My experience taking a Stanford tech/ethics/public policy class for professionals

👋🏽👋🏽👋🏽 Do you want to have more nuanced discussions about tech and its societal consequences?

👋🏽👋🏽👋🏽 Do you want to have more nuanced discussions about tech and its societal consequences?

Do you want to discuss multiple, opposing views about what can and should be done in response to ethical issues faced by tech companies? Are you interested in issues like content moderation, the power of private platforms, obligations to community and society, the culture of Silicon Valley, contractors vs employees, D&I efforts and algorithmic accountability?

YES? Then you should take this Stanford class for tech professionals in 2021.

✨Why am I telling you this?

I took this class in January and it was easily the second-best decision I made in 2020. High praise? Yes, but very well deserved. Before I took the class, I felt like every other tech article online could be summarized by “big tech is way too big”, “Uber is way too bad” and “face recognition tech is way too racist”. I wanted a bit more substance.

The class is set up so you have frequent, high-quality, small group discussions. I appreciated that there were pretty varied backgrounds in our class— people from different continents, working in different functions in different industries. So I sat a new table each day discussing thorny tech issues alongside journalists, investors, government workers, product managers, engineers, recruiters and advertising execs. While the Professors probed us further and further into grey areas, we could hear opinions that we would never have imagined. This for me was the secret sauce of the class.

One highlight from the class — we read a case study on “algorithmic accountability” about a woman whose job application was rejected by an algorithm because she didn’t play high school sports (the AI had “fitted” high-performing employees with people who played sports in high school). And the fallout discussion brought so many questions like —should algorithms be in charge of making important decisions like those that affect life, health or finances? what happens when an algorithm makes a low-probability, but high-impact mistake or leads to discriminatory or illegal action? can we appeal against decisions made by algorithms? if a company is using algorithms to make decisions that affect your life — should they have to declare this to you?

If you’re interested in this kinda stuff — even if you’ve never thought about these things before reading this — you should consider taking the class. Not least because I’m going to be a Cohort Leader for the class in 2021 😉

😲Who might I meet?
In my class, we heard directly from leaders at Twitter/FB speak about their different approaches to election content moderation. Marietje Schaake (a former Dutch MP) spoke about her work on GDPR and gave a perspective of how Europeans view privacy and why. I also met a broad range of really smart people — people who work(ed) in different roles (product, eng, business, HR, trust&safety etc) at startups, big tech, the Obama administration, nonprofits, VC firms. I was pleasantly surprised that Hilary Cohen (described in chapter 1 of Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas) is one of the co-teachers.

😉I’m sold. How do I apply?
Here’s the form — if you do apply please mention that I told you about the class :) Feel free to ask any questions in the thread or message me directly