All Tech Is Human

Our new Responsible Tech Guide is here! Download it here: https://lnkd.in/eDbKw3zc The Responsible Tech Guide is designed to inform, inspire, and illuminate pathways for more people to thrive in the Responsible Tech ecosystem. It is our flagship resource, and takes learnings from our mentorship program, working groups, dozens of in-person gatherings, Slack community of over 10k across 98 countries, and more. This year's Responsible Tech Guide features profile interviews of Afua Bruce, Audrey Tang, Baroness Beeban Kidron, Camille François, Cansu Canca, Ph.D., Eugenio V Garcia, Gemma Galdon Clavell, PhD, Johanna Weaver, Dr. Joy Buolamwini, June Okal, Lyel Resner, Navrina Singh, Oumou L., Sean Litton, Sinead Bovell, Sonia Livingstone, Stéphane Duguin, and Trisha Prabhu! Read about the people, organizations, and ideas of the Responsible Tech movement! Whether you are involved (or interested in) Responsible AI, Trust & Safety, or Public Interest Technology, this guide has you covered for actionable ways to get involved with the community. A big thank you to The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation which has supported our work for the last three years, Siegel Family Endowment which supported a research fellow helpful to this guide, Oak Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and the Online Trust & Safety Fund (Eli Sugarman). We'd also like to thank Mozilla; we are partners for their Rise25 Awards, and our guide features four honorees! We'd also like to thank the Ford Foundation and Project Liberty for their previous support that has been instrumental in helping our org grow. Is there someone who would benefit from the Responsible Tech Guide?! Send it their way! #AllTechIsHuman #ResponsibleTech #ResponsibleTechGuide

In the upcoming Responsible Tech Author Series for All Tech Is Human, we bring on Adele Zeynep Walton. Adele is the author of the upcoming book, Logging Off: The Human Cost of Our Digital World. Join us for this livestream as we hear from Adele and take your questions. Adele Zeynep Walton is a British-Turkish journalist reporting on the human impacts of digital technology and social media, and the author of Logging Off: The Human Cost of Our Digital World. Growing up as a Gen Z, Adele spent endless hours as a teenager on social media, shaping her view of herself and the world, but after losing her sister to online harms, she realized that our current digital world is failing us. As an online safety campaigner, she campaigns with the Bereaved Families for Online Safety in the UK, and is a youth ambassador with People Vs Big Tech, a founding member of the EU-youth movement Ctrl + Alt + Reclaim, and fellow with Connected By Data. A lifelong bookworm, Adele was Dazed’s first ever political book columnist between 2023 and 2024. She has collaborated on content with a range of publishers to promote political education and youth participation in positive social change, including Penguin, Verso Books, Pluto Press, SquarePeg, Left Book Club, Headline and more. She has over 3 million views and 500,000 likes on TikTok. Adele is also the Website Editor for Naked Politics. Adele has a vast range of expertise in digital communications and PR, both in a freelance and in-house capacity, specializing in digital content strategy for progressive communications and campaigns. Charity work includes being Press Officer for Oxfam, Training Assistant for Friends, Families and Travellers, and volunteering with Amnesty, VSO, Wateraid, The World Transformed and Roma Support Group. Adele is a First Class graduate in International Development from the University of Sussex. Adele is represented by literary agency Bergstrom Studio.

I usually don’t write long, introspective LinkedIn posts, but here goes. Last week was one of the most gratifying of my career. Together with close friends and colleagues, I helped to launch a new non-profit organization at the #ParisAIActionSummit – ROOST.tools. ROOST will democratize access to core safety infrastructure by leveraging the power of #opensource. I’m excited to have raised nearly $30 million to ensure that ROOST has the multi-year runway it needs to drive impact globally in the age of #AI. There are many people and organizations who played critical roles incubating ROOST, helping it hatch, and, this past week, take flight. There are also many different ROOST origin stories all of which are equally valid (including what follows below). The initial focus on the promise of open source safety tools and the need for an institutional hub to house them traces back to the wonderful work of Kat Duffy and Rose Jackson. Check out Annex 2 of their final report – Building Open #TrustandSafety Tools – if you haven’t already. From there, the idea for a “Tooling Hub” slowly picked up steam. Camille François led the way, leveraging her perch at Columbia University. Her vision, energy, and collaborative spirit energized everyone, myself included! Dave Willner, Yoel Roth and John R. drew on their combined decades of experience to ask hard questions, refine the concept, and make critical introductions along the way. ROOST would have never launched without Juliet Shen’s PM / product wizardry and passion; or Chris DiBona’s unrivaled open source and technical insights. ROOST’s origin story also turns on the generosity of the Schmidt Entities, especially Eric Schmidt, Maria Sefarian, and Amy Rao, whose support for me and the “Tooling Hub” never wavered. I am deeply indebted to Ylli Bajraktari for welcoming me to Special Competitive Studies Project - SCSP and providing sage advice and guidance along the way; and to Rama G. Elluru for being an amazing colleague. The final and absolutely critical ingredient was Clint Smith and Discord’s resolute support and partnership. From a very early pledge of funding and in-kind support to active outreach to executives across other companies, we could not have asked for a more genuine, knowledgeable, and committed co-founder of ROOST. These ingredients attracted numerous other amazing partners ranging from Vilas Dhar / The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation to John Sands / Knight Foundation to Martin Tisné / AI Collaborative Network; to Paul Ash / Christchurch Call Foundation and Mark Surman and Nabiha Syed / Mozilla; and Laurie Richardson and Amanda Storey / Google to Jason K. and Ryan Beiermeister / OpenAI. Our complete list of Partners is detailed on our website. I’m excited to join ROOST’s Board and remain very involved going forward. We’re always on the lookout for new partners of all kinds, so please don’t hesitate to reach out if you or your organization would like to explore how we can work together! 

For technology to shape social change, organizations need trusted pathways to learn how AI can further their missions. If you haven’t checked out PJMF’s new Learning Hub yet, see our AI Use Case Library: https://loom.ly/P91xXA0 This collection of case studies highlights our partners’ transformative applications of AI and how they align with specific AI use cases. By sharing these stories, we aim to provide a guiding light to AI learning, and inspire new applications that serve humanity best. We can’t wait to continue building out this library. If you know of any nonprofit organizations that have built AI solutions that we should add, please share them through the form at the bottom of the AI Use Case Library page.

Seeing so many public-spirited, talented public sector tech workers fired illegally is infuriating. But I have a message for these folks: there’s a place for many of you in the responsible tech movement. There is so much work to be done. Reimagining social media with us at New_ Public is just the beginning. We need everybody, including product managers, researchers, developers, and engineers. For a little more concrete info, my co-director Deepti Doshi is part of a virtual event hosted by All Tech Is Human on Thursday, March 6, at 1pm ET. More here:

What is the potential of AI companions? How do they impact human connection? What is the obligation of those creating AI companions to ensure there is no harm? Natalie Monboit, a leading thinker and strategist regarding virtual humans, talks with All Tech Is Human's founder David Ryan Polgar. Natalie Monbiot is an emerging media and technology strategist, and pioneer in the field of AI, virtual humans, and generative video technologies. As Founder of Virtual Human Economy (VHE), she advises startups, brands and VC funds on leveraging the intersection of AI and human identity to create meaningful, real-world impact. As a founding team member and former Head of Strategy at Hour One, Natalie has been instrumental in building one of the first AI avatar startups, and building the AI video category from the ground up. She’s an advocate for responsible virtual human development, and the "virtual human economy"— where individuals can profit from their AI-powered digital selves – the topic of her recent TEDx talk. A recognized thought leader, speaker and opinion writer, Natalie’s insights appear in top publications like The Wall Street Journal and The Information. Her work has driven brand innovation for Samsung, BMW, and Coca-Cola, among others. With a Master’s in Modern Languages and Literature from Oxford, she frequently speaks on AI’s transformative role in media, earning accolades including Fast Company's Next Big Things in Tech and Cannes Lions Gold.

Not about us without us! “It's critical to enable the community to define the impact they would like to have and build in opportunities for reflection so that members can come together to evaluate what is, and what is not, working.” -Marnie Webb, CEO of TechSoup Read Marnie's profile interview, along with 25 others, in our Responsible Tech Community report. DOWNLOAD: https://lnkd.in/eQqnC8Eu #ResponsibleTech #AllTechIsHuman #Community

Are you focused on Safety by Design? Next week we will be announcing the first panel to our upcoming Safety by Design: A Proactive Approach to Online Safety gathering in NYC on April 23rd. This is a curated gathering for 200 individuals across civil society, government, industry, and academia. We are currently accepting applications to be considered for attendance, along with speaker suggestions. #AllTechIsHuman #ResponsibleTech #SafetybyDesign https://lnkd.in/ei3SsAX2

"As a language researcher, I am always thinking about the connection between our language use, society, and our role in it. As humans, we are extremely adept pattern-finders and meaning-makers. And unfortunately, as a result, it’s common to conflate differences in language, dialect, or ability with negative attributes about others. Large language models, too, look for patterns to exploit and as such, we must be aware of the biases that exist in these models. Whose dialect were they trained on? What patterns or biases did they learn? What is the impact of a model that is trained on linguistic input that is more homogenous than the real world?" -Abby Fergus Read our interview with Abby Fergus, a GradFUTURES Social Impact Fellow at All Tech Is Human! Abby is a PhD student in Psychology and a GradFUTURES Social Impact Fellow at All Tech Is Human. Her research focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying language processing, learning, and generalization. #ResponsibleTech #AllTechIsHuman https://lnkd.in/eRefSkRX

Barcelona is having its first ATIHx meetup this Wednesday! ATIHx are independently organized gatherings from community members, leveraging our large Slack community (11k members) to find others who deeply care about tackling thorny tech & society issues. Our organization is intentionally designed to act at both a global and local level, weaving together a broad range of voices as we co-create a better tech future. https://lu.ma/txqosvi2