This event is the first in a new series of techUK roundtables focused on digital ethics in practice.

In this roundtable we will explore how organisational allocation of responsibility can help or hinder putting ethics into practice. While questions of ethics may historically have been placed alongside regulatory compliance with legal teams, there is an increasing movement to involve developers in assessments of ethical risk and mitigation – if nothing else, this could flag risks at an earlier stage of the development cycle.

We will discuss how different techUK members are approaching the ‘splitting’ of ethical responsibility, how collaboration between departments is encouraged (with a particular focus on engineering and legal departments), and which lessons have been learned so far about building closer relationships between colleagues who may not have had much overlap before.

We will be joined by Pete Rai, Principal Engineer at Cisco and member of techUK’s Digital Ethics Working Group, who will kick off the discussion with some of his own experiences and insights. Attendees will then share perspectives from their organisations and views on the best ways to administer responsibility for ethics.

The event will be for techUK members only and under Chatham House Rule. It is a hybrid event, with a limited number of tickets available for attendance at the techUK offices, and another set of tickets available for online attendance. Please choose your preferred form of attendance at check-out.

We look forward to seeing you there!

 

Principles in action: techUK ethics roundtables

The nature of modern technology, changing how we do almost everything at a rapid pace, makes it an area ripe for ethical investigation. Approaches taken to the development of technologies today will shape our future, and this draws the attention of policymakers, regulators, ethicists and members of the public across the globe.

The tech industry is at the centre of this attention and is increasingly applying strategies to confront the ethical questions posed by the products they create, and the way they are being created. Since 2010, more than 170 ethical AI frameworks have been published by a mix of public, private and civil society groups, the vast majority of them within the last five years.

In this series of roundtables, techUK will bring together members to dig deeper into the application of ethical principles. Industry representatives will get a chance to share both lessons and challenges in a confidential space, and to ask their peers questions about approaches taken and outcomes reached.

The aim of the event series is to grow industry best practice through dialogue. They will be for techUK members only and run under Chatham House Rule without a discussion write-up, to allow attendees to speak as freely as possible.

If you would like to suggest a theme for a future roundtable, please get in touch with [email protected].