Threat matrix - How can your business navigate new challenges and tackle emerging risks?

Published

May 21 2019

Written By

I'm a partner in our Dutch offices specialising in European and international regulatory projects in the communication and technology sectors. Today, I'm Chair of our Global Tech & Comms Group and head of our international Sector Regulation and Consulting practice.

Sophie Eyre

Partner
UK

I am a partner and co-head of our International Dispute Resolution Group, as well as the London team. I specialise in complex disputes, often of a cross border nature, and have particular expertise in the aviation & defence sector, commercial life science, and in matters involving fraud.

Pattie Walsh

Partner
UK

Here at Bird & Bird, I am a partner in our International Employment Group. I am currently qualified to practise in Hong Kong, Australia and England. This reflects my recent history where I have been lucky enough to be based in San Francisco, Hong Kong, Sydney and London. Most recently, I was based in our San Francisco office which I co-led, before returning to London.

Countries

Earlier this year, a study led by MIT Media Lab uncovered gender and racial bias in the algorithm behind Amazon’s facial recognition software. Amazon’s Rekognition, marketed to law enforcement – among others – in the United States, proved less than accurate when it came to identifying someone’s gender if they were darker-skinned, with tests showing that it misclassified darker-skinned women 31 per cent of the time; by contrast there was a zero per cent error rate for lighter-skinned males. (Amazon disputed the study’s findings.)

As AI-powered technologies such as facial recognition go mainstream, debate is raging as to how they should be deployed in the real world. From smart voice assistants and medical diagnostic tools to services such as Netflix offering personalised recommendations, AI is already stitched into our daily lives. But whether we’re talking about its malign influence on elections, the flaws in crime-fighting by algorithm, or how it is open to abuse by authoritarian governments, it’s clear that by their very nature great technological leaps forward often carry with them unintended consequences – ones which can quickly flare up into full-blown crises that hit organisations in the bottom line, as well as society at large.

This report zeroes in on four such challenges – where businesses are buffeted by new technology – and considers how the C-suite can lead their companies in response.

View report (pdf) >