With AI-related risks being inherently global in nature, the hope and anticipation is that there will be a suitably robust regulatory environment wherever the technology is deployed, Michael Connor, Executive Director at Open MIC, tells ESG Investor.
“Many companies have global activities, so we need to ensure that if they are applying a higher standard in Europe due to EU regulations, this should be the case wherever they operate to foster greater corporate accountability in the deployment and use of digital technologies,” he says.
“He’s been there over three years, and really nothing has changed,” says Michael Connor, executive director of Open MIC, an advocacy group that works with investors to push for social changes at tech companies. “It’s pretty clear that Mark Zuckerberg has burned his bridges with some critical constituencies, including legislators in the U.S. and Europe, so they had to put a new person forward.”
Earlier this week, Arjuna Capital filed a lengthy rebuttal to Meta that cited a laundry list of the social media giant’s most famous scandals, from the Cambridge Analytica privacy lapse to its role in facilitating the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Open Mic Executive Director Michael Connor, whose group is working with Arjuna Capital, told me it’s because of that track record that an independent assessment of the technology underlying the metaverse is necessary.
“This will be an ambitious and complicated process and we’re certainly putting our faith in Microsoft and Foley Hoag to be conscientious,” said Michael Connor, executive director of Open MIC, a nonprofit shareholder advocacy organization that worked with IASJ on the proposal. “They’re asking for input from affected rights holders, which was a very big request on our part and they agreed to that.”
