All Tech Is Human Library Podcast Series #13 | Chris McClean
In the thirteenth conversation of a sixteen-part All Tech is Human Library Podcast interview series, global lead for digital ethics at Avanade Chris McClean joins David Ryan Polgar to discuss the path to entering the responsible tech space: How can a curious party enter the field of responsible tech? McClean details his responsible tech journey and outlines his vision for a better tech future. Check out the full podcast series here.
About Chris McClean
As global lead for digital ethics at Avanade, Chris McClean is responsible for driving the company’s digital ethics fluency and internal change and for advising clients on their digital ethics journey. Prior to Avanade, Chris spent 12 years at Forrester Research, leading the company’s analysis and advisory for risk management, compliance, corporate values, and ethics. Chris earned his MS in Business Ethics and Compliance in 2010 and BS in Business with a Marketing emphasis in 2001.
Key Takeaways
There is a need for people of different disciplines and talents to work in responsible tech spaces; those working in responsible tech spaces with non-technical backgrounds can help usher in the next generation of problem solvers.
The industry will get better as people think about improving their roles’ interactions with technology and driving institutional change.
A better tech future involves thinking through our issues as a society and deciding if tech is part of an appropriate mitigation strategy.
Quotes
“So when we think of ethical conversations, the questions are a little bit different. I don't like to think about it as…a risk management exercise. I think there are some challenges there, but as far as the implementation where you're changing the behavior of the IT or the digital or the marketing organization, it's very similar to these other disciplines. So we can learn a lot around assessments and policy management and training to make it practical. It's not just like an academic exercise.” 5:01 - 5:26
“There are requests for people that know policy, which requires writing, or I have a marketing background. So how to communicate really difficult ideas to a wide range of stakeholders, there's a need for that. It's not just software engineers, not just data scientists, but any kind of skill you have. Um, it might, again, not be obvious. I'm happy to brainstorm with people about how to fit them in, but there is a way to fit those skills in for sure.” 7:22 - 7:45
“I've found that in the different disciplines that I've worked in, your risk compliance, other areas of consulting. There is a little bit of a competitive nature where, you know, if you work for Deloitte, you don't want to talk to somebody at BNY or vice versa because you have your own frameworks and things like that. I'm not finding that in this space. I'm finding that people are very open to sharing their ideas, their experiences, their challenges. If you reach out and say, 'Hey, I don't know how to break into this space, do you have ideas?' I will find nine times outta 10, the person that's in the responsible tech arena will respond and say, Hey, I've got some people for you to talk to. I would love for you to, you know, maybe sit down for half an hour, or we can kind of brainstorm where you would fit in. It's a very welcoming environment from everything that I've seen.” 9:20 - 10:02
“But I'm optimistic that we can turn that around and maybe it's the next generation. And I hate to put it on them, but I do get excited when I think about the number of conversations I have with the younger folks who are just getting into the space saying, 'If I'm gonna be in tech, I'm gonna do it responsibly. Or if I'm gonna learn how to do ML or AI, I wanna take all the responsible ML and AI courses that I can, or read all the books I can just to make sure I'm doing the right thing.'” 12:01 - 12:25
“I think the industry will get better if people really think about how their role could be better, right? How the way that they interact with technology in whatever way could be just a little bit better. So if they think about, um, am I helping design or develop technology? Do I implement it or am I just a user or do I just interact with people? Every day they could probably just do a little bit more to think about the issues and if they see something wrong, complain about it. Raise their voice.” 14:25 - 14:51
“My best…near term vision is, 'Before we even get to, some of these values, integrity, respect, like those are important and we should consider them. But before we even get to that point, we should be thinking about ‘What do we want out of society and the environment of people before we even decide to build technology, right? Are we trying to make healthcare access [easier] for society?’ If that's the case, there are probably two dozen different ways to do that off the top of my head. And maybe technology is like one or two of those things, but technology is not always the answer. And then once we decide, ‘Okay, technology is going to help us achieve this kind of societal benefit, how do we do that in the best, most fair, most respectful way,’ and so forth. But it's very conscious, very thoughtful about why we are doing tech in the first place before we get to that kind of set of ethical questions.” 16:00 - 16:47
Learn More About Chris McClean
Avanade | LinkedIn
Credits:
David Ryan Polgar - Moderator
Chris McClean - Interviewee
Unfinished Live - Producers
