense. And so many other useful things to do. Why would, like my friends who are in graduate school, they probably would make their way to the tech moment. But what with these people who are smart and talented and interesting. Why should they work at this analytics company. I like trying to figure this out. Like this idea that the five people should work here because it has an economic value. Host j sort of think its linked to how it works. Or as required rated. Anna i totally do. I should have a one line answer for everything. So this woman came up to me after this event and she said, the same thing happened to my company. This actually the first time that i heard this. Like this was like deja vu for me. They mustve already on the blog post because i too once broke down the five smartest people that i know. Im related. So i feel like theres this thing that happens in the culture the custody with like the intellectual culture is has passion for itself. It has to do more with like, people read this advice. I have a ton of money, ton of accountability to their investors. Its a responsibility to their employees. In trying to figure out how to do a blog post. Heres how you can scale irene get really good people for your core teams. That will set the tone for the rest of your company. Ask them to the smartest people they know are. And then push them to recruit them. It and tell them for paying five 8000 to recruit. I tried so hard to recruit people who were or were not the smartest people i know. Back anyway. I think the industry has these values. You can speak to them as well. Maybe you have seen them in your excellent book. Inaudible. There will be assigning afterwards. I think that some of the cultures are shaped by the Business Model. In the incentives rated those are shaped by the incentives of the venture capitalist. She is speed and scale no acceleration or whatever you coupled with the libertarian incubating if you will. For 25 years. Fifty years. And you get this weird cultural product. Over consideration and research, complex. I dont know what i am talking about. I am so sorry. Host i dont remember actually. Anna on cspan. Affect. Host so it is fair to say, and i guess i am wondering if there are parts of the experience they take with you rated is actually really appreciated. Inaudible. A lot of tech folks, think they are doing good for the world. New question that in time of dangerous sometimes. I guess i am wondering sort of bring some of that out, if there are cultural parts that you appreciated that you took away from it. Anna there is. This is likely, i think the heart of the book. I think there was a lot that i appreciated working in tech. I dont know if in my 30s i would go back and appreciate the same things. I happen to the right age. Right earnings to be a sort of ideal employee in certain ways. When it mattered. In my 20s, being in a different city, being told to take this and run with it. I think what i admired and appreciated was the camaraderie and the sort of commitment to a common project, a collective project if you will. I liked the people had autonomy or seem to have autonomy. At least for a little while. Thats also part of the problem. If people have autonomy, dont necessary have the authority to have the autonomy or should not necessarily read but there seem to be so much potential in that. People with the most autonomy sort of replicate power structures that exist externally. Initially that was exciting to me. I think that, i really did appreciate some things about the start of culture. I think someone who is and like, deep painful earnest meant. I i dont if you can relate. They might be wrong but i generally believe people in tech believe they are doing good for the world. I think that is what missing is more like that the problems are systemic. I dont think there necessarily rooted in the individual. But i do wonder like i dont actually know if youre legally able to answer this question. You can move onto the next one if you want to pretty but do you feel it like someone probably heard that uber could not exist if they didnt have this crazy culture. In my question obviously is it should been. If that culture, should not exist. It like maybe that is fine. Inaudible. [laughter]. Anna do see a behavioral, and incentive, in this model of the industry they could potentially be forgiving of Something Like that. Host i do think that if you boil down are you getting investments, get the next level or whether that, for most companies, the kind of desperate and start doing things, that might not be able to move on. Inaudible. And also goes to how things work but i also think there is justification. For the people, protected and things that are not necessarily fair. Im not saying this is wrong. For reasons of doing a lot of this stuff. Anna i dont like to go back on my own argument treated to i do think the people on the same structural position. Inaudible. Do you have to be a jerk to do well in the industry. Host like what kind of ceo this is pretty. Youre watching cspan2. For more archives, in september of 2019, microsoft Senior Researcher mary gray reported in the workforce the drives Large TechnologyCompanies Like amazon. Google and over. Youre probably familiar with the category is called online offline servicers, uber, theyre using the same mechanisms. The putting out requests for somebody to come pick up the food, delivered to the platform. And is an exchange by recording when the food is being picked up and delivered in executing the payment, scheduling work and arrives and getting an address pretty that portion of the work, is automated. But the delivery, the value estimate doing this, to deliver the food. Thats the part we often are not considering. More increasingly, were aware of it. Affiant said content moderation was a form of this, i do think anybody would have known what i was talking about. So well know the content moderation and job the people do, is absolutely dividing a service which is training Artificial Intelligence. Importantly, theres people. In there performing a very important service. We are focused on a vast World Business start up. For below the surface pretty is everything you will ever see. And thats the work i will talk about today. It is the world of editing, it is the world of visibility testing. Perhaps in many of these different tasks do drive Artificial Intelligence rated their what helps structure. I love being in mit. Increasingly listing the numbers and its actually quite hard to mail the ai thing. It is going to keep a person into a moment of this request is perhaps tech 70. So anytime yvonne onto a website and have a little help in the public, noticed a mixture of scripts in a person who is persisting you. And thinking about that world of work, youve a person missing something on the spot they cannot be quite completed by animation. The public importance of reference that comes to mind, in the book is just places they spent together this is not new. There is continuity here how he treated people and just be a moment because automation will come around and be replaced. It might look like piecework when it is a text file. And manufacturing the good and the button in the boat. For quite some time and usually that was a member of decades, list the important thing to blake. Automation eventually made it possible for things to go away and textiles in some cases. In other cases, both labor costs, there also the reality of the nations what we call being too sophisticated for textile machinery to be able to consume through automation. A person was kept around. But is also in a world of federal Contract Labor. So for example, the women in the film it appears the good of the time they brought in with the computers which we again, at mit know it was a reference to people prefer the machines. And thats just quick cleats and when