Jeff Saviano is the EY Emerging Technology Strategy & Governance Leader. He advises corporate boards, C-suite executives, and senior government officials on the risks, opportunities, and policy/governance implications emanating from innovative technology, with an emphasis on artificial intelligence and Web3. In this episode, we talk about what is probably the hottest topic in corporate governance circles: AI ethics and governance, including board oversight, board committee structure, and board expertise. We also cover AI regulatory oversight in the US and internationally, the OpenAI board fiasco, and some of the novel entity structures used by leading AI companies. If you like this show, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing this podcast on social media. You can also contribute as a Patron on the link patreon.com/BoardroomGovernancePod or you can subscribe to the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at evanepstein.substack.com This podcast is sponsored by the American College of Governance Counsel.
(0:00) Intro.
(1:10) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel.
(1:58) Start of interview.
(2:43) His role at EY and appointments at Harvard's Safra Center for Ethics (ELSCE), MIT and Boston University.
(5:23) Defining AI. Reference to the 1956 Dartmouth AI conference.
(8:29) GAI, AI market and valuations.
(11:31) On AI Ethics for business and AI governance. Reference to Harvard's Danielle Allen.
(15:10) On the concept of Multistakeholderism and AI Ethics. Hippocratic Oath for AI: "Do No Harm to the World."
(19:10) Board Committee Structure for AI. "[Only] 67 of the S&P500 companies have some sort of board technology committee." NACD report on board technology committees. "You may get a financial boost from doing that" "I think that'll be 50% greater a year from now."
(22:39) On board oversight. A deep dive on evolution of Caremark duties.
(31:09) On AI regulation.
(34:41) Geopolitics between the U.S. and China on AI.
(37:44) On OpenAI's board fiasco. Unusual structures such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Inflection AI and xAI.
(44:02) Recommendations for directors using AI.
(47:40) The intersection between Web3 and AI.
(50:00) On his EY Podcast: Better Innovation.
(51:15) Other thoughts for directors: university partnerships and risks of employee use of GAI.
(54:22) Books that have greatly influenced his life:
(55:47) His mentors. At EY: Kate Barton (EY Global Co-Chair, Emeritus).
(56:18) Quotes that he thinks of often or lives his life by: "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can do." (Arthur Ashe) and "No matter how far you travel in the wrong direction, you can always turn around." (Winston Churchill).
(56:53) An unusual habit or absurd thing that he loves.
(58:04) The living person he most admires: Billy Jean King.
Jeff Saviano is the EY Emerging Technology Strategy & Governance Leader.