Balancing privacy and child safety, AI governance workshop, public interest tech career summit, and more!
Balancing privacy and child safety, AI governance workshop, public interest tech career summit, and more!
Read our new white paper, attend upcoming livestreams, and help co-create a better tech future
✨ Welcome back to All Tech Is Human’s newsletter: a place for strengthening the Responsible Tech ecosystem and tackling thorny tech & society issues.
📜Today we’re proud to release a new white paper, Balancing Privacy and Child Safety in Encrypted Environments, that provides clear-eyed recommendations to move past the contentious impasse related to E2EE and child safety concerns. It gets at the heart of what we do as an org: unite a diverse range of stakeholders to surface values, tensions, tradeoffs, and best practices in order to make forward progress toward a better tech future.
🗓️As always, we have a lot of ways participate both in person and virtually. Join our livestream this Thursday exploring a new social framework to improve online experiences. On Oct 31, we are discussing diversifying the talent pipeline for AI, and on Nov 7th we’re collaborating with Humane Intelligence for an AI bias bounty livestream around counterterrorism. And for those in NYC, we’ll be having a Responsible Tech Mixer on Nov 14th that will feature a talk with Greg Epstein (interviewed by Julia Angwin) about his new book, Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World's Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation. All Tech Is Human is the subject of an entire chapter in this book, highlighting our community-building.
👀There are a lot of articles, videos, and pictures in today’s newsletter. You’ll see talks from our recent AI Assessments, Audits, and Public Oversight Methods workshop, pictures from our recent gatherings in SF, recent livestreams, and a Responsible Tech Journey from Cecilia Marrinan about paving a path in Responsible Tech.
Now, onto the newsletter 👇
Download our new white paper, Balancing Privacy and Child Safety in Encrypted Environments
Discussions around balancing privacy, especially related to end-to-end encryption (E2EE), with concerns around child safety such as through the development and dissemination of CSAM, has created a seemingly intractable impasse this paper works to tackle.
Balancing Privacy and Child Safety in Encrypted Environments is designed to help key stakeholders move past the current impasse through clear-eyed recommendations for policymakers, tech companies, and the larger Responsible Tech ecosystem of civil society organizations, researchers, and academics. The project involved interviewing 11 leading thinkers and professionals from a range of disciplines and perspectives to help understand competing values and best practices, and find opportunities for forward movement.
💡All Tech Is Human is uniquely positioned to help with this impasse, given our broad network and agnostic space that is a sandbox for sharing ideas and promoting collaboration.
📚RELATED RESOURCES: On September 17th, All Tech Is Human collaborated with Safe Online for a special gathering, Ensuring a Safe Online Future for Youth. Speakers included Julie Inman-Grant (eSafety Commissioner of Australia), along with many individuals found in our white paper.
📺On June 27th, All Tech Is Human gathered 250 individuals across civil society, government, industry, and academia in London for Responsible Tech London: A Better Tech Future for Youth. This gathering featured Baroness Joanna Shields, Sonia Livingstone, Alex Holmes, Catherine Knibbs (interviewed in our white paper), and more.
📜In April, All Tech Is Human and Thorn released industry-leading Safety by Design principles for preventing the misuse of generative AI in furthering child sexual abuse. Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and more (still adding companies; reach out) have publicly committed to the Safety by Design principles that stemmed from our working group which was led by Dr. Rebecca Portnoff, VP of Data Science at Thorn. The White House recently cited this work in their announcement around new private sector commitments designed to combat image-based harm. Rebecca was recognized for her impactful work in this TechCrunch piece.
📚Join us for our final Responsible Tech Mixer of 2024!
We’re thrilled to be holding our Responsible Tech Mixer & Tech Agnostic Book Celebration on Thursday, November 14 in NYC. It’s our final gathering of 2024, a monumental year for our nonprofit and our work related to community, education, and careers in Responsible Tech.
Nov 14th will be a fireside chat, mixer, and ample time to meet others who deeply care about co-creating a better tech future. To interview Greg Epstein about his upcoming book Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation, we have lined up Julia Angwin (award-winning investigative journalist, a bestselling author, a New York Times contributing Opinion writer).
We’ve spent the last two years being interviewed by Greg Epstein, who has attended multiple gatherings. All Tech Is Human has an entire chapter dedicated to our unique ability to bring together a broad range of people across the globe.
AI Assessments, Audits, and Public Oversight Methods
All Tech Is Human hosted a curated AI Governance workshop with IBM Research on Sept 20th in NYC. We convened 75 Responsible Tech professionals doing the crucial work of operationalizing AI Governance within organizations, alongside researchers, policy advisors, and civil society leaders to talk about how things are actually unfolding in practice throughout each stage of the AI product development lifecycle to uncover emerging best practices and to discover the pain points that are most common across our collective varied experiences, and to identify ways to engage communities in public accountability mechanisms that can shape the development of AI to be more aligned with the public interest.
🧠During breakout sessions, participants engaged in a deep dive into their experiences doing this work, comparing perspectives to identify what is working well and what common pain points are emerging. Participants were directed to choose their primary area of expertise for the breakout group discussion, describing their experiences, evaluating the challenges and constraints, and laying the groundwork to explore potential solutions. We are looking forward to exploring ways that we can collaborate to solve the problems that we are collectively uncovering.
📧Email Executive Director Rebekah Tweed if you missed this workshop and would like to learn more about collaborating in future workshops!
Keynote Presentation: Building an AI Evaluation System with Juana Catalina Becerra Sandoval
Juana Catalina Becerra Sandoval (Responsible Tech Research, IBM) discusses building an AI evaluation ecosystem in a keynote presentation. In Building an AI Evaluation Ecosystem Becerra Sandoval discusses the current challenges, evolution, and future of AI governance, the importance of AI governance and audits shape in growing a Responsible AI future, and the ways AI ethics boards and participatory methods empower the field.
Panel Discussion: AI Assessments, Audits, and Public Oversight Methods Workshop
Dr. Rumman Chowdhury (CEO & Co-Founder, Humane Intelligence), Gemma Galdon Clavell (CEO, Eticas AI), and Noah Broestl (Partner & Associate Director of Responsible AI, Boston Consulting Group) joined moderator Renée Cummings for an AI governance panel that discussed:
The complexities of integrating Responsible AI practices.
How to adapt robust AI regulatory frameworks.
Why multistakeholder participation is essential to address AI bias and sustainability.
🥳All Tech Is Human co-hosted the inaugural Public Interest Technology Summit at Stanford University
On October 11th, All Tech Is Human, Stanford’s Public Interest Tech (PIT) Lab, and McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, recently hosted the inaugural Public Interest Technology Summit on the Stanford campus.
This student-led event– organized by the PIT Lab and Angela Ngoc Nguyen, Audrey Jin-Young Choi, and Jenny Duan– brought together 30 Public Interest Tech (PIT) organizations and nearly 200 Stanford students to learn more about PIT careers and the myriad of places looking for talent.
Following a panel conversation, students and ATIH community members were invited to talk with tabling organizations about their work, the representatives' own pathways to PIT careers, and potentially open positions at organizations. Organizations like ICANN, Aspen Tech Policy Hub, and TechCongress (full list here) filled the room while internship and job seekers asked questions and shared their own aspirations in PIT. The successful Summit will hopefully be the first of many annual events that brings together key PIT organizations to students aspiring in the field at Stanford University.
🚶♀️Read Cecilia Marrinan’s Responsible Tech Journey, which involved being in last year’s Responsible Tech Mentorship Program cohort. Cecilia discusses what attracted her to Responsible Tech, hurdles along the way, and her advice for others.
Livestream: Do we need a new social framework for a better online experience? Join in!
Join Mark Weinstein (Author, Restoring Our Sanity Online: A Revolutionary Social Framework) and David Ryan Polgar (Founder & President, All Tech Is Human) this Thursday, October 24, at 1 PM ET for a discussion about youth, tech, and wellbeing, balancing privacy and anonymity, and how we can train AI to help, not hurt, us.
📆On Oct 31st, join our livestream about diversifying the talent pipeline for AI. And on Nov 7th, join our livestream in collaboration w/ Humane Intelligence, Algorithmic Bias Bounty #2: Counterterrorism.
🎊All Tech Is Human is excited to announce its partnership with Marketplace Risk for the Marketplace Risk Global Summit, hosted by Lloyd's of London November 12-14 in London
We have had three recent large gatherings in London, which is why we are excited to activate our London-area ATIH-community with this partnership.
This collaboration brings together two leading forces committed to fostering innovation and responsibility in the digital platform ecosystem. All Tech Is Human's expertise in responsible technology, ethics, and trust aligns with Marketplace Risk's mission to empower platforms with cutting-edge strategies for risk management, Trust & Safety, regulatory compliance and technology innovation. Attendees will benefit from this powerful collaboration, gaining fresh insights into how responsible technology can drive safer, and more resilient marketplaces.
As a partner, All Tech Is Human has some free tickets and will also be helping organize a few talks. For those currently involved with a marketplace or digital platform wanting to participate in this upcoming summit in London, please reach out our way through our interest form.
🌱Do you want to make an impact on the next generation of Responsible Tech leaders?
We’re still recruiting passionate and experienced professionals to join our global Responsible Tech Mentorship Program as Mentors! We’ve had so many great mentors apply already, so we're really excited to share the full list with you later this year.
Every year we have hundreds of mentees all over the world who are eager to learn, grow, and lead in the Responsible Tech space. As a mentor, you will:
🧠 Share your expertise and insights
🙋♀️ Support emerging talent in the responsible tech field
🚀 Help shape the future of responsible tech
🤝 Connect with other mentors
Whether you specialize in AI/ML, data ethics, policy, Trust & Safety, Responsible AI, Public Interest Tech, or any other related area, we'd love to meet you.
📆Applications to be mentored in our Responsible Tech Mentorship Program opens on November 1st. Please join our waitlist to be notified as soon as applications are live.
Have you downloaded The Responsible Tech Guide?
Afua Bruce (Author, The Tech That Comes Next and Principal, ANB Advisory Group) discusses thorny tech & society issues, how her work contributes to tackling big tech issues, and her vision for a better tech future in our Responsible Tech Guide.
The Responsible Tech Guide (2024) is our flagship resource here at All Tech Is Human. It is designed to provide information, inspiration, and illumination of pathways for more individuals to be involved in the Responsible Tech ecosystem. Learn from Afua Bruce and many others interviewed in this year’s guide, along with curated resources and helpful advice for being more involved in the Responsible Tech ecosystem.
🤝Join our upcoming careers focus groups to Help All Tech Is Human better serve you
In order to better understand ATIH's community and serve you all through our Responsible Tech Job Board, talent pool, and growing portfolio of career assets, Ali Feldhausen, ATIH’s Director of Career Development, will be hosting two focus groups this month for folks to provide feedback and talk about their existing challenges in the job search. Please feel free to sign up below and/or circulate with individuals who you think would be interested!
Students and New Graduates: October 30, 1:30-2:30 PM ET
ATIH Community Members: October 29, 12:00-1:00 PM ET
🌃Do you have a Responsible Tech career journey to share with college students?
Share your career experience with college students! Give a lightning talk about your job and experiences, mentor some students, or run a career skills workshop. On November 16th, All Tech Is Human will put on an event for more than 200 NYC-area students from ten CUNY schools and nearly a dozen more. Our host is New York Institute of Tech, which is giving us space from 11-3 that day at their Columbus Circle campus.
We'll have lightning talks from people in Responsible Tech at Microsoft, Amazon, Google, the City of New York, and many more. And we want to add you! If you can give an hour of your time, you might influence today's college students to work in Responsible Tech. Give a talk, have a conversation or run a workshop. Contact University Network Director Steven Kelts at steven@alltechishuman.org
👉Learn more about our Responsible Tech University Network here.
👀 In Case You Missed It…
📺All Tech Is Human recently held a livestream on Evaluating the Functionality of AI Systems. This featured Mozilla’s 2024 Rise25 Honorees Stella Biderman (Executive Director, EleutherAI) and Divya Siddarth (Co-Founder, Collective Intelligence Project) talking about evaluation, particularly scientific evaluation, of AI systems and their capabilities. This was moderated by Dr. Savannah Thais (Associate Research Scientist, Columbia University; Affiliate, All Tech Is Human).
👋Did you see our livestream on Getting The Right Internship in Responsible Tech? If not, you can watch it here.
👏ATIH fellow Renée Cummings, who is part of the World Economic Forum’s Data Equity Council, helped design a framework for advancing data equity in a digital world. Learn more here.
🗓️ Save the date: All Tech Is Human will be hosting a Responsible Tech Careers Summit on March 18, 2025. This gathering will be focused on Responsible Tech career pathways. We are looking for companies who would like to be vanguard sponsors, along with speakers. If you are interested, please fill out this short form or reach out directly to Alexandra@alltechishuman.org.
🎃 Let’s carve out a better tech future
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🔮 Looking to chat with others in Responsible Tech after reading our newsletter? Join the conversations happening on our Slack (sign in | apply).
🛸 We’re building the world’s largest multistakeholder, multidisciplinary network in Responsible Tech. This powerful network allows us to tackle thorny tech & society issues while moving at the speed of tech. Are you part of a foundation that wants to support our mission? Reach out directly to David Ryan Polgar.