42. Confronting Ethical Challenges in a High Tech World

Machine Learning has tremendous potential to help us better understand a variety of domains and build tools for automated decision-making. Such tools carry the promise of more accurate predictions and higher efficiency than might be achievable without them. However, machine learning also has the potential to lead to outcomes that reinforce biases, disproportionately impact particular subpopulations, and violate notions of privacy. In this talk, we examine some of the promise and perils that arise from work in machine learning to understand both the ethical issues and competing value trade-offs at stake. Our speaker, Mehran Sahami, is the James and Ellenor Chesebrough Professor and Tencent Chair of the Computer Science department at Stanford University. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty in 2007, he was a Senior Research Scientist at Google. Mehran's research interests include computer science education, machine learning, and ethics. He has published numerous research papers and holds more than 20 patents, including work related to web search, recommendation engines, and email spam filtering that have been deployed in commercial applications. He served as co-chair of the ACM/IEEE-CS joint task force on Computer Science Curricula 2013 (CS2013), which created curricular guidelines for college programs in Computer Science at an international level. He was appointed by California Governor Jerry Brown to the state's Computer Science Strategic Implementation Plan Advisory Panel. And, he is a co-author with Rob Reich and Jeremy Weinstein of the book ""System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot." To learn more about the book System Error, go to: https://systemerrorbook.com/ YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/us30TDEORv0 ⁠⁠More about the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley⁠⁠    Website: ⁠⁠Rotary.cool⁠ or: https://www.siliconvalleyrotary.com/ Meetings’ ⁠⁠Video Archive⁠⁠: https://www.siliconvalleyrotary.com/meetings/ YouTubeChannel⁠⁠: https://www.youtube.com/@rotaryeclubofsiliconvalley824/videos How to become a member in ⁠⁠this online Rotary eClub⁠⁠: https://www.siliconvalleyrotary.com/join ⁠⁠More about Rotary International:⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠https://www.rotary.org Find a Rotary near you: https://my.rotary.org/en/club-search Find an ⁠⁠online Rotary Club:⁠⁠ https://tiny.cc/rotaryonline   Podcast and Zoom Host, ⁠⁠Rushton Hurley⁠⁠: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rushtonhurley/ Podcast Producer, ⁠⁠Elton Sherwin⁠⁠: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eltonsherwin/ Audio edited and enhanced with ⁠⁠Descript Studio Sound ⁠⁠  #PositiveChange #Inspiration #Rotary